"Now where's that Billy?" asked Sammy at last. But mother's red boots
had prudently withdrawn.

"I _will_ give it to him," said Sammy; "but I will mend this first."

He took up his beloved kayah and walked to the little village. It was
not very large. There were half a dozen seal-skin tents, a few houses of
stone and turf, and one or two wooden buildings, besides the
government-house that proudly supported the flag of Denmark.

"What do you want, Sammy?" said his mother, as he appeared at the door
of one of the seal-skin tents. She was sitting on a bed of reindeer
skins.

"I want needle and thread, mother. That Billy Blubber cut some holes in
my kayah."

"Billy Blubber did?"

"Yes," said Sammy, "and I would like to sew him up in a seal-skin and
drop him from the top of an iceberg into the sea."

"Tut, tut, Sammy. It's a boy's trick. Let it go."

"There," thought Sammy, shouldering his kayah and moving off, "that is
what mother always says when Billy harms me."

"Where are you going, Sammy?"

"Off to mend my kayah, mother."