res an ancient mariner with poetical sentiments--not your
up-in-the-clouds, reef-point-pattering nonsense, observe but the real
genuine article, superior to "that other fellow's," you know--when not
actively engaged with the baby.

The first cottage is named Rakata, in honour of our hermit, who is one
of its inhabitants. The second is named Krakatoa by its eccentric
owner, Captain Roy.

It must not be imagined, however, that our friends have settled down
there to spend their lives in idleness. By no means. This probably
would not be permitted by the "King of the Cocos Islands" even if they
wished to do so. But they do not wish that. There is no such condition
as idleness in the lives of good men and women.

Nigel has taken to general superintendence of the flourishing community
in the midst of which he has cast his lot. He may be almost regarded as
the prime minister of the islands, in addition to which he has started
an extensive boat-building business and a considerable trade in
cocoa-nuts, etcetera, with the numerous islands of the Java Sea; also a
saw-mill, and a forge, and a Sunday-school--in which last the pretty,
humble-minded Winnie lends most efficient aid. Indeed it is said that
she is the chief manager as well as the life and soul of that business,
though Nigel gets all the credit.

Captain Roy sometimes sails his son's vessels, and sometimes looks after
the secular education of the Sunday-school children--the said education
being conducted on the principle of unlimited story-telling with
illimitable play of fancy. But his occupations are irregular--
undertaken by fits and starts, and never to be counted on. His evenings
he usually devotes to poetry and pipes--for the captain is obstinate,
and sticks--like most of us--to his failings as well as his fancies.

There is a certain eccentric individual with an enthusiastic temperament
and blue binoculars who pays frequent and prolonged visits to the
Keeling Islands. It need scarcely be said that his name is Verkimier.
There is no accounting for the tastes of human beings. Notwithstanding
all his escapes and experiences, that indomitable man of science still
ranges, like a mad philosopher, far and wide over the archipelago in
pursuit of "bootterflies ant ozer specimens of zee insect vorld." It is
observed, however, even by the most obtuse among his friends, that
whereas in former times the professor's flights were centrifugal they
have now become c