"It'll crawl!" cried another from West Island, when he saw me driving cotton into the seams.

Bruno simply wagged his tail.

Even Mr.Ben J----, a noted authority on whaling-ships, whose mind, however, was said to totter, asked rather confidently if I did not think "it would crawl." "How fast will it crawl ?" cried my old captain friend, who had been towed by many a lively sperm-whale.

"Tell us how fast," cried he, "that we may get into port in time." [Illustration: "'It'll crawl'"] However, I drove a thread of oakum on top of the cotton, as from the first I had intended to do.

And Bruno again wagged his tail.