Late one afternoon, when the rain was drizzling and the swinging brass lamps lit, we sat about on wooden stools (and some were curled up in bunks along the walls) and listened to the talk of Atkinson and Timmans and Hansen, who had seen and done strange things in their time.

They were discussing the escape-valve in a diver's helmet, and arguing whether it pays to stiffen the spring for very deep diving. Atkinson, who had worked eight fathoms deeper than either of them, said he left his spring alone; he used the same suit and the same valve action for any depth.

"But I look out for sand-banks," said he, "ever since that fellow—you know who I mean—had one cave in on him in the North River. He was tunneling under a vessel with a wall of sand beside him higher than his head, and the first thing he knew he was flat on his back, with sand jammed in his valve so it couldn't open. It wasn't a minute before he was shot up to the surface like a balloon. The reason of that," he explained for my benefit, "is because a diving-suit with its valve shut gets lighter and lighter as they drive down air from the air-pump, until all of a sudden it comes up, man and all, just as a plank would if you held it on the bottom and then let it go."[65]

THE MAN WHO ATTENDS TO THE DIVER'S SIGNALS.

"Talking about planks coming up," said Timmans, who was seated under the picture of a prize-fighter, "I was down on the