“So I am. It ain’t easy to carry out the notion.”
“An’ wot may the notion be?” inquired Bluenose, sitting down on a coil of rope, and gazing earnestly at the old man.
“To get lifeboats to right themselves w’en they’re upset,” replied Jeph, regarding his model with a look of perplexity. “You see it’s all very well to have ’em filled with air-chambers, which prevents ’em from sinkin’; but w’en they’re upset, d’ye see, they ain’t o’ no use till they gets on their keels again; and that ain’t easy to manage. Now I’ve bin thinkin’ that if we wos to give ’em more sheer, and raise the stem and stern a bit, they’d turn over natural-like, of their own accord.”
“I do believe they would,” said Bax. “Why, what put that into yer head, old man?”
“Well, it ain’t altogether my own notion,” said Jeph, “for I’ve heard, when I was in the port o’ Leith, many years ago, that a clergyman o’ the name of Bremer had made a boat o’ this sort in the year 1792, that answered very well; but, somehow or other, it never came to anything. There’s nothin’ that puzzles me so much as that,” said the old man, looking up with a wondering expression of countenance. “I don’t understand how, w’en a good thing is found out, it ain’t made the most of at once! I never could discover exactly what Mr Bremer’s plan was, so I’m tryin’ to invent one.”
As he said this, Jeph placed the model on which he was engaged in a small tub of water which stood at his elbow. Guy, who was much interested in the old man’s idea, bent over him to observe the result of the experiment. Tommy Bogey sat down beside the tub as eagerly as if he expected some wonderful transformation to take place. Bax and Bluenose also looked on with unusual interest, as if they felt that a crisis in the experimental labours of their old comrade had arrived.
“It floats first-rate on an even keel,” cried Tommy, with a pleased look as the miniature boat moved slowly round its little ocean, “now then, capsize it.”
Old Jeph quietly put his finger on the side of the little boat, and turned it upside down. Instead of remaining in that position it rolled over on one side so much, that the onlookers fully expected to see it right itself, and Tommy gave vent to a premature cheer, but he cut it suddenly short on observing that the boat remained on its side with one of the gunwales immersed, unable to attain an even keel in consequence of the weight of water inside of it.
“I tell ye wot it is, Jeph,” said Bluenose, with emphasis, “you’ll do it yet; if you don’t I’ll eat my sou’-wester without sauce, so I will. As the noospapers says, you’ll inaggerate a new era in lifeboats, old boy, that’s a fact, and I’ll live to see it too!”
Having delivered himself of this opinion in tones of much fervour, the captain delivered his mouth of a series of cloudlets, and gazed through them at his old friend with unfeigned admiration.