"Why—what! art at thy plaguey burning-glasses again?"
"Thou knowest, Admiral, that Marcellus used his mirrors both in summer and winter——"
"Nay, I know nothing of the kind."
"Unless they were to trim his beard by," said Falconer.
"Out on thee, Davie," said the Admiral; "don't mock our friar, though he hath more crotchets in his poor head than there be strands in a nine-inch cable."
"Yes," mused the priest; "he used them even in the coldest winters against the ships of an enemy; but there is no record of moonbeams setting ought on fire."
"Odds life! I should think not, friar," said the Admiral, looking aloft, and watching the sails of the frigate.
"Would that I could assure thee, Sir Andrew, how a combination of mirrors, all reflecting heat on one point, could set the great globe itself on fire; then how much more so a miserable caravel?"
"Let me see the caravel set on fire first, and I will consider about the world after. So-ho, Burton, the wind is veering round upon our quarter."
"And thou shalt see it, Admiral; for when I construct my parabolic speculum to burn at ten paces, one ten times its size shall consume everything to cinders at a hundred paces. 'Tis plain as a pikestaff."