When she would come towards him at last he was all alive again, and as eager-eyed and sprightly as a sheep when she sees the lamb she has to protect. Perhaps the conversation was a trifle slow, because she had to pull him into it. Ben wasn't very suggestive. Nevertheless, his somewhat dull eyes sparkled with delight, and his face became transformed, in a manner of speaking, when he found that he could give Lotty information and interest her in things. Beauty has a wonderful power if it be beauty of the right sort, consisting not merely in a lovely complexion, eyes, hair, and features, and a nice figure, but all these etherealised--nay, but glorified--by refinement, intellect, and innocence. Such a child as Lotty, wholly insensible of the charm that surrounded her, was likely to, and did, make friends wherever she went. And it is better to make friends than conquests. 'You've been up this way before, Ben, haven't you?' 'Ah! lots o' times.' Silence for some seconds. 'Have you a full name? Ben isn't surely all.' 'A fool name, little un?' 'I mean what more than Ben is it?' 'Ah, lots, but I doesn't trot 'em out every day.' 'Ben what, then?' 'No, not Ben Watten, but Benjamin Thorley Metcalfe Evans Bradley; only they's all melted down to Ben aboard ship.' 'Have you ever been farther north, Benjamin Thor'---- 'Oh don't, little missie. Ben's the 'andle they allers lifts I by. Yes, been to Archangel an' Iceland an' Spitzbergen 'arf a dozen times.' 'Were you always second-mate?' 'Lo'd no! Dog-boy fust, then slush-boy, then dirty-devil all over the ship, then stooard's boy, then doctor'---- 'Doctor?' 'Ay, missie, wot cooke the 'orse, an' fries the panhaggledy, an' biles the spuds an' the dollop o' duff.' 'How very interesting!' More silence. 'It must be wild and dreary on the sea of ice and snow, and so cold I should freeze to death.' 'Bless yer little 'eart, I tells ye it's just skir-r-rumptious up near wot they calls the Pole, though I never did see un--nary a pole.' As he spoke Ben hung himself up, as it were, on a belaying-pin against the bulwark, and Lotty stood looking at him. But he didn't look at her, only beyond her or over her, for if he had looked right into her face or eyes I'm certain the boy couldn't have spoken a sensible sentence. 'Just skir-r-rumptious! An' those hartist chaps wot 'drors pictures o' hicebergs in books knows nuffin' whatsomediver about it; no more nor they does about their Bibles. Goin' out north that way it's cold enough at fust, like to freeze yer face like heverythink, an' if yer didn't watch the barber 'e'd precious soon cut yer nose right clean hoff.' 'Do you carry a barber?'