een cut or bitten
off, and nothing save the stump remained. But this stump did as much
duty as if it had been fifty tails in one. It was never at rest for a
moment, and its owner evidently believed that wagging it was the true
and only way to touch the heart of man; therefore the dog wagged it, so
to speak, doggedly. In consequence of this animal's thieving
propensities, which led him to be constantly _poking_ into every hole
and corner of the ship in search of something to steal, he was named
_Poker_. Poker had three jet-black spots in his white visage--one was
the point of his nose, the other two were his eyes.

Poker's bosom friend, Dumps, was so named because he had the sulkiest
expression of countenance that ever fell to the lot of a dog. Hopelessly
incurable melancholy seemed to have taken possession of his mind, for he
never by any chance smiled--and dogs do smile, you know, just as
evidently as human beings do, although not exactly with their mouths.
Dumps never romped either, being old, but he sat and allowed his friend
Poker to romp round him with a sort of sulky satisfaction, as if he
experienced the greatest enjoyment his nature was capable of in
witnessing the antics of his youthful companion--for Poker was young.
The prevailing colour of Dumps's shaggy hide was a dirty brown, with
black spots, two of which had fixed themselves rather awkwardly round
his eyes, like a pair of spectacles. Dumps, also, was a thief, and,
indeed, so were all his brethren. Dumps and Poker were both of them
larger and stronger, and in every way better, than their comrades; and
they afterwards were the sturdy, steady, unflinching leaders of the team
during many a toilsome journey over the frozen sea.

One magnificent afternoon, a few days after the escape of the _Dolphin_
just related, Dumps and Poker lay side by side in the lee-scuppers,
calmly sleeping off the effects of a surfeit produced by the eating of a
large piece of pork, for which the cook had searched in vain for
three-quarters of an hour, and of which he at last found the bare bone
sticking in the hole of the larboard pump.

"Bad luck to them dogs," exclaimed David Mizzle, stroking his chin as he
surveyed the bone. "If I could only find out, now, which of ye it was,
I'd have ye slaughtered right off, and cooked for the mess, I would."

"It was Dumps as did it, I'll bet you a month's pay," said Peter Grim,
as he sat on the end of the windlass refilling his pipe, which