"Hullo! what is that?" said Talbot, "someone tumbled down the companion?"
"Yes," said Conal laughing, "but it is only Old Pen. He finds that the most expeditious way of getting below now. He just throws himself on his back, head down, and toboggans down the steps."
And a second or two after, Pen appeared in the doorway, and looked wonderingly at the group assembled round the fire.
"You all look very snug here," he seemed to say. "Is there room for poor Old Pen among you?"
"Come along, Pen," said Conal, "we can always make room for you. Sit there on your tail beside Vike, and warm your soles."
"Yah--yah--yah!" cried the monkey, offering Pen a cockroach in quite a friendly way. But delicious as this might be, the bird preferred a bit of tinned salmon.
"Pen," said Duncan, "knows on what side his bread is buttered."
The bird eyed him knowingly, as, leaning on his tail, he held one broad foot up to the blaze.
"Pen", he seemed to say, "prefers his bread buttered on both sides."
It was comparatively late to-night before anyone thought of retiring. Moreover, it was Frank's "all night in", but I do not think he slept a great deal. There was noise enough on deck, aloft, and around the bows on the ice to have awakened Rip Van Winkle himself, but slumber he did at last, though only to revisit in dreams his native land, and the wild and lonesome grandeur of romantic Scotland.