"Ramshackle, sir? Why, a ramshackle shed is a Tower of London to it. It's just a bandbox, that's what it is--just one of them chip and blue paper things the same as my old mother used to keep her Sunday bonnet in. Why, I could go to one end, shet my eyes, and walk through it anywhere. Why, it wouldn't even keep the wind out. Look at them windows--jalousies, as they calls them, in their ignorant foreign tongue. Look at 'em; just so many laths, like a Venetia blind. What's to be done to them? And then them doors. Why, they wouldn't keep a cat in, let alone a Spaniel out. I dunno what's to be done; and before I know where I am the skipper will be back asking me what I have been about. Do you know what I'm about? About off my head. A man can't make something out of nothing. Where's my tools? says you. Aboard the schooner. Where's the stuff to work with? Nowhere. Why, I aren't got so much as a tenpenny-nail. It's onreasonable; but I suppose it aren't no use to talk. Come on, my lads, and let's see. Axes here. Get one in between them two floor-boards and wedge one of them out--that's the style!" And as he spoke, _rip, rip, crack_! the board was wrenched out of its place, leaving a long opening and easy access to the boards on either side. "Steady there, mates; don't lose a nail. They are very poor ones, and only rusty iron now, but just you handle them as if they was made of gold. That's your sort. We'll just nail them boards up across the lower parts of them windows, far enough apart for us to fire through, and when that's done they'll make a show if they don't do anything else. It'll satisfy the skipper; but as to keeping the bullets out, when the beggars begin to fire, why, Mr Poole, sir, I believe I could take half-a-dozen of them little sugar-loaf-shaped bits of lead in my mouth and stand outside and blow them through.--What do you say, Camel? Where's a hammer? There are dozens of them, mate, in High Street, Liverpool, at any price from one-and-six up to two bob. Did you leave your head aboard the schooner?" "Did I leave my head aboard the schooner? What are you talking about?" growled the cook. "Thought perhaps you had left it in the galley, stood up in one of the pots to keep it safe till you got back. Turn the axe round and use the head of that, stoopid. Chopper-heads was invented before hammers, I know." "Well, you needn't be so nasty, mon," growled the cook. "Make you nasty if you was set to cook a dinner without any fire, and no meat." Andy grunted and began hammering away, helped by two of his messmates, who held the floor-boards in place while such nails as had come out of the joists were driven in. Satisfied with this, the carpenter set to work at the end of one of the joists, using a sharp axe so deftly that the great wedge-like chips began to fly, and in a minute's time he had cut right through. "That's your sort!" he cried. "Now, lads, two on you hoist up."