130 THE WORLD OF ICK.

enveloped himself in them, and put up the hood,
which well-nigh concealed the face, he became very
much like a bear or some such creature standing on
its hind legs.

Meectuck was a short, fat, burly little fellow by
nature; but when he put on his winter dress he
became such a round, soft, squat, hairy, and comical-
looking creature, that no one could look at him with-
out laughing, and the shout with which he was
received on deck the first time he made his appear-
ance in his new costume was loud and prolonged.
But Meetuck was as good-humoured an Esquimau as
ever speared a walrus or lanced a Polar bear. He
joined in the laugh, and cut a caper or two to show
that he entered into the spirit of the joke.

When the ship was set fast, and the thermometer
fell pretty low, the men found that their ordinary
dreadnoughts and pea-jackets, etc., were not a suffi-
cient protection against the cold, and it occurred to
the captain that his furs might now be turned to
good account. Sailors are proverbially good needle-
men of a rough kind. Meetuck showed them how to
set about their work. Each man made his own gar-
ments, and in less than a week they were completed.
{t is truc, 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