true the boots perplexed them a
little, and the less ingenious among the men made very rare and
curious-looking foot-gear for themselves, but they succeeded after a
fashion, and at last the whole crew appeared on deck in their new
habiliments, as we have already mentioned, capering among the snow like
bears, to their own entire satisfaction and to the intense delight of
Meetuck, who now came to regard the white men as brothers--so true is it
that "the tailor makes the man!"

"'Ow 'orribly 'eavy it is, hain't it?" gasped Mivins, after dancing
round the main-hatch till he was nearly exhausted.

"Heavy?" cried Buzzby, whose appearance was such that you would have
hesitated to say whether his breadth or length was greater,--"heavy,
d'ye say? It must be your sperrits wot's heavy, then, for I feel as
light as a feather myself."

"O morther! then may I niver sleep on a bed made o' sich feathers!"
cried O'Riley, capering up to Green, the carpenter's mate, and throwing
a mass of snow in his face. The frost rendered it impossible to form
the snow into balls, but the men made up for this by throwing it about
each other's eyes and ears in handfuls.

"What d'ye mean by insultin' my mate?--take that!" said Peter Grim,
giving the Irishman a twirl that tumbled him on the deck.

"Oh, bad manners to ye," spluttered O'Riley, as he rose and ran away,
"why don't ye hit a man o' yer own size."

"'Deed, then, it must be because there's not one o' my own size to hit,"
remarked the carpenter with a broad grin.

This was true. Grim's colossal proportions were increased so much by
his hairy dress that he seemed to spread out into the dimensions of two
large men rolled into one. But O'Riley was not to be overturned with
impunity. Skulking round behind the crew, who were laughing at Grim's
joke, he came upon the giant in the rear, and seizing the short tail of
his jumper, pulled him violently down on the deck.

"Ah! then give it him, boys," cried O'Riley, pushing the carpenter flat
down, and obliterating his black beard and his whole visage in a mass of
snow. Several of the wilder spirits among the men leaped on the
prostrate Grim, and nearly smothered him before he could gather himself
up for a struggle; then they fled in all directions, while their victim
regained his feet and rushed wildly after them. At last he caught
O'Riley, and grasping him by the two shoulders gave him a heave that was
intended and "calc'lated," as Amos Parr