Page:Hopkinson Smith--Tom Grogan.djvu/32

 set of stringers laid on extra piles driven outside of the working-platform. When the submarine work lies miles from shore, a shanty is the only shelter for the men, its interior being arranged with sleeping-bunks, with one end partitioned off for a kitchen and a storage-room. This last is filled with perishable property, extra blocks, Manila rope, portable forges, tools, shovels, and barrows.

For this present sea-wall—an amphibious sort of structure, with one foot on land and the other in the water—the shanty was of light pine boards, roofed over, and made water-tight by tarred paper. The bunks had been omitted, for most of the men boarded in the village. In this way increased space for the storage of tools was gained, besides room for a desk containing the government working drawings and specifications, pay-rolls, etc. In addition to its door, fastened at night with a padlock, and its one glass window, secured by a ten-penny nail, the shanty had a flap-window, hinged at the bottom. When this was propped up with a barrel stave it made a counter from which to pay the men, the paymaster standing inside.

Babcock was sitting on a keg of dock spikes