Deep Sea Hunters in the Frozen Seas

 Old Cap’n Pem was seated on the stringpiece of the wharf, his short black pipe gripped firmly in his mouth, and his wooden leg stretched stiffly before him like the stubby bowsprit of a coasting sloop. Beside him was his crony, Mike, another wooden-legged old mariner, for since a cruise the two had made to the Antarctic on the bark Hector, they had become inseparable companions.