n, while they were all in
some way connected with Chips the carpenter's plans.

He did not want the task: it bothered him, for in the broad sunshine of
the morning Chips's notions seemed to him to be ludicrously absurd; but
somehow he felt bound to go on disentangling them, because he was, as it
were, in some way mixed up with them, and had been during the night
helping him to carry them out.

"Makes my head feel quite hot," he said to himself, as he leaned over
the bulwark looking down at the water hurrying past the schooner. "I
haven't got a fever coming on, have I? If it doesn't all soon go off
I'll ask Captain Reed to give me some of his quinine. Ugh! Horribly
bitter stuff! I have had enough physic this voyage to last me for a
year."

And then he lapsed into a sort of dreamy state in which he dragged out
of his sleeping adventures that he had been acting as a sort of
carpenter's boy, carrying the bag, which weighed him down, while all the
time he had to keep handing gigantic augers to Chips, and wiping his
forehead every now and then with handfuls of shavings, while his master
kept on turning away, trying to bore holes through the steel plates of
the gunboat, and never making so much as a scratch. Then came a rest,
and he and Chips were lying down together in a beautiful summer-house
built upon a shelf of the cliff, with lovely vines running all over it
covered with brilliant flowers, and growing higher and higher, with the
upper parts laden with fruit which somehow seemed to be like beans. He
did not know why it was, but his rest in this beautiful vine-shaded
place, whose coverings seemed to grow right up into the skies, was
disturbed by the carpenter's banter, for Chips kept calling him Jack,
and laughing at him for selling his mother's cow for a handful of beans,
and asking why he didn't begin to climb right up to the top of the great
stalk into the giant land. Before he could answer they were back again
by the side of the gunboat, seated in the dinghy, and Chips was turning
away at his cross-handled auger, which now seemed to go through the
steel as easily as if it were cheese-rind, while when the dreamer took
hold of a handful of the shavings that were turned out, they were of
bright steel, and so hard and sharp that they made the carpenter angry
because they did not remove the perspiration and only scratched his
face. But he kept on turning all the time, till the auger had gone in
about six inches,