Red Rooney laid strong
constraint on himself, and stood it bravely.

There was something grandly picturesque and Rembrandtish in the whole
scene, for the smoke of the lamps, combined with the deep shadows of the
rotund and hairy figures, formed a background out of which the animated
oily faces shone with ruddy and glittering effect.

At first, of course, little sound was heard save the working of their
jaws; but as nature began to feel more than adequately supplied, soft
sighs began to be interpolated and murmuring conversation intervened.
Then some of the more moderate began to dally with tit-bits, and the
buzz of conversation swelled.

At this point Rooney took Tumbler on his knee, and began to tempt him
with savoury morsels. It is only just to the child, (who still wore his
raven coat), to say that he yielded readily to persuasion. Rooney also
amused and somewhat scandalised his friends by insisting on old Kannoa
sitting beside him.

"Ho! Ujarak," at last shouted the jovial Simek, who was one of those
genial, uproarious, loud-laughing spirits, that can keep the fun of a
social assembly going by the mere force and enthusiasm of his animal
spirits; "come, tell us about that wonderful bear you had such a fight
with last moon, you remember?"

"Remember!" exclaimed the wizard, with a pleased look, for there was
nothing he liked better than to be called on to relate his adventures--
and it must be added that there was nothing he found easier, for, when
his genuine adventures were not sufficiently telling, he could without
difficulty expand, exaggerate, modify, or even invent, so as to fit them
for the ears of a fastidious company.

"Remember!" he repeated in a loud voice, which attracted all eyes, and
produced a sudden silence; "of course I remember. The difficulty with
me is to forget--and I would that I could forget--for the adventure was
ho-r-r-r-ible!"

A low murmur of curiosity, hope, and joyful expectation, amounting to
what we might style applause, broke from the company as the wizard dwelt
on the last word.

You see, Eskimos love excitement fully as much as other people, and as
they have no spirituous drinks wherewith to render their festivities
unnaturally hilarious, they are obliged to have recourse to exciting
tales, comic songs, games, and other reasonable modes of creating that
rapid flow of blood, which is sometimes styled the "feast of reason and
the flow of soul." Simek's soul flowed chiefly