I sawed and chopped and chiselled the weathered wood till it had the appearance of having been gnawed by some gigantic mouse.

But it fitted.
"It will work, I know it will work," I cried.
"Do you know Dr.Jordan's final test of truth ?" Maud asked.
I shook my head and paused in the act of dislodging the shavings which had drifted down my neck.
"Can we make it work?
Can we trust our lives to it?
is the test." "He is a favourite of yours," I said.
"When I dismantled my old Pantheon and cast out Napoleon and Caesar and their fellows, I straightway erected a new Pantheon," she answered gravely, "and the first I installed as Dr.Jordan." "A modern hero." "And a greater because modern," she added.

"How can the Old World heroes compare with ours ?" I shook my head.

We were too much alike in many things for argument.
Our points of view and outlook on life at least were very alike.
"For a pair of critics we agree famously," I laughed.
"And as shipwright and able assistant," she laughed back.
But there was little time for laughter in those days, what of our heavy work and of the awfulness of Wolf Larsen's living death.
He had received another stroke.

He had lost his voice, or he was losing it.