Bob Strong's Holidays: Adrift in the ChannelHutcheson, John C. (John Conroy)
General
Bob Strong's Holidays: Adrift in the Channel
Hutcheson, John C. (John Conroy)
Adventure and adventurers -- Juvenile fiction; Boys -- Juvenile fiction; Siblings -- Juvenile fiction
"What, more sight-seeing!" exclaimed Mrs Strong in a voice of despair.
"Can't you let us off doing any more to-day?"
"Well, ma'am," pleaded the Captain apologetically, "only just one place
more and you will then have `killed all the lions'; that is, all save
the Dockyard, which Master Bob will have to tell you about."
"Do let us go, mamma! I do so want to see them making the biscuits.
They do it all by machinery, just fancy!" said Nellie coaxingly. "Do,
let us go, please, won't you?"
"Do, please," also pleaded Bob, "it will be so very jolly!"
"I suppose I must give in," sighed his mother. "Oh, Captain Dresser,
Captain Dresser, you have a good deal to answer for!"
The old sailor only chuckled in response; and, giving the necessary
orders to the boatmen, the wherry, which had come down rapidly from
Porchester, the tide having turned and being now on the ebb, was pulled
in to the Gosport shore, its passengers landing at Clarence Yard, the
great food depot of the Navy.
Here they saw all that was to be seen, gazing with wonder at the vast
stores of things eatable accumulated for the service of the fleet--Bob
and Miss Nell being particularly interested in the bread-factory and
bakery, where the attendant who showed them over the place completed
their satisfaction by filling their respective pockets with the curious
hexagonal-shaped biscuits there made, "thus provisioning them," as the
Captain said, "for the remainder of their stay."
They crossed back from Gosport to Portsmouth by the floating bridge,
which, of course, Bob wanted to know all about, the Captain explaining
to him how it was fixed on two chains passing through the vessel and
moored on either shore, so as to prevent the "bridge" from being swayed
by the action of the tide, which runs very strongly in and out of the
harbour at the point of its passage.
"But how does the bridge move?" asked the inquiring Bob, full of
questions as usual. "I can't see how it can, if it be chained up like
Rover!"
"There is a steam-engine in the centre of the vessel, as you can see for
yourself, there," replied the Captain, pointing to the funnels that bore
out his statement. "This engine works a pair of vertical wheels inside
that casing between the two divisions of the boat; and these wheels,
which are each some eight feet in diameter and cogged, wind in the
chains at one end, paying them out at the other."
"I see," said Bob; and the floating bridge having by this time reached
its terminus at the Portsmouth side of the water, they all stepped
ashore and made their way home, Mrs Strong declaring that she had had
"enough of going about, for one day at least!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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