t-heded arow, which he drives in--the snowt,
not the arow. There's a gin'ral wish among the crew to no whether the
north pole _is_ a pole or a dot. Mizzle sais it's a dot and O'Riley
swears (no, he don't do that, for we've gin up swearin' in the
fog-sail); but he sais that it's a real post 'bout as thick again as the
main-mast, an' nine or ten times as hy. Grim sais it's nother wun thing
nor anuther, but a hydeear that _is_ sumhow or other a fact, but yit
don't exist at all. Tom Green wants to no if there's any conexshun
between it an' the pole that's connected with elections. In fact, we're
all at sea, in a riglar muz abut this, an' as Dr Singleton's a
syentiffick man, praps he'll give us a leadin' article in your nixt--so
no more at present from--

"Yours to command, John Buzzby."

This contribution was accompanied with an outline illustration of Mivins
eating sugar with a ladle in the pantry, and Davie Summers peeping in at
the door--both likenesses being excellent.

Some of the articles in the _Arctic Sun_ were grave, and some were gay,
but all of them were profitable, for Fred took care that they should be
charged either with matter of interest or matter provocative of mirth.
And, assuredly, no newspaper of similar calibre was ever looked forward
to with such expectation, or read and reread with such avidity. It was
one of the expedients that lasted longest in keeping up the spirits of
the men.

The rat-hunting referred to in the foregoing "summery" was not a mere
fiction of Buzzby's brain. It was a veritable fact. Notwithstanding
the extreme cold of this inhospitable climate, the rats in the ship
increased to such a degree that at last they became a perfect nuisance.
Nothing was safe from their attacks; whether substances were edible or
not, they were gnawed through and ruined, and their impudence, which
seemed to increase with their numbers, at last exceeded all belief.
They swarmed everywhere--under the stove, about the beds, in the
lockers, between the sofa-cushions, amongst the moss round the walls,
and inside the boots and mittens (when empty) of the men. And they
became so accustomed to having missiles thrown at them that they
acquired to perfection that art which Buzzby described as "keeping one's
weather-eye open."

You couldn't hit one if you tried. If your hand moved towards an object
with which you intended to deal swift destruction, the intruder paused
and turned his sharp eyes towards