"A British force attacked them," said George, "and stormed Manila, the capital, and the city had its choice to pay five million dollars or be given up to the soldiers for plunder. It paid the money."
"Do you think that was right?" Felix Ostrom asked.
"I don't know enough about it to say," George answered; "but I suppose war is war, and when it has to be made at all it ought to be made so as to accomplish something."
"What was the name of Magellan's ship?" asked Tom Kennedy.
"He started with five ships," said George, "but four of them were lost. The largest was only eighty feet long. The one that went round the world and got home was the Victoria."
"Huh!" said Tom, "I might have known it—just like those Britishers, naming everything after their queen."
"Magellan was not a Britisher, he was Portuguese," said George. "And Queen Victoria was not born till about three hundred years after his famous voyage."
The boys burst into a roar of laughter and hooted at Tom.
"It's all very well for you to laugh," said Tom when the merriment had subsided a little, "but I'd like to know how many of you would have known that I made a blunder if George Dewey hadn't explained it to you—probably not one. I can't see that anybody but George has a right to laugh at me, and I noticed that he laughed least of all."
The boys appeared to feel the sting of Tom's argument, but at the same time they felt that any opportunity to laugh at him should be improved, because he was critical and sarcastic above all the rest. They wanted to resent his remark, but did not know of any way to do it effectively, and were all getting into ill humor when Felix Ostrom thought of a way to turn the subject and restore good feeling.