United States or Guernsey ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The K s wished me to go ashore here, but the skipper, who seemed to have been born with an objection on the tip of his tongue, dissuaded me, as the rain was falling heavily, and the boat was a quarter full of water; but as my clothes could not be more thoroughly saturated than they were, I landed; and even at the early hour of six we found a blazing log-fire in the shipbuilder's hospitable house, and "Biddy," more the "Biddy" of an Irish novelist than a servant in real life, with her merry face, rich brogue, and potato-cakes, welcomed us with many expressions of commiseration for our drowned plight.
Bob Stewart wore moccasins, and being exceedingly light and active, he ran up each sloping treestem for 40 or 50 feet, then dropped nimbly to another fallen trunk below, bobbed under a mass of heavy timber, like masts in a shipbuilder's yard, supported as they had chanced to fall, and then dived underneath all sorts of obstructions.
A few moments later the youthful commander appeared again on the platform deck, carrying a range-finder on a tripod. Through the telescope he took some rapid sights, then did some quick figuring. When he looked up Benson saw Jacob Farnum standing within four feet of him. The shipbuilder's face looked gray and haggard. "How much?" asked Jacob Farnum.
The young mistress, said the slave, had already dismissed many suitors, the sons of the greatest families of Alexandria, and if her suspicions those of Sachepris, the slave were well founded, all for the sake of the old shipbuilder's son, whom she had known from childhood and who was now an officer in the Imperial guard.
By night the foundations of a shipbuilder's shed had been laid by a large force of carpenters. Another gang of carpenters had gone to work building a fence as rapidly as laborers could set up the poles. By the night of the following day the fence was completed, and the shed, so far as outward appearances went, was completed.
She was the very latest exponent of the shipbuilder's art, and of the success which has attended the efforts of the naval architect to combine, in the highest degree, a large carrying capacity with perfect sea-going powers and super-excellence in point of speed.
After she was launched, the seamen amongst us helped to fit her out, being paid fifteen dollars a month, with provisions on board. As for myself, I speedily obtained employment in the shipbuilder's yard, and subsisted by honest industry, almost forgetting, in the unwonted pleasures of freedom, the sad reverse of fortune which had befallen me.
A few years ago there was a man named Blondin who performed wonderful feats at the Crystal Palace. Once he walked on a tight rope stretched across the centre of the Palace at a height of 150 feet. Another time a rope was stretched at a great height over a shipbuilder's yard, and he not only walked steadily across, but he carried a man on his back.
During dinner he talked very big about what a gigantic establishment this shipbuilder's was, and how many million square feet of wood were required every year. There were hardly any trees left in the neighborhood fit for building ships. They had to be brought from America. There were only a few left in Sclavonia. Only after he had dined well, he came out with the principal affair.
All three of the submarine boys were laughing so heartily, as they entered the shipbuilder's private office that Jacob Farnum, a youngish looking man to be at the head of so large a manufacturing plant, glanced up quickly. "What's the joke, boys?" he asked. "I haven't had a laugh since I pounded my thumbnail with a sledge-hammer."
Word Of The Day