he watched the slow passage round and round of the big
metal spoon.

"It doesn't look nice," he said.

"No. Ship's soup never does," replied Poole, "but the proof of the
pudding is in the eating, you know. The Camel's about right, though.
This is the best physic you can have. Will you try it now?"

This was an attack that the boy could not stand. He wanted to say No,
with a gesture of disgust, but Nature would not let him then.

"I dunno," he said dubiously. "Did he make it?"

"Of course."

"But he looks like a common sailor; not a bit like a cook."

"He is a foremast-man, and takes his turn at everything, like the rest;
but he does all the cooking just the same."

"But is he really clean?"

"He made all those bread-cakes you have eaten," was the reply.

"Oh," said Fitz quickly, for the soup smelt aggravatingly nice. "Would
you mind tasting it?"

Poole raised the spoon to his lips, and replaced it.

"Splendid," he said. "You try."

He carefully placed the basin in his patient's lap, with the spoon ready
to his hand, and drew back, watching the peculiar curl at the corners of
the boy's lips as he slowly passed the spoon round and then raised it to
his mouth.

A few seconds later the spoon went round the basin again and was
followed by an audible sip, on hearing which Poole went to the window,
thrust out his head, and began to whistle, keeping up his tune as if he
were playing orchestra to a banquet, while he watched the dart and
splash of a fish from time to time about the surface, and the shadowy
shapes of others deep down below the schooner's stern-post, clearly
enough seen in the crystal sunlit water set a-ripple by the gentle
gliding through it of the vessel's keel.

After waiting what he considered a sufficient time, Poole said loudly,
without turning round--

"There's plenty of fish in sight."

But there was no reply, and he waited again until in due time he heard a
sharp click as of metal against crockery which was followed by a deep
sigh, and then the lad turned slowly, to see the midshipman leaning back
in the berth with his hands behind his head, the empty basin and spoon
resting in his lap.

Poole Reed did not say what he would have liked, neither was there any
sound of triumph in his voice. He merely removed the empty vessel and
asked a question--

"Was it decent?"

And Fitz forgot himself. For the moment all his irritability seemed
gone, and the natural boy came to the su