K. Z.,
Captain of the Forward.
"The letter reached me this morning, and I'm now ready to go on board of the Forward."
"But," continued Shandon, "I suppose you know whither we are bound."
"Not the least idea in the world; but what difference does it make, provided I go somewhere? They say I'm a learned man; they are wrong; I don't know anything, and if I have published some books which have had a good sale, I was wrong; it was very kind of the public to buy them! I don't know anything, I tell you, except that I am very ignorant. Now I have a chance offered me to complete, or, rather, to make over my knowledge of medicine, surgery, history, geography, botany, mineralogy, conchology, geodesy, chemistry, physics, mechanics, hydrography; well, I accept it, and I assure you, I didn't have to be asked twice."
"Then," said Shandon in a tone of disappointment, "you don't know where the Forward is going."
"O, but I do, commander; it's going where there is something to be learned, discovered; where one can instruct himself, make comparisons, see other customs, other countries, study the ways of other people; in a word, it's going where I have never been."
"But more precisely?" cried Shandon.
"More precisely," answered the doctor, "I have understood that it was bound for the Northern Ocean. Well, good for the North!"
"At any rate," said Shandon, "you know the captain?"
"Not at all! But he's a good fellow, you may depend on it."