‘Oh, I hate the dead calm at sea!’ I cried. ‘Yet I fear we are booked. Look straight up, Miss Jennings, you will behold a very storm of shooting stars. When I was in these waters, but much more west and east than where we now are, I took notice that whenever the sky shed meteors in any abundance a calm followed, and the duration of the stagnant time was in proportion to the abundance of the silver discharge. But who is that standing aft by the wheel there?’ My question was heard and answered. ‘It’s me--Capt’n Finn, sir.’ ‘We’re in for a calm, I fear, Finn.’ ‘I fear so, sir,’ he answered, slowly coming over to us. ‘Great pity though. I was calculating upon the little breeze to-day lasting to draw us out of this here belt. Them shooting stars too ain’t wholesome. Some says they signifies wind, and so they may to the norrards, but not down here. Beg pardon, Mr. Monson, but how is Sir Wilfrid, sir? Han’t seen him on deck all day. I hope his honour’s pretty well?’ ‘Come this way, Finn,’ said I. The three of us stepped to the weather rail, somewhat forward, clear of the ears of the helmsman. ‘Captain,’ said I, ‘my cousin’s very bad and I desire to talk to you about him.’ ‘Sorry to hear it, sir,’ he answered in a voice of concern; ‘the heat’s a-trying him, may be.’ ‘He refuses to leave his cabin,’ said I, ‘and why, think you? Because he has got it into his head that he has grown too broad to pass through the door or even to squeeze through that hatch there.’ ‘Gor bless me!’ he exclaimed, ‘what a notion to take on. And yet it ain’t the first time I’ve heard of such whims. I was once shipmate with a man who believed his nose to be a knife. I’ve seen him a trying to cut up tobacco with it. There’s no arguing with people when they gets them tempers.’ ‘But don’t you think, Captain Finn,’ said Miss Jennings, ‘that with some trouble Sir Wilfrid might be coaxed into coming on deck? If he could be induced to pass through his door he would find the hatch easy. Then, when on deck, confidence would return to him and his crazy notion leave him.’ ‘Won’t he make the heffort, miss?’ inquired Finn. I answered ‘No. He says that it would tear him to pieces to be dragged through.’