TOM'S WISDOM--ANOTHER GREAT BATTLE One day I was standing beside the windlass, listening to the conversation of five or six of the men, who were busy sharpening harpoons and cutting-knives, or making all kinds of toys and things out of whales' bones.

We had just finished cutting in and trying out our third whale, and as it was not long since we reached the fishing-ground, we were in high hopes of making a good thing of it that season; so that everyone was in good spirits, from the captain down to the youngest man in the ship.
Tom Lokins was smoking his pipe, and Tom's pipe was an uncommonly black one, for he smoked it very often.

Moreover, Tom's pipe was uncommonly short, so short that I always wondered how he escaped burning the end of his nose.

Indeed, some of the men said that the redness of the end of Tom's nose was owing to its being baked like a brick by the heat of his pipe.

Tom took this pipe from his mouth, and while he was pushing down the tobacco with the end of his little finger, he said: "D'ye know, lads, I've been thinkin'-- --" "No, have ye ?" cried one of the men, interrupting him with a look of pretended surprise.