on the earth.

After the rains the old sailor said he'd be after making a house of
bamboos before the next rains came on them; but, maybe, before that
they'd be off the island.

"However," said he, "I'll dra' you a picture of what it'll be like when
it's up;" and on the sand he drew a figure like this:

X

Having thus drawn the plans of the building, he leaned back against a
cocoa-palm and lit his pipe. But he had reckoned without Dick.

The boy had not the least wish to live in a house, but he had a keen
desire to see one built, and help to build one. The ingenuity which is
part of the multiform basis of the American nature was aroused.

"How're you going to keep them from slipping, if you tie them together
like that?" he asked, when Paddy had more fully explained his method.

"Which from slippin'?"

"The canes--one from the other?"

"After you've fixed thim, one cross t'other, you drive a nail through
the cross-piece and a rope over all."

"Have you any nails, Paddy?"

"No," said Mr Button, "I haven't."

"Then how're you goin' to build the house?"

"Ax me no questions now; I want to smoke me pipe."

But he had raised a devil difficult to lay. Morning, noon, and night it
was "Paddy, when are you going to begin the house?" or, "Paddy, I guess
I've got a way to make the canes stick together without nailing." Till
Mr Button, in despair, like a beaver, began to build.

There was great cane-cutting in the canebrake above, and, when
sufficient had been procured, Mr Button struck work for three days. He
would have struck altogether, but he had found a taskmaster.

The tireless Dick, young and active, with no original laziness in his
composition, no old bones to rest, or pipe to smoke, kept after him
like a bluebottle fly. It was in vain that he tried to stave him off
with stories about fairies and Cluricaunes. Dick wanted to build a
house.

Mr Button didn't. He wanted to rest. He did not mind fishing or
climbing a cocoa-nut tree, which he did to admiration by passing a rope
round himself and the tree, knotting it, and using it as a support
during the climb; but house-building was monotonous work.

He said he had no nails. Dick countered by showing how the canes could
be held together by notching them.

"And, faith, but it's a cliver boy you are," said the weary one
admiringly, when the other had explained his method.

"Then come along, Paddy, and stick 'em up."

Mr Button said he had no rope, that h