"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 surface. "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.