" Reply of Bermudian of twenty-seven years'
absence: "Yes; and to think they have logical, analytical minds and
argumentative ability. You see 'em begin to whet up whenever they smell
argument in the air." Plainly these be philosophers.
Twice since we left port our engines have stopped for a couple of minutes
at a time. Now they stop again. Says the pale young man, meditatively,
"There!--that engineer is sitting down to rest again."
Grave stare from the captain, whose mighty jaws cease to work, and whose
harpooned potato stops in midair on its way to his open, paralyzed mouth.
Presently he says in measured tones, "Is it your idea that the engineer
of this ship propels her by a crank turned by his own hands?"
The pale young man studies over this a moment, then lifts up his
guileless eyes, and says, "Don't he?"
Thus gently falls the death-blow to further conversation, and the dinner
drags to its close in a reflective silence, disturbed by no sounds but
the murmurous wash of the sea and the subdued clash of teeth.
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