“Wittles!” shouted the Captain.
“Right,” cried the Professor, “only it would have been better expressed had you said—Luncheon. Go up, sir; put yourself at the head of the class, and lead it to a scene of glorious festivity.”
Thus instructed, the Captain put himself at the head of the line.
“Now, then, Captain,” said Lewis, “let’s have a true-blue nautical word of command—hoist yer main tops’l sky-scrapers abaft the cleat o’ the spanker boom, heave the main deck overboard and let go the painter—or something o’ that sort.”
“Hold on to the painter, you mean,” said Slingsby.
“You’re both wrong,” cried the Captain, “my orders are those of the immortal Nelson—‘Close action, my lads—England expects every man to’—hooray!”
With a wild cheer, and waving his hat, the seaman rushed up the side of the knoll, followed by his obedient and willing crew.
In order to render the feast more complete, several members of the party had brought small private supplies to supplement the cold mutton, ham, bread, and light claret which Antoine and two porters had carried in their knapsacks. Captain Wopper had brought a supply of variously coloured abominations known in England by the name of comfits, in Scotland as sweeties. These, mixed with snow and water, he styled “iced-lemonade.” Emma tried the mixture and declared it excellent, which caused someone to remark that the expression of her face contradicted her tongue. Lewis produced a small flask full of a rich dark port-winey liquid, which he said he had brought because it had formerly been one of the most delightful beverages of his childish years. It was tasted with interest and rejected with horror, being liquorice water! Emma produced a bottle of milk, in the consumption of which she was ably assisted by the Professor, who declared that his natural spirits required no artificial stimulants. The Professor himself had not been forgetful of the general good. He had brought with him a complex copper implement, which his friends had supposed was a new species of theodolite, but which turned out to be a scientific coffee-pot, in the development of which and its purposes, as the man of science carefully explained, there was called into play some of the principles involved in the sciences of hydraulics and pneumatics, to which list Lewis added, in an under-tone, those of aquatics, ecstatics, and rheumatics. The machine was perfect, but the Professor’s natural turn for practical mechanics not being equal to his knowledge of other branches of science, he failed properly to adjust a screw. This resulted in an explosion of the pot which blew its lid, as Lewis expressed it, into the north of Italy, and its contents into the fire. A second effort, using the remains of the scientific pot as an ordinary kettle, was more successful.
“You see, my friends,” said the Professor, apologetically, “it is one of the prerogatives of science that her progress cannot be hindered. Her resources and appliances are inexhaustible. When one style of experiment fails we turn at once to another and obtain our result, as I now prove to you by handing this cup of coffee to Miss Gray. You had better not sweeten it, Mademoiselle. It is quite unnecessary to make the very trite observation that in your case no sugar is required. Yes, the progress of science is slow, but it is sure. Everything must fall before it in time.”
“Ah, just so—‘one down, another come on,’—that’s your motto, ain’t it?” said Captain Wopper, who invariably, during the meal, delivered his remarks from a cavern filled with a compound of mutton, bread, and ham. “But I say, Professor, are you spliced?”