“I could be just as cheerful as ever, sir, if I was sent back again; I hope I’m thankful; but I don’t like to hear the North Pole run down in such a fishy place as this. It was very clean and snowy at the North Pole—and it’s very damp and sandy here. Do you never miss your bone-soup, sir? I do. It mightn’t have been strong; but it was very hot; and the cold seemed to give it a kind of a meaty flavor as it went down. Was it you that was a-coughing so long last night, sir? I don’t presume to say anything against the air of these latitudes; but I should be glad to know it wasn’t you that was a-coughing so hollow. Would you be so obliging as just to feel the state of these ropes with the ends of your fingers, sir? You can dry them afterward on the back of my jacket.”
“You ought to have a stick laid on the back of your jacket. Take that box down to the boat directly. You croaking vagabond! You would have grumbled in the Garden of Eden.”
The philosopher of the Expedition was not a man to be silenced by referring him to the Garden of Eden. Paradise itself was not perfect to John Want.
“I hope I could be cheerful anywhere, sir,” said the ship’s cook. “But you mark my words—there must have been a deal of troublesome work with the flower-beds in the Garden of Eden.”
Having entered that unanswerable protest, John Want shouldered the box, and drifted drearily out of the boat-house.
Left by himself, Crayford looked at his watch, and called to a sailor outside.
“Where are the ladies?” he asked.
“Mrs. Crayford is coming this way, sir. She was just behind you when you came in.”
“Is Miss Burnham with her?”
“No, sir; Miss Burnham is down on the beach with the passengers. I heard the young lady asking after you, sir.”