"What you please, lad."

"Then I'll go and take care of Meetuck; he's apt to get into mischief
when left--"

At this moment a tremendous shout of laughter, long continued, came from
the deck, and a sound as if numbers of men dancing overhead was heard.

The party in the cabin seized their caps and sprang up the companion
ladder, where they beheld a scene that accounted for the laughter, and
induced them to join in it. At first sight it seemed as if thirty Polar
bears had boarded the vessel, and were executing a dance of triumph
before proceeding to make a meal of the crew; but on closer inspection
it became apparent that the men had undergone a strange transformation,
and were capering with delight at the ridiculous appearance they
presented. They were clad from head to foot in Esquimau costume, and now
bore as strong a resemblance to Polar bears as man could attain to.

Meetuck was the pattern and the chief instrument in effecting this
change. At Upernavik Captain Guy had been induced to purchase a large
number of fox-skins, deer-skins, seal-skins, and other furs, as a
speculation, and had them tightly packed and stowed away in the hold,
little imagining the purpose they were ultimately destined to serve.
Meetuck had come on board in a mongrel sort of worn-out seal-skin dress;
but the instant the cold weather set in he drew from a bundle which he
had brought with him a dress made of the fur of the Arctic fox, some of
the skins being white and the others blue. It consisted of a loose coat,
somewhat in the form of a shirt, with a large hood to it, and a short
elongation behind like the commencement of a tail. The boots were made
of white bear-skin, which, at the end of the foot, were made to