Tin-tacks, copper tacks (sharp as needles); pump
nails with big heads, like tiny iron mushrooms; nails without any heads
(horrible); French nails polished and slim. They lay in a solid mass
more inabordable than a hedgehog. We hesitated, yearning for a shovel,
while Jimmy below us yelled as though he had been flayed. Groaning,
we dug our fingers in, and very much hurt, shook our hands, scattering
nails and drops of blood. We passed up our hats full of assorted nails
to the boatswain, who, as if performing a mysterious and appeasing rite,
cast them wide upon a raging sea.
We got to the bulkhead at last. Those were stout planks. She was a
ship, well finished in every detail--the _Narcissus_ was. They were the
stoutest planks ever put into a ship's bulkhead--we thought--and then
we perceived that, in our hurry, we had sent all the tools overboard.
Absurd little Belfast wanted to break it down with his own weight, and
with both feet leaped straight up like a springbok, cursing the Clyde
shipwrights for not scamping their work. Incidentally he reviled all
North Britain, the rest of the earth, the sea--and all his companions.
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