Not satisfied with this alone, `Rude Boreas' sent one of his imps down the chimney to frighten poor Nellie, who lay trembling in bed, by flapping up and down the register of the grate; while another would every now and then boldly rush up and grip hold of the house, shaking it viciously and causing it to rock from roof to basement--the rebuffed rascal then sailing away with a shriek of disappointed spite and rage, moaning and groaning like a creature in pain as it went off to vent its malice elsewhere! Ere long the sea, unable to keep its temper under the bad treatment it received from the wind, which blew in its face most insultingly and kept continually `pitting and patting it,' baker-man fashion, in a very aggravating way, began to boil up in anger, lashing itself into a passion and roaring with fury; while the noise Neptune made by and by deadened the roar of his assailant as he flung himself aloft in his struggles to grapple his nimble foe, and, missing his aim, rolled onward his boiling waves until they broke on the beach with the shock of an earthquake, amid a hurricane of foam! The awesome sound of wave and sea combined kept Bob awake nearly all night, the same as it did poor Nellie; the noise being so strange to their London ears, although, in some respects, somewhat similar to that of the street traffic of the metropolis. Not only did it keep him awake, but the battle of the elements made Master Bob get up much earlier than usual; for he came down to the drawing-room before Sarah had time to finish dusting the furniture. Here he was soon afterwards joined by Nellie, who was equally `spry' in her movements; and the pair amused themselves till breakfast was ready in looking out of the windows at the busy scene which the offing presented, so different to that of the previous evening, when all was quiet and calm, with Neptune gone to sleep and Boreas speaking but in a whisper! The whilom glassy surface of the deep was now, however, a mass of short choppy waves, the sea king's `white horses' leaping up friskily in every direction and chasing each other as they rolled in landward, throwing aloft clouds of feathery spray in their sport, as if champing it from their bits. Such was the scene far as the eye could span away to the eastward, where the sky was lit up by a stray gleam or two from the long-since risen sun, who, though trying to hide himself behind a bank of blue-black clouds, was not quite able to conceal his whereabouts.