And Jup gravely puffed out clouds of smoke which seemed to give him great satisfaction.  Harding did not appear to be much astonished at this incident, and he cited several examples of tame apes, to whom the use of tobacco had become quite familiar.

But from this day Master Jup had a pipe of his own, the sailor’s ex-pipe, which was hung in his room near his store of tobacco.  He filled it himself, lighted it with a glowing coal, and appeared to be the happiest of quadrumana.  It may readily be understood that this similarity of tastes of Jup and Pencroft served to tighten the bonds of friendship which already existed between the honest ape and the worthy sailor.

“Perhaps he is really a man,” said Pencroft sometimes to Neb.  “Should you be surprised to hear him beginning to speak to us some day?”

“My word, no,” replied Neb.  “What astonishes me is that he hasn’t spoken to us before, for now he wants nothing but speech!”

“It would amuse me all the same,” resumed the sailor, “if some fine day he said to me, “Suppose we change pipes, Pencroft.”

“Yes,” replied Neb, “what a pity he was born dumb!”

With the month of September the winter ended, and the works were again eagerly commenced.  The building of the vessel advanced rapidly, she was already completely decked over, and all the inside parts of the hull were firmly united with ribs bent by means of steam, which answered all the purposes of a mold.

As there was no want of wood, Pencroft proposed to the engineer to give a double lining to the hull, to insure the strength of the vessel.

Harding, not knowing what the future might have in store for them, approved the sailor’s idea of making the craft as strong as possible.  The interior and deck of the vessel was entirely finished towards the 15th of September.  For calking the seams they made oakum of dry seaweed, which was hammered in between the planks; then these seams were covered with boiling tar, which was obtained in great abundance from the pines in the forest.

The management of the vessel was very simple.  She had from the first been ballasted with heavy blocks of granite walled up, in a bed of lime, twelve thousand pounds of which they stowed away.

A deck was placed over this ballast, and the interior was divided into two cabins; two benches extended along them and served also as lockers.  The foot of the mast supported the partition which separated the two cabins, which were reached by two hatchways let into the deck.

Pencroft had no trouble in finding a tree suitable for the mast.  He chose a straight young fir, with no knots, and which he had only to square at the step, and round off at the top.  The ironwork of the mast, the rudder and the hull had been roughly but strongly forged at the Chimneys.  Lastly, yards, masts, boom, spars, oars, etc., were all furnished by the first week in October, and it was agreed that a trial trip should be taken round the island, so as to ascertain how the vessel would behave at sea, and how far they might depend upon her.