It was a strange feast in a strange place,
but it proved to be a delightful one, for hunger requires not to be
tempted, and is not fastidious.
"Oh, but it's good, isn't it?" remarked O'Riley, smacking his lips, as
he swallowed a savoury morsel of the walrus and tossed the remnant, a
sinewy bit, to Dumps, who sat gazing sulkily at the flame of the lamp,
having gorged himself long before the bipeds began supper.
"Arrah! ye won't take it, won't ye?--Here, Poker!"
Poker sprang forward, wagging the stump of his tail, and turned his
head to one side, as if to say, "Well, what's up? Any fun going?"
"Here, take that, old boy; Dumps is sulky."
Poker took it at once, and a single snap caused it to vanish. He, too,
had finished supper, and evidently ate the morsel to please the
Irishman.
"Hand me the coffee, Meetuck," said Fred.--"The biscuit lies beside you,
West; don't give in so soon, man."
"Thank you, sir; I have about done."
"Meetuck, ye haythen, try a bit o' the roast; do now, av it was only to
plaze me."
Meetuck shook his head quietly, and, cutting a _fifteenth_ lump off the
mass of raw walrus that lay beside him, proceeded leisurely to devour
it.
"The dogs is nothin' to him," muttered O'Riley. "Isn't it a curious
thing, now, to think that we're all _at sea_ a-eatin', and drinkin', and
slaapin'--or goin' to slaap--jist as if we wor on the land, and the
great ocean away down below us there, wid whales, and seals, and
walruses, and mermaids, for what I know, a-swimmin' about jist under
whare we sit, and maybe lookin' through the ice at us this very minute.
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