pper.

"His nose is too red for that," answered Bolton. "Pen needn't grumble
if it loses a little of its colour in the voyage."

"What's my nose got to do with you?" sharply replied the sailor,
attacked in the most sensitive place. "My nose doesn't need any of
your remarks; take care of your own."

"Now, then, don't get angry, Pen; I didn't know your nose was so touchy.
I like a glass of whisky as well as anybody, especially in such a
temperature; but if I know it'll do me more harm than good, I go
without."

"You go without," said Warren, the stoker; "but everyone don't go
without."

"What do you mean, Warren?" asked Garry, looking fixedly at him.

"I mean that for some reason or other there are spirits on board,
and I know they don't go without in the stern."

"And how do you know that?" asked Garry.

Warren did not know what to say: he talked for the sake of talking.

"You see Warren don't know anything about it, Garry," said Bolton.

"Well," said Pen, "we'll ask the commander for a ration of gin; we've
earned it well and we'll see what he says."

"I wouldn't if I were you," answered Garry.

"Why?" cried Pen and Gripper.

"Because he'll refuse. You knew you weren't to have any when you
enlisted; you should have thought of it then."

"Besides," replied Bolton, who took Garry's part because he liked
his character, "Richard Shandon isn't master on board; he obeys, like
us."

"Who is master if he isn't?"

"The captain."

"Always that unfortunate captain!" exclaimed Pen. "Don't you see that
on these ice-banks there's no more a captain than there is a public?
It's a polite way of refusing us what we've a right to claim."

"But if there's a captain," replied Bolton, "I'll bet two months'
pay we shall see him before long."

"I should like to tell the captain a bit of my mind," said Pen.

"Who's talking about the captain?" said a new-comer. It was Clifton,
the sailor, a superstitious and envious man. "Is anything new known
about the captain?" he asked.

"No," they all answered at once.

"Well, I believe we shall find him one fine morning installed in his
cabin, and no one will know how he got there."

"Get along, do!" replied Bolton. "Why, Clifton, you imagine that he's
a hobgoblin--a sort of wild child of the Highlands."

"Laugh as much as you like, Bolton, you won't change my opinion. Every
day as I pass his cabin I look through the keyhole. One of these fine
mornings I shall come and tell yo