“You little know what hauling taut heavy canvas means,” he said when they met at lunch. “It would tear the skin off your hands. No, Miss Maxwell, we can put our Chileans on to that job. I have something better for you to do. Can you map?”
“I have copied heaps of plans for my father,” she told him.
“Excellent! At noon to-day I took an observation, so I intend to devote an hour to revising the chart. Will you help? Joey is in the scheme already. Then the Admiralty will gracefully acknowledge the survey supplied by Miss Elsie Maxwell, Captain Arthur Courtenay, and Joey, otherwise known as ‘the pup.’”
His allusion to the dog by name recalled “José the Wine-bag,” but Elsie thought she would retain that tiny scrap of detective information for the present. So she simply said:
“You will explain to me my part of the undertaking, of course?”
“Certainly. You must first correct the Index Error. Then you subtract the Dip and the Refraction in Altitude, take the sun’s semi-diameter from the Nautical Almanac, and add the Parallax. Do you follow me?”
“Perfectly; it sounds the easiest thing. But I don’t wish to hear the remarks of the Admiralty when they see the result.”
“I am interested in navigation, to the slight extent possible to a mere yachtsman: may I join you?” interposed Christobal.
“Oh, yes,” said the captain off-handedly.
Elsie repressed the smile on her lips. Did the worthy doctor fear developments if this harmless map-making progressed in his absence? She imagined, too, that Courtenay’s acquiesence in Christobal’s desire to be present was not wholly in accordance with his innermost wish. She promptly crushed that dangerous fancy. The captain was only seeking for some excuse to take her away from the rough work of rigging the extra awnings. How odd that the other thought should have cropped up first!