“Of course, my boy. Why, haven’t we proved it?”
They were down in the laboratory, where Joe Cross had been helping them over the bottling, but he had gone up on deck, the day’s task being over, and the skipper now came down, looked and snorted at the fresh regiment of bottles, and made some remark about the doctor seeming out of spirits. But he did not mean it for a joke. Captain Chubb never did joke, for he was one of those men who pass their lives looking out for squalls, and his allusion was to the emptiness of the doctor’s set of kegs.
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” said the doctor. “Sit down and let’s talk. I have got quite as many preparations in spirits as will last me for years. By the way, did you think any more about Trinidad?”
“Deal,” said the skipper shortly, and he gave the fixed table a rap with a roll of paper which he had brought down tucked under his arm. “Here’s the chart.”
“Well?” said the doctor, wincing, as the skipper unrolled the map on the dresser-like table, and catching up first one specimen bottle and then another used them as paper-weights to keep the chart flat, while he began to operate with his big rough, brown, index finger.
“Here y’are,” he said, “and its character written about it: currents, shoals, stormy seas, all kinds of dangers. Bad landing-place; very rocky—place if you go to you ought to stop away.”
“Sounds hopeful; eh, Pickle?”
“Oh, but curious, uncle. I should like to go.”
“Well, then, you won’t,” said the skipper gruffly, “because your uncle’s too wise to tell me to risk the schooner in such a sea.”
“Humph!” grunted the doctor.