"I couldn't be up at the hut with my saucepans and down here helping you at the same time, eh ?" "No," said Fritz, proceeding to give the plot a final rake over; after which he sowed some cabbage seed and onions in a separate patch, while Eric put in the peas and scarlet runners which the skipper had given him.

"We'll consider the past a blank, laddie.

See what you can do with your saucepans to-day; you've got the whole afternoon before you." "All right," replied Eric.

"Only, you must promise not to interfere with me, you know; mind that, old fellow!" "What, I have the temerity to offer advice to such a grand cuisinier as the noble ex-midshipman?
no, not if I know myself." "Thanks, Herr Lieutenant," said Eric, with a deferential bow; "I will summon your lordship when the dinner is ready." With this parting shot, the lad went off laughing towards the hut.
Fritz proceeded down to the shore; and, in order that he might keep his promise to Eric of not disturbing him, he determined to devote his time to watching the penguins, so as to get up an appetite for the forthcoming banquet--although the hard work he had just gone through rendered any stimulus to eating hardly necessary.

Indeed, Fritz would have been well enough satisfied to have sat down and demolished a fair quantity of the despised cold pork and biscuits long before Eric summoned him up to the hut, which he did presently, with a hail as loud as if he were calling "all hands" at sea, in a heavy squall.
"Ahoy, Herr Lieutenant!" shouted out the lad in his funny way.