rface.

"Splendid!" he cried. "I never enjoyed anything so much before in my
life."

And all that about a dingy basin of soup with fragments of onion and
spots of fat floating therein. But it was the first real meal of
returning health.

CHAPTER NINE.

A MON FRAE THE NORTH.

Poole looked as solemn and calm as a judge as he raised the soup-basin
and listened to his patient's words, while all at once a suspicious
thought glanced through Fitz's brain, and he looked at the lad quickly
and felt relieved, for no one could have imagined from the grave, stolid
face before him that mirth like so much soda-water was bubbling and
twinkling as it effervesced all through the being of the skipper's son.

"I couldn't have held it in any longer," said Poole to himself, with a
sigh of relief, for just then the door clicked and the Camel's head came
slowly in with the red eyes glowing and watchful.

Then seeing that the meal was ended he came right in, and took basin and
spoon from Poole as if they were his own special property.

"Feel better, laddie?" he said, with a grin at the patient.

"Oh yes, thank you, cook," was the genial reply. "Capital soup."

"Ay," said the Camel seriously, "and ye'll just take the same dose every
morning at twa bells till you feel as if you can eat salt-junk like a
mon. Ah weel, ah weel! They make a fine flather about doctors and
their stuff, but ye mind me there isn't another as can do a sick mon sae
much good as the cook."

"Hear that, Mr Burnett?"

"Oh yes, I hear," said Fitz, smiling, with a look of content upon his
features to which they had for many days been strangers.

"I am not going to say a word the noo aboot the skipper, and what he's
done. He's a grand mon for a hole or a cut or a bit broken leg. He's
got bottles and poothers of a' kinds, but when the bit place is mended
it's the cook that has to do the rigging up. You joost stick to Andy
Cawmell, and he'll make a man of you in no time."

"Thank you, cook," said Fitz, smiling.

"And ye'll be reet. But if ye'd no' mind, ye'll joost kindly say `Andy
mon,' or `laddie' when you speak to me. It seems more friendly than
`cook.' Ye see, cook seems to belang more to a sonsy lassie than a mon.
Just let it be `Andy' noo."

"All right; I'll mind," said the middy, who looked amused.

"Ah, it's a gran' thing, cooking, and stands first of all, for it keeps
every one alive and strong. They talk a deal about French cooks and