"I have the means of purchasing surgical skill, and I must use all the sacrifices at my command to obtain it."
"Avast heaving, Mr. Becker," cried Willis; "now I understand; the thing is as clear as the tackle of the best bower, and when a resolution is once formed, nothing like paying it out at the word of command. When shall we start?"
"I am not talking of either you or myself, Willis."
"Of whom then, may I ask?"
"Fritz and Jack. Fritz knows something of navigation; and if they succeed, they will have saved their mother; if they perish, they will have died to save her."
"Fritz, as you say, does know something of navigation, particularly as regards coasting; but here you have a pilot, accustomed to salt water, quite handy, why not engage him also?"
"Willis, you have yourself said that the undertaking is perilous in the extreme, and your life is not bound up like theirs in that of their mother."
"True; but do you not see that I am sick of dry land, and that I am getting rusty for the want of a little sea air?"
"I felt ashamed to ask you to share in so desperate an enterprise, otherwise I would have proposed it to you, Willis."
"But you might have seen that I was growing thin, absolutely pining away, and drying up on land. There are ducks that can live without water, but I am not one of them."