"Had enough of it?" he asked with a smile.
"Yes: we are not feeling so comfortable in mind that we can sleep at will, and just now a little goes a great way," Neal replied.
"Don't make the mistake of dwelling upon your troubles. By putting them from your mind you are in better condition to meet what may come, and besides, fretting never did mend matters."
"I'll admit that the advice is good; but it is not every one who can follow it."
"Why not? Have you tried by looking for something else with which to occupy your attention?"
"Shut up here as we are it would be pretty hard work to think of anything except our own situation."
"I'm not so certain of that. Suppose we try by speaking of the country on whose shores you were cast by the waves?"
"It was formerly an independent republic; but now forms one of the Mexican states," Teddy replied promptly.
"I'll admit that to be true; but it is a small fund of information for a schoolboy to have regarding a country which was probably the most powerful on the hemisphere hundreds of years before Columbus crossed the ocean. Here have been found the ruins of forty-four large cities; the remains of enormous artificial lakes, paved roads, and, in fact, all the evidences of a high state of civilization which existed before Europe could boast of the slightest form of government."
"You may be certain that I shall study about it with more interest in case we are so fortunate as to be able to go to school again," Teddy replied. "Tell us about the people who lived here when it was so great."