They turned, and Mr Vanslyperken paused a moment or two, and compressed
his thin lips--the dog did the same. "I will have an answer, by all
that's blue!" was the ejaculation of the next six strides. The
lieutenant stopped again, and the dog looked up in his master's face;
but it appeared as if the current of his master's thoughts was changed,
for the current of keen air reminded Mr Vanslyperken that he had not yet
had his breakfast.

The lieutenant leant over the hatchway, took his battered
speaking-trumpet from under his arm, and putting it to his mouth, the
deck reverberated with, "Pass the word for Smallbones forward." The dog
put himself in a baying attitude, with his forefeet on the coamings of
the hatchway, and enforced his master's orders with a deep-toned and
measured bow, wow, wow.

Smallbones soon made his appearance, rising from the hatchway like a
ghost; a thin, shambling personage, apparently about twenty years old--a
pale, cadaverous face, high cheek-bones, goggle eyes, with lank hair
very thinly sown upon a head, which, like bad soil, would return but a
scanty harvest. He looked like Famine's eldest son just arriving to
years of discretion. His long lanky legs were pulled so far through his
trousers, that his bare feet, and half way up to his knees, were exposed
to the chilling blast. The sleeves of his jacket were so short, that
four inches of bone above his wrist were bared to view--hat he had
none--his ears were very large, and the rims of them red with cold, and
his neck was so immeasurably long and thin, that his head appeared to
topple for want of support. When he had come on deck, he stood with one
hand raised to his forehead, touching his hair instead of his hat, and
the other occupied with a half-roasted red-herring. "Yes, sir," said
Smallbones, standing before his master.