Here and there, as they kept along a mile or so from the floe, it began to show signs of breaking up, for at times loose fields of many acres in extent were passed, and at others detached fragments, imperceptibly gliding southward to dissolve slowly from the combined influence of the sunshine and the warmer sea into which they drifted. "I say, Mr Handscombe," said Steve one evening, when the sun in the north-west was shining with a softened radiance which turned the distant ice-floe into gold, "isn't this getting to be a little tame and--and--" "Monotonous?" said the doctor, finishing the boy's sentence, for he had begun to hesitate. "Yes, I meant something of that kind. I thought we were going to have all kinds of adventures, and it's always blue sea and the ice away there to the left." "Oh, I see," said the doctor; "you want a bear every day, with a bit of whale-fishing, being lost in the mist, and a few wrecks discovered thrown in." "No, I don't," said the lad pettishly; "but I don't want to be always sailing along like this, doing nothing. If you go up in the crow's-nest there's ice and sun, and if you stop on deck it's always the same. I want to be doing something. Look at Skeny here, growing quite fat." "Shall I ask Captain Marsham to see if we can't find the sea-serpent for you?" "There, now you're laughing at me." "Then don't be so impatient. Why, you stupid fellow, isn't it wonderful enough to be sailing along here in what looks like constant summer save for the floating ice, and with that glorious sun going round and round in the sky without setting? Is not this constant daylight alone worth the journey?" "Ye-es," replied Steve; "only it does seem a bit wasteful." "Wasteful?" "Yes. What's the good of having the sun shining when you are asleep? It would be ever so much better to have some of it in the winter, or else for us to be so that we did not want any sleep for months in summer, and did not want to be awake for months in the winter, when it's dark." "I say, Marsham!" cried the doctor, laughing, "come and listen. Here's our philosopher going to set nature right and improve the whole world." "Oh, I say, Mr Handscombe, don't," whispered Steve, flushing. "What does he propose doing?" said the captain as he joined them. "He wants to keep awake all the summer and sleep all the winter; he says it would be better." "Well, he has only to take lessons from the bears and practise hibernating. But, like them, he would no doubt be very hungry when he awoke." "He's getting out of patience, too; wants something to do. Can't you rig him up a line, and let him try for a shark?" "No sharks up here," said Steve promptly. "Plenty," said the captain, looking at Steve with a peculiar smile, which made the lad wince, for it seemed to say to him, "Don't be so conceited, my lad; you don't know everything yet."