“How did you get them so round?”
“Oh, I didn’t do that. Chips lent me his little tenon-saw, and I cut them all off a roller; he helped me to finish them up with sandpaper, and told me what to soak half of them in to make them black.”
The invalid began to be more and more interested in the neat set of draughtsmen. “What did you soak them in—ink?” he asked. “No; guess again.”
“Oh, I can’t guess. Ship’s paint, perhaps, or tar.”
“No; they wouldn’t have looked neat like that. Vitriol—sulphuric acid.”
“What, had you got that sort of stuff on board the schooner?”
“The governor has in his big medicine-chest.”
“And did that turn them black like this?”
“Yes; you just paint them over with it, and hold them to the galley fire. I suppose it burns them. They all come black like that, and you polish them up with a little beeswax, and there you are.”
“Well, it was rather clever for a rough chap like you,” said Fitz grudgingly. “Can you play?”