The doctor smiled. "See here, Melick," said he, "you've a very vivid imagination, my dear fellow; but come, let us discuss this for a little while in a common-sense way. Now how long should you suppose that this manuscript has been afloat?"
"Oh, a few months or so," said Melick.
"A few months!" said the doctor. "A few years you mean. Why, man, there are successive layers of barnacles on that copper cylinder which show a submersion of at least three years, perhaps more."
"By Jove! yes," remarked Featherstone. "Your sensation novelist must have been a lunatic if he chose that way of publishing a book."
"Then, again," continued the doctor, "how did it get here?"
"Oh, easily enough," answered Melick. "The ocean currents brought it."
"The ocean currents!" repeated the doctor. "That's a very vague expression. What do you mean? Of course it has been brought here by the ocean currents."
"Why, if it were thrown off the coast of England it would be carried away, in the ordinary course of things, and might make the tour of the world."
"The ocean currents," said the doctor, "have undoubtedly brought this to us. Of that I shall have more to say presently—but just now, in reference to your notion of a sensation novelist, and an English origin, let me ask your opinion of the material on which it is written. Did you ever see anything like it before? Is it paper?"
"No," said Melick; "it is evidently some vegetable substance. No doubt the writer has had it prepared for this very purpose, so as to make it look natural."