"Cousin Peregrine, you've been at sea: isn't that an impossible wave?"
"Cousin Peregrine, you've been at sea: aren't there sometimes waves like that in foreign places?"
"It's not very cleverly drawn," said Cousin Peregrine, examining the wood-cut; "but making allowance for that, I have seen waves not at all unlike this one."
"There!" cried the young gentleman triumphantly. "Maggie laughed at it, and said it was like a wall."
"Some waves are very like walls, but those are surf-waves, as they are called, that is, waves which break upon a shore. The waves I am thinking of just now are more like mountains—translucent blackish-blue mountains—mountains that look as if they were made of bottle-green glass, like the glass mountain in the fairy tale, or shining mountains of phosphorescent light—meeting you as if, they would overwhelm you, passing under you, and tossing you like the old woman in the blanket, and then running away behind you as you go to meet another. Every wave with a little running white crest on its ridge; though not quite such a curling frill as this one has which is engulfing poor Robinson Crusoe. But his is a surf-wave, of course. Those I am speaking of are waves in mid-ocean."
"Not as tall as a man, Cousin Peregrine?"
"As tall as many men piled one upon another, Maggie."
"It certainly is very funny that the children should choose this subject to tease you about tonight, Peregrine," said Mamma.