The carpenter, with his hammer and hatchet, does an amount of execution astonishing to the shore artizan, who has well filled tool-racks. The cook would likewise startle, perhaps offend, the ladies sensibilities by the manner in which his appurtenances do manifold duties, besides those considered appropriate. The mate racks his brain daily to discover how to repair a sail without canvas, mend a chain without spare links, paint ship without brushes, or tar the rigging without tar. The captain is as much put to it as any one in contriving for all the departments under his care. So they become Jacks of all trades, and too often masters of none. One incident of a personal nature will illustrate the manner in which necessity often becomes the mother of invention on shipboard. One day when off the west coast of Sumatra, the carpenter was caulking and paying the deck-seams. I picked up a little bit of his pitch and put it in my mouth, but soon removed it with the gold fillings from two teeth attached. Severe toothache soon followed. At Padang I enquired for a dentist, but to learn that none of those kindly torturers had yet located there. The surgeon of the place would extract the teeth for twenty dollars apiece, but the pleasure of paying this moderate sum was no inducement to lose the "ivories." But the cavities must be filled to exclude the air. Boy Frank had been in a dentist's office, so he was summoned to the council on the old man's toothache. He put in a filling of pitch and then of rubber, but they were not destined to remain. Finally, at sea the pain induced the resolution to part with the teeth. Frank was called again. There were no forceps in the ship, and an investigation of all the implements led to the selection of my spring-punch. The tooth of this was removed, the carpenter filed the lips to make them tenacious of grip, the big Webster's dictionary was laid on the cabin table, and resting my head back upon this, Dr. Frank made a desperate effort to pull out teeth, gum and jaw at one attack. He was speedily driven on deck, and warned not to try that again. At last he thought of an amalgam filling, but how should it be obtained? I possessed a silver "ten-cent piece, saved from the obliterating ravages of the age of Greenbacks. This I filed into dust, and after a serious consideration my thermometer-tube was broken, the mercury was extracted and mingled with the silver. Then laying my head once more on the dictionary, the cavities were effectually filled, the only instruments used by the dentist being a crotchet needle and a screw-driver. It was not till three years after, that other fillings were substituted by an American dentist in China, who laughed as much at my story of the previous operation, as I did at his account of the way the King of Siam tested the set of teeth made for him, by putting this worthy dentist's hand in his mouth, and nearly biting off the fingers. He was not so much injured, however, as