"I wish to know if there is ever a square-sail rigged with a gaff on the mizzen-mast of a brig, above the spanker,--a sail set like the mainsail of a schooner?" asked the inquirer.
"On which mast?" asked the principal; and there was something like a suppressed laugh among the old sailors of the school.
"The mizzen-mast, sir," replied Lon confidently.
The old sailors laughed out loud, for it was rather a pleasure to trip up any one in a nautical blunder.
"There is no such mast in a brig," added Captain Gildrock.
"I beg your pardon, sir; but you told us, in the lecture you gave us on the different rigs of vessels, that a brig had two masts,--the main and the mizzen," continued Lon, picking up his note-book, and hastily turning the leaves.
"I think not, Dorset," said the principal with a smile. "I know better than that, and I should not be likely to say such a thing."
"Here it is, just as I wrote it down at the time of it," persisted Lon. "I didn't know any thing at all about such vessels, and I should not have been likely to put down what you didn't say. 'In a vessel with two masts, the terms are main and mizzen.'"
About a dozen others began to turn the leaves of their note-books, and then Dolly Woodford raised his hand. The principal nodded to him.
"I have it down in the same way," said Dolly.