same time that he became more satisfied with his supposed acquirements, and could not speak but in “mathematical parables.”

“I understand, Mr. Easy,” said the gunner to him one day, after they had sailed for Malta, “that you have entered into the science of navigation—at your age it was high time.”

“Yes,” replied Jack, “I can raise a perpendicular, at all events, and box the compass.”

“Yes, but you have not yet arrived at the dispart of the compass.”

“Not come to that yet,” replied Jack.

“Are you aware that a ship sailing describes a parabola round the globe?”

“Not come to that yet,” replied Jack.

“And that any propelled body striking against another flies off at a tangent?”

“Very likely,” replied Jack, “that is a sine that he don’t like it.”

“You have not yet entered into acute trigonometry?”

“Not come to that yet,” replied Jack.

“That will require very sharp attention.”

“I should think so,” replied Jack.

“You will then find out how your parallels of longitude and latitude meet.”

“Two parallel lines, if continued to infinity, will never meet,” replied Jack.

“I beg your pardon,” said the gunner.

“I beg yours,” said Jack.

Whereupon Mr. Tallboys brought up a small map of the world, and showed Jack that all the parallels of latitude met at a point at the top and bottom.

“Parallel lines never meet,” replied Jack, producing Hamilton Moore.

Whereupon Jack and the gunner argued the point, until it was agreed to refer the case to Mr. Jolliffe, who asserted with a smile, “That those lines were parallels and not parallels.”

As both were right, both were satisfied.

It was fortunate that Jack would argue in this instance: had he believed all the confused assertions of the gunner, he would have been as puzzled as the gunner himself. They never met without an argument and a reference, and as Jack was put right in the end, he only learnt the faster. By the time that he did know something about navigation, he discovered that his antagonist knew nothing. Before they arrived at Malta, Jack could fudge a day’s work.

But at Malta Jack got into another scrape. Although Mr. Smallsole could not injure him, he was still Jack’s enemy; the more so as Jack had become very popular: Vigors also submitted, planning revenge; but the parties in this instance were the boatswain and purser’s steward. Jack still continued his forecastle conversations with Mesty; and the boatswain and purser’s steward, probably from their respective ill-will