“Quite a mistake, Bob, founded in error or superstition. You have confused the will with the deed. I am indeed willing to try anything, but my capacity for action is limited, like my knowledge. In regard to the higher mathematics, for instance, I know nothing. Copper-mining I do not understand. I may say the same with reference to Tartar mythology, and as regards the management of infants under two years I am densely ignorant.”
“But do you really know nothing at all about boats and ships, Giles?” asked Barret, who, being a good listener, did not always shine as a speaker.
“How can you ask such a question? Of course I know a great deal about them. They float, they sail and row, they steer—”
“Rather badly sometimes, according to your own showing!” remarked Barret.
Having cleared the Pentland Firth, Mabberly consulted the skipper one morning as to the prospects of the weather. “Going to fall calm, I fear,” he said, as McPherson came aft with his hands in his pilot-coat pockets.
“Ay, sir, that iss true, what-ë-ver.”
To pronounce the last word correctly, the central ”ë” must be run into a long-drawn, not an interjectional, sound.
“More-ö-ver,” continued the skipper, in his drawling nasal tone, “it’s goin’ to be thick.”
Being a weather-wise man, the skipper proved to be right. It did come thick; then it cleared, and, as we have said, things became favourable until they got further out to sea. Then a fancy took possession of Mabberly—namely, to have a “spin out into the Atlantic and see how it looked!” It mattered not to Jackman or Barret what they did or where they went; the first being exuberantly joyous, the other quietly happy. So they had their run out to sea; but twenty-four hours of it sufficed—it became monotonous.
“I think we’d better go back now,” suggested Mabberly.