enails, pozzolano mortar, and all the strong materials that have
withstood the fury of winds and waves for the last half-century!

Dove treated the other furniture in like manner; not that he treated it
ill,--we would not have the reader imagine this for a moment. He was
not reckless of the household goods. He was merely indifferent as to
the row he made in using them.

But it was when the cooking was over, and the table had to be spread,
that the thing culminated. Under the impulse of lightheartedness,
caused by the feeling that his labours for the time were nearly ended,
and that his reward was about to be reaped, he went about with
irresistible energy, like the proverbial bull in a china shop, without
reaching that creature's destructive point. It was then that a beaming
smile overspread his countenance, and he raged about the kitchen with
Vulcan-like joviality. He pulled out the table from the wall to the
centre of the apartment, with a swing that produced a prolonged crash.
Up went its two leaves with two minor crashes. Down went the four
plates and the cups and saucers, with such violence and rapidity that
they all seemed to be dancing on the board together. The beef all but
went over the side of its dish by reason of the shock of its sudden
stoppage on touching the table, and the pile of toast was only saved
from scatteration by the strength of the material, so to speak, with
which its successive layers were cemented.

When the knives, forks, and spoons came to be laid down, the storm
seemed to lull, because these were comparatively light implements, so
that this period--which in shore-going life is usually found to be the
exasperating one--was actually a season of relief. But it was always
followed by a terrible squall of scraping wooden legs and clanking human
feet when the camp-stools were set, and the men came in and sat down to
the meal.

The pouring out of the tea, however, was the point that would have
called forth the admiration of the world--had the world seen it. What a
contrast between the miserable, sickly, slow-dribbling silver and other
teapots of the land, and this great teapot of the sea! The Bell Rock
teapot had no sham, no humbug about it. It was a big, bold-looking one,
of true Britannia metal, with vast internal capacity and a gaping mouth.

Dove seized it in his strong hand as he would have grasped his biggest
fore-hammer. Before you could wink, a sluice seemed to burst open;