"What on earth does that matter?" said Hazel, impetuously, and almost crossly.
"Come, come, come, sir," said Helen authoritatively; "it matters to me."
But when she saw that he could think of nothing else, and that opposition irritated him, she had the tact and good sense not to strain her authority, nor to irritate her subject.
Hazel spliced a long, fine-pointed stick to the mast-head, and set a plank painted white with guano at right angles to the base of the mast; and so, whenever the sun attained his meridian altitude, went into a difficult and subtle calculation to arrive at the latitude, or as near it as he could without proper instruments. And he brooded and brooded over his discovery of the longitude, but unfortunately he could not advance. In some problems the first step once gained leads, or at least points, to the next; but to know whereabouts they were, and to let others know it, were two difficulties heterogeneous and distinct.
Having thought and thought till his head was dizzy, at last he took Helen's advice and put it by for a while. He set himself to fit and number a quantity of pearl-oyster shells, so that he might be able to place them at once, when he should be able to recommence his labor of love in the cavern.
One day Helen had left him so employed, and was busy cooking the dinner at her own place, but, mind you, with one eye on the dinner and another on her patient, when suddenly she heard him shouting very loud, and ran out to see what was the matter.
He was roaring like mad, and whirling his arms over his head like a demented windmill.
She ran to him.
"Eureka! Eureka!" he shouted, in furious excitement.
"Oh, dear!" cried Helen; "never mind." She was all against her patient exciting himself.