Blown to Bits

"We'll run for the Cocos-Keelin' Islands, Nigel, an' refit."

"Are the Keeling Islands far off?"

"Lift up your head and look straight along the bridge of your nose, lad, and you'll see them. They're an interesting group, are the Keelin' Islands. Volcanic, they are, with a coral top-dressin', so to speak. Sit down here an' I'll tell 'ee about 'em."

Nigel shut up the telescope through which he had been examining the thin, blue line on the horizon that indicated the islands in question, and sat down on the cabin skylight beside his father.

"They've got a romantic history too, though a short one, an' are set like a gem on the bosom of the deep blue sea--"

"Come, father, you're drifting out of your true course--that's poetical!"

"I know it, lad, but I'm only quotin' your mother. Well, you must know that the Keelin' Islands--we call them Keelin' for short--were un