In other words--John Want.
Still reposing on the chest, our friend, who never grumbles, is surprised by the sudden appearance of a sailor at the boat-house door.
"Look sharp with your work there, John Want!" says the sailor.
"Lieutenant Crayford is just coming in to look after you." With this warning the messenger disappears again.

John Want rises with a groan, turns the chest up on one end, and begins to fasten the cord round it.

The ship's cook is not a man to look back on his rescue with the feeling of unmitigated satisfaction which animates his companions in trouble.

On the contrary, he is ungratefully disposed to regret the North Pole.
"If I had only known"-- thus runs the train of thought in the mind of John Want--"if I had only known, before I was rescued, that I was to be brought to this place, I believe I should have preferred staying at the North Pole.

I was very happy keeping up everybody's spirits at the North Pole.