Whenever the
fire was allowed to get low, the beams overhead became coated with
hoar-frost; and even when the temperature was raised to the utmost
possible pitch, it was cold enough, at the extreme ends of the
apartment, to freeze a jug of water solid.
A large table occupied the upper end of the cabin between the stove and
the stern, and round this the officers and crew were seated when O'Riley
entered and took his place among them. Each individual had his appointed
place at the mess-table, and with unvarying regularity these places were
filled at the appointed hours.
"The dogs seem to be disobedient," remarked Amos Parr, as his comrade
sat down; "they'd be the better of a taste o' Meetuck's cat, I think."
"It's truth ye're sayin'," replied O'Riley, commencing a violent assault
on a walrus-steak; "they don't obey orders at all, at all. An' Dumps,
the blaggard, is as cross-grained as me grandmother's owld pig--"
A general laugh here interrupted the speaker, for O'Riley could seldom
institute a disparaging comparison without making emphatic allusion to
the pig that once shared with him the hospitalities of his grandmother's
cabin.
"Why, everything you speak of seems to be like that wonderful pig,
messmate," said Peter Grim.
"Ye're wrong there intirely," retorted O'Riley. "I niver seed nothing
like it in all me thravels except yerself, and that only in regard to
its muzzle, which was black and all kivered over with bristles, it wos.
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