-iron to it with
our piece of whip-cord, and ground it to an edge on a piece of
sand-stone. When it was finished he used it to shape a better handle, to
which he fixed it with a strip of his cotton handkerchief;--in which
operation he had, as Peterkin pointed out, torn off one of Lord Nelson's
noses. However, the whip-cord, thus set free, was used by Peterkin as a
fishing line. He merely tied a piece of oyster to the end of it. This
the fish were allowed to swallow, and then they were pulled quickly
ashore. But as the line was very short and we had no boat, the fish we
caught were exceedingly small.

One day Peterkin came up from the beach, where he had been angling, and
said in a very cross tone, "I'll tell you what, Jack, I'm not going to be
humbugged with catching such contemptible things any longer. I want you
to swim out with me on your back, and let me fish in deep water!"

"Dear me, Peterkin," replied Jack, "I had no idea you were taking the
thing so much to heart, else I would have got you out of that difficulty
long ago. Let me see,"--and Jack looked down at a piece of timber on
which he had been labouring, with a peculiar gaze of abstraction, which
he always assumed when trying to invent or discover anything.

"What say you to building a boat?" he inquired, looking up hastily.

"Take far too long," was the reply; "can't be bothered waiting. I want
to begin at once!"

Again Jack considered. "I have it!" he cried. "We'll fell a large tree
and launch the trunk of it in the water, so that when you want to fish
you've nothing to do but to swim out to it."

"Would not a small raft do better?" said I.

"Much better; but we have no ropes to bind it together with. Perhaps we
may find something hereafter that will do as well, but, in the meantime,
let us try the tree."

This was agreed on, so we started off to a spot not far distant, where we
knew of a tree that would suit us, which grew near the water's edge. As
soon as we reached it Jack threw off his coat, and, wielding the axe with
his sturdy arms, hacked and hewed at it for a quarter of an hour without
stopping. Then he paused, and, while he sat down to rest, I continued
the work. Then Peterkin made a vigorous attack on it, so that when Jack
renewed his powerful blows, a few minutes cutting brought it down with a
terrible crash.

"Hurrah! now for it," cried Jack; "let us off with its head."

So saying he began to cut through the stem again,