He joined in the laugh, and cut a caper or two to
show that he entered into the spirit of the joke.
When the ship was set fast, and the thermometer fell pretty low, the men
found that their ordinary dreadnoughts and pea-jackets, etc., were not a
sufficient protection against the cold, and it occurred to the captain
that his furs might now be turned to good account. Sailors are
proverbially good needle-men of a rough kind. Meetuck showed them how to
set about their work. Each man made his own garments, and in less than a
week they were completed. It is true, the boots perplexed them a little,
and the less ingenious among the men made very rare and curious-looking
foot-gear for themselves; but they succeeded after a fashion, and at
last the whole crew appeared on deck in their new habiliments, as we
have already mentioned, capering among the snow like bears, to their
own entire satisfaction and to the intense delight of Meetuck, who now
came to regard the white men as brothers--so true is it that "the tailor
makes the man!"
"'Ow 'orribly 'eavy it is, _h_ain't it?" gasped Mivins, after dancing
round the main-hatch till he was nearly exhausted.
"Heavy!" cried Buzzby, whose appearance was such that you would have
hesitated to say whether his breadth or length was greater--"heavy, d'ye
say? It must be your sperrits wot's heavy, then, for I feel as light as
a feather myself."
"O morther! then may I niver sleep on a bed made o' sich feathers!"
cried O'Riley, capering up to Green, the carpenter's mate, and throwing
a mass of snow in his face.
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