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"We didn't expect to find such a wealth of furniture it's like a Model Homes Exhibition. You should see our mess!" The Gunnery Lieutenant made a gesture of deprecation. "The watchkeepers insist on keeping the settee to caulk on in the intervals of hogging in their cabins. The piano was retained for the benefit of the Young Doctor. He can play Die Wacht am Rhein with one finger can't you, Pills?"
But the man went on: "When we'd made him a pretty good hand with the file and drill, he got Bill to teach him how to caulk. He shaped first-rate, so one day we thought we'd leave him to it while we went off for a jaunt. Bill had bought an old shot-gun from a farmer, and we'd seen a lot of wild hens about."
The very tails of the American sheep are so laden with wool that each has a little car or wagon on four little wheels to support and keep it from trailing on the ground. Would they caulk their ships, would they even litter their horses, with wool, if it were not both plenty and cheap? And what signifies the dearness of labor when an English shilling passes for five and twenty?" and so on.
Opportunely I call to mind a proverb of our Spanish friends yonder, "The sailor who would caulk his boat must not turn up his nose at pitch;" and as, figuratively speaking, I want to caulk mine, I make a virtue of necessity, and the obnoxious liquid vanishes. Having regaled ourselves at a very moderate cost, all things considered, we are invited to insert our names in the visitors' book.
He found the source of this, and contrived to caulk it with a strand of tarred rope for the present; but the sinking of his knife into the forward timber showed him that a great part of the bows was rotten.
We likewise decked over the fore and aft parts, both to keep out the sea and to prevent our provisions from getting wet. The doctor searched everywhere for some sort of resin which might serve to caulk our boat.
"And shall I nail down the lid, sir?" moving his hand as with a hammer. "Aye." "And shall I caulk the seams, sir?" moving his hand as with a caulking-iron. "Aye." "And shall I then pay over the same with pitch, sir?" moving his hand as with a pitch-pot. "Away! what possesses thee to this? Make a life-buoy of the coffin, and no more. Mr. Stubb, Mr. Flask, come forward with me."
Q. Is this the usual mode of caulking? A. No, it is not the usual mode; but it is the best mode, and is the mode adopted by Mr. Watt. The usual mode now is for one man to caulk the seams with a hammer in one hand and a caulking chisel in the other, and in some of the difficult corners of marine flue boilers it is not easy for two men to get in.
Nail down the lid; caulk the seams; pay over the same with pitch; batten them down tight, and hang it with the snap-spring over the ship's stern. Were ever such things done before with a coffin? Some superstitious old carpenters, now, would be tied up in the rigging, ere they would do the job. But I'm made of knotty Aroostook hemlock; I don't budge. Cruppered with a coffin!
It's a fine tub, and we are mighty lucky to find that man to caulk it. I'm going to set it up in the little square room, and lead the sulphur water into it, and it will be splendid, and just think," he added, "what it will do for rheumatism!"
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