THE YOUNG FUR-TRADERS. © 275

in upon the inmates of the several sleeping-rooms, and
make his remarks in a quiet, sarcastic manner, the galling
effect of which was heightened by his habit of pausing at
the end of every two or three words, to emit a few puffs
of smoke. Having exhausted a good deal of small talk
in this way, and having, moreover, finished his pipe, the
doctor went to the stove to refill and relight.

“What a deal of trouble you do take to make yourself
comfortable!” said he to the skipper, who sat with his
chair tilted on its hind legs, and a pillow at his back.

“No harm in that, doctor,” replied the skipper, with a
smile.

“No harm, certainly, but it looks uncommonly lazy-
like.”

“What does ?”

“Why, putting a pillow at your back, to be sure.”

The doctor was a full-fleshed, muscular man, and
owing to this fact it mattered little to him whether his
chair happened to be an easy one or not. As the skipper
sometimes remarked, he carried padding always about
with him; he was therefore, a little apt to sneer at the
attempts of his brethren to render the ill-shaped, wooden-
bottomed chairs, with which the hall was ornamented,
bearable. ;

“Well, doctor,” said the skipper, “I cannot see how
you make me out lazy. Surely it is not an evidence of
laziness my endeavouring to render these instruments of
torture less tormenting? Seeking to be comfortable, if
it does not inconvenience any one else, is not laziness.
Why, what is comfort?” The skipper began to wax
philosophical at this point, and took the pipe from his
mouth as he gravely propounded the momentous ques-
tion. “What 7s comfort? If I go out to camp in the
woods, and after turning in find a sharp stump sticking
into my ribs on one side, and a pine root driving in the

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