kind of madness, seeing that a man who suffers from this disorder will, like a madman, experience twenty different moods in an hour. ‘You do not appear to find the dukes and earls of this star-and-garter novel very engaging company,’ said I, placing the book in her lap again. ‘It is a good sort of novel to dream over,’ said she; ‘the moment I look at it I find my mind thinking of something else.’ ‘A pity Wilfrid cannot read,’ said I, ‘but his mind, like the poet’s eye, glances too much. There are two unfailing tests of brain power: the appreciation of humour and the capacity of concentration.’ ‘Might not a very clever man laugh at a very silly joke?’ she asked. ‘Yes, but his laugh will be of a different sort from a stupid fellow’s at the same joke. Where did you leave Wilfrid?’ ‘In the cabin. Muffin came up to me just now, apparently on his way to his master, and begged me in a most strange, suppliant, hollow way to implore you not to allow Sir Wilfrid to suspect that the handwriting was a trick; “for,” said the man, “if he gets that notion into his head he will suspect me, and then, miss,” he said, “the baronet might take my life, for if he’s scarcely responsible for what he does when he’s in a good temper, what would he not be capable of when he’s in a dreadful passion?” This was in effect what he said. His language and manner are not to be imitated. I told him very coldly that neither of us was likely to tell Sir Wilfrid, not because we should not be very pleased to see him punished by his master as he deserved, even though it came to shooting him,’ she exclaimed, lifting her eyes to mine with roguish enjoyment of Muffin’s terror, ‘but because we were anxious that Sir Wilfrid should be spared the humiliation of the discovery.’ ‘Muffin will be out of this end of the ship before noon,’ said I. ‘What have you arranged?’ ‘His name will be entered in the articles as a boy, that is, as a sailor below the grade of an ordinary seaman.’ ‘Is he to work as a sailor?’ ‘Finn will try him.’ ‘The poor wretch!’ she cried, looking aloft; ‘have you ever observed his feet? Such a man as that cannot climb.’ ‘They’ll put him to deck work,’ said I, ‘scrubbing, polishing, scraping, painting.’ She fell silent, with her gaze upon the open book. Presently she sent a slow, thoughtful look along the sea and sighed. ‘Mr. Monson, I wonder if we shall fall in with the “Shark”?’ I shook my head. ‘But why not?’ she exclaimed with a pretty pettishness. ‘She might be yonder at this moment,’ said I, pointing to the light-blue horizon that lined, like an edging of glass, the sky upon our starboard beam. ‘Who is to tell? Our field is too big for such a chase.’ ‘We shall find them at Table Bay, then,’ she said defiantly.