[XV.]
IN THE HEART OF FROSTLAND.
"We're afloat!
We're afloat!
In our trim ice-boat;
And we row—
Yeave ho!
"I guess I won't sing any more," said the Gas Stove. "It's a hard song to sing, that is, particularly when you've never heard it before, and can't think of another rhyme for boat."
"That's easy enough to find," returned Jimmieboy, pulling at the oars. "Coat rhymes with boat, and so do note and moat and goat and——"
"Very true," assented the Stove, "but it wouldn't do to use coat because we take our coats off when we row. Note is good enough but you don't have time to write one when you are singing a sea-song. Moat isn't any good, because nobody'd know whether you meant the moat of a castle, a sun-moat, or the one in your eye. As for goats, goats don't go well in poetry. So I guess it's just as well to stop singing right here."
"How fast we go!" said Jimmieboy.
"What did you expect?" asked the Stove. "The bottom of this boat is as slippery as can be, and, of course, going up the river against the current we get over the water faster than if we were going the other way because we—er—because we—well because we do."
"Seems to me," said Jimmieboy, "I'd better turn out some of the gas in my coat. I'm melting right through the seat here."