“Sorry to see me, Charlie? Indeed, I’m sorry to hear you say so.”
“O, I didn’t mean that,” replied Charlie, excessively confused. “I—I—I—only meant that I was sorry you caught me with this in my hand.”
He then told Uncle Isaac what he was about, adding, in conclusion, “You see, when I am trying to study anything out, I don’t like to have folks that know all about it looking on; it confuses and quite upsets me.”
“But if you ever make the boat, you will have to make it out of doors, in plain sight.”
“Yes, sir; but if I succeed in making a good model, I know I can imitate it on a large scale, and shan’t be afraid then to do it before folks; but if I can’t, why, then I will burn the model up, and nobody will be the wiser for it, or know that I tried and couldn’t. I’m not afraid to have any one see me handle tools.”
“You have no reason to be, my boy. Yet, after all, it was a very good thing that I surprised you before you got any farther; for, had you built a large boat after these lines, she never would have been of any use to you.”
“Why not?”
“Because this is precisely the shape of a mackerel, to a shaving.”
“Well, don’t a mackerel sail?”
“Yes, sail like blazes, under water; but I take it you want your boat to sail on top of water. All a fish has to do is to carry himself through the water; but a boat or vessel has to carry cargo, and bear sail. A vessel made after that model wouldn’t stand up in the harbor with her spars in, and a boat made like it would have to be filled so full of ballast, to keep her on her legs, that she would be almost sunk; and the moment you put sail on her, in anything of a working breeze, her after-sail would jam her stern down, and she would fill over the quarter.”