‘’E comes an' carries 'isself--comes on board w'en the fermometer's worked away down zero-ways. 'E ain't no man this barber, honly a white mist wot rises off a calm an' frosty sea like the steam from a pot w'en she's beginnin' to boil; an', oh, 'e's a sneezer! 'E 'ardens the beef in the riggin', an' the sheets an' the stays as well, an' 'e 'eats the brass-work an' steel till they burns worse nor 'ot pokers if ye're grampus enough to touch 'em. An' 'e covers the decks an' the skylights an' the boats an' bulwarks, an' man an' beast as well, till the dog's like a Polar bear, an' all 'ands looks like Methuselahs, with white beards an' 'air an' heyelashes. That's wot the barber does, does 'e. But mebbe the sun shines after this. Then heverybody grows young again hall of a suddint, an' the barber flies north to the Pole.' 'Is the ice all like castles and steeples and pinnacled mountains?' 'Honly in pictur'-books, missie.' 'Plenty of skating, I suppose?' 'Lo'd love ye, no. 'Cause as 'ow the big flat or round-topped bergs is hall covered feet-deep in snow.' 'Beautiful white snow, Ben?' She was looking at him eagerly, earnestly. Little though he knew it, this rough, illiterate sailor-boy was showing her glimpses of a new world, which to her young poetic imagination must be all a kind of fairyland. He cast one glance at the sweet face beside him, then hitched himself more firmly on to the belaying-pin and swayed about for a moment in evident shyness. 'Beautiful white snow, Ben, boy. It must be like Elfinland.' 'Never been there myself, missie--to Helfinland I means, though I've 'eard speak o' it. Ye lands from a ship in a boat like, an' as ye gets nearer an' nearer to the pack-edge o' the big drearisome floes the sea hall around yer gets blacker an' blacker till it's just like ink w'en it laps an' laps ag'in' the rainbow ribbon o' icy shore.' 'But it isn't really black, Ben? Don't say it's really black, Ben--the water, I mean.' 'Oh no, missie, it is clear as dew on a rose-leaf, an' it trickles from the oar-blades like diamonds in the sun. Then there is the sky, as blue an' clear it is, just like the 'eaven th' ould pa'son speaks about, only brighter. An' there's the birds--they's beautiful too, 'specially the snow-birds that come so close ye can look into their clear, red eyes, an' could almost shake their cold feet. 'An' w'en ye does land an' goes wanderin' hall by yerself away over the 'ard, crisp snow, ye mebbe meets a bear; but the bright sun's in 'is black eyes, an' 'e just looks at ye an' goes on, for there be seals to catch, an' bladders an' wallies,[E] an' 'e don't want to eat no hooman bein' s'long's 'e can get wallies. But ye goes on an' on.' 'All by yourself, Ben, of course.'