In whose honour Uncle Joe treated himself to a hearty libation from his steaming tumbler. "--Christmas-day," said my uncle, "and _pro_ceedings were made for a grand spread, in honour of the old day and them as we'd left behind us. "Well, the officers made themselves very sociable, and the grog went round. Some chaps danced, others smoked, and one way and another things went on jolly; but though the little stoves roared till they got red-hot, yet there was a regular fog down between decks, while the captain said that it was about the coldest day we had had yet. "Towards night it seemed to come on awful all at once, and first one and then another chap began shivering and twisting up his shoulders, and then I saw the captain, who was down, give a sharp look round, and then slip up on deck, where I heard him shout out. "A dozen of us scrambled up on the covered-in deck, feeling cut in two with the icy wind that came down, and then we found as the door out of the bulwarks, and fitted in at the side, had been left open by some one--a door you know that just about this time used to mostly have a man aside it, and when our chaps went to the little ice-observatory it used to be banged to after 'em directly; while if it had been left open but one night, I daresay some on us wouldn't have woke up any more. "`Who's gone out?' cries the captain, and then the men begins looking from one to the other, but no one answered. "`Where's Joe Perry,' shouts out some one in front of me. `It's Joe Perry as is gone.' "`You're a--something,' I was going to say, but I was that vexed I didn't say it; but, forgetting all about the officers, I gives my gentleman such a cuff on the ear, as sent him staggering; when instead of being angry, I saw the Cap bite his lip, and no end of chaps began sniggering. "`But where's Bill Barker,' I says, looking round, for I remembered seeing Bill go up the companion ladder about ten minutes before. "`Pass the word for William Barker,' says the captain, and they passed it, but there was no answer, and then we knew that Bill must have slipped out against orders, thinking he wouldn't be missed, while the chaps were keeping up Christmas, and forgetting that we should feel the cold from the door he was obliged to leave open, so as to get in again. "`Foolish fellow,' cried the captain, stamping about the deck. `Volunteers there, who'll fetch him in? These five will do,' he says, and in a few minutes the first luff with five men, were all ready in their fur coats and boots, and masks over their faces, or I oughter say, our faces, for I was one of 'em. And yet you say it's cold here now. Pooh! Why, we were no sooner outside in that bright starlight, with the northern lights hanging ahead of us, much like a rainbow, than it was as if your breath was taken away, and the wind cutting right through and through you, stiffening your joints, tingling powerfully in your nose, and seeming to make you numbed and stupid.