“Certainly not. I think the idea is an excellent one, and I have not much doubt that Mr. Simpson will fall in with it.” The first lieutenant went off at once to find the clergyman. “Well, he must be a strange boy,” the chaplain said when the case was laid before him; “I should not be surprised if a fellow like that found his way to the quarter-deck some day. He appears to be a sort of admirable Crichton. Such an amount of learning is extraordinary in a boy of his age and with his opportunities, especially in one active and courageous enough to go up to the cap of the top-gallant mast on his first trial in climbing a mast. Certainly I shall be very glad to take the boy on, and will willingly give him, as you say, a quarter of an hour a day. I feel sure that my time will not be wasted. I never before heard of a ship’s boy who wished to be instructed in navigation, and I shall be glad to help such an exceptional lad.” The next day the _Furious_, having received all her stores, went out to Spithead. The midshipmen had been all fully engaged, and there were no lessons with the padre, but on the following day these were resumed, and presently one of the other boys came down with a message that Will was to go to the padre’s cabin. “I have arranged, lad,” the chaplain said when he entered, “to give you a quarter of an hour a day to help you on with your navigation, and I take it that you, on your part, are ready to do the work. It seems to me almost out of the question that you can be advanced enough to enter upon such studies. That, however, I shall soon ascertain. Now open that book and let me see how you would work out the following observation,” and he gave him the necessary data. In five minutes Will handed him the result. “Of course, sir, to obtain the exact answer I should require to know more than you have given me.” “That is quite right. To-morrow you shall go on deck with me, and I will show you how to use a quadrant and take the altitude of the sun, and from it how to calculate the longitude, which is somewhat more difficult than the latitude. I see you have a good knowledge of figures, and I am quite sure that at the end of a few days’ work you will be able to take an observation that will be close enough for all practical purposes.” He then asked Will many questions as to his course of study, the books he had read, and the manner in which he had got up the book-work of navigation. “But how did you manage about logarithms,” he said. “I generally find them great stumbling-blocks in the way of my pupils.” “I don’t really understand them now, sir. I can look down the columns and find the number I want, and see how it works out the result, but why it should do so I have not been able to understand. It seems quite different from other operations in figures.”