ing himself. Thereafter the party returned
to the kitchen, where they sat down to as good a meal as any
reasonable man could desire.

There was cold boiled beef--the remains of yesterday's dinner--and a
bit of broiled cod, a native of the Bell Rock, caught from the
doorway at high water the day before. There was tea also, and
toast--buttered toast, hot out of the oven.

Dove was peculiarly good at what may be styled toast-cooking. Indeed,
all the lightkeepers were equally good. The bread was cut an inch
thick, and butter was laid on as plasterers spread plaster with a
trowel. There was no scraping off a bit here to put it on there; no
digging out pieces from little caverns in the bread with the point of
the knife; no repetition of the work to spread it thinner, and, above
all, no omitting of corners or edges;--no, the smallest conceivable
fly could not have found the minutest atom of dry footing on a Bell
Rock slice of toast, from its centre to its circumference. Dove had a
liberal heart, and he laid on the butter with a liberal hand. Fair
play and no favour was his motto, quarter-inch thick was his gauge,
railway speed his practice. The consequence was that the toast
floated, as it were, down the throats of the men, and compensated to
some extent for the want of milk in the tea.

"Now, boys, sit in," cried Dove, seizing the teapot. "We have not
much variety," observed Dumsby to Ruby, in an apologetic tone.

"Variety!" exclaimed Forsyth, "what d'ye call that?" pointing to the
fish.

"Well, that _is_ a hextra morsel, I admit," returned Joe; "but we
don't get that every day; 'owsever, wot there is is good, an' there's
plenty of it, so let's fall to."

Forsyth said grace, and then they all "fell to", with appetites
peculiar to that isolated and breezy spot, where the wind blows so
fresh from the open sea that the nostrils inhale culinary odours, and
the palates seize culinary products, with unusual relish.

There was something singularly unfeminine in the manner in which the
duties of the table were performed by these stalwart guardians of the
Rock. We are accustomed to see such duties performed by the tender
hands of woman, or, it may be, by the expert fingers of trained
landsmen; but in places where woman may not or can not act with
propriety,--as on shipboard, or in sea-girt towers,--men go through
such feminine work in a way that does credit to their
versatility,--also to the strength of culinary materials and