CHAPTER XXIII.
THE SERVICE OF THE LAMP.
The Chief Engineer of the Trinity House was a man of few words.
He and Taffy had spent the afternoon clambering about the rocks below the light-house, peering into its foundations.

Here and there, where weed coated the rocks and made foothold slippery, he took the hand which Taffy held out.

Now and then he paused for a pinch of snuff.
The round of inspection finished, he took an extraordinarily long pinch.
"What's _your_ opinion ?" he asked, cocking his head on one side and examining the young man much as he had examined the light-house.
"You have one, I suppose ?" "Yes, sir; but of course it doesn't count for much." "I asked for it." "Well, then, I think, sir, we have wasted a year's work; and if we go on tinkering we shall waste more." "Pull it down and rebuild, you say ?" "Yes, sir; but not on the same rock." "Why ?" "This rock was ill-chosen.

You see, sir, just here a ridge of elvan crops up through the slate; the rock, out yonder, is good elvan, and that is why the sea has made an island of it, wearing away the softer stuff inshore.

The mischief here lies in the rock, not in the light-house." "The sea has weakened our base ?" "Partly: but the light-house has done more.