166 THE WORLD OF ICE.

Poker sprang forward, wagging the stump of his
tail, and turned his head to one side, as if to say,
“Well, what's up? Any fun going ?”

“Here, take that, old boy ; Dumps is sulky.”

Poker took it at once, and a single snap caused it
to vanish. He, too, had finished supper, and evidently
ate the morsel to please the Irishman,

“Hand me the coffee, Meetuek,” said Fred—* The
biscuit lies beside you, West; don’t give in so soon,
man.”

“Thank you, sir; I have about done.”

“Mectuck, ye haythen, try a bit o’ the roast; do
now, av it was only to plaze me.”

Mectuck shook his head quietly, and, cutting a fif-
teenth lump off the mass of raw walrus that lay beside
him, procecded leisurely to devour it,

“The dogs is nothin’ to him,” muttered O'Riley.
“Tsn’t it a curious thing, now, to think that we're
all at sew a-catin’, and drinkin’, and slaapin’—or gov
to slaap-—jist as if we wor on the land, and the great
ocean away down below us there, wid whales, and
seals, and walruses, and mermaids, for what I know,
a-swimmin’ about jist under whare we sit, and maybe
lookin’ through the ice at us this very minute. Isn’t
ib quare ?”

“Tt is odd,” said Fred, laughing, “and not a very
pleasant idea. However, as there is at least twelve
feet of solid ice between us and the company you
mention, we don’t need to eare much,”

“Ov coorse not,” replied O’Riley, nodding his head