Try to realize the fact that to him the sailing-boat is only a means of locomotion, and that he will refer to his watch and compare it with other means of locomotion already known to him, not having the slightest affectionate prejudice in its favor or gentle tolerance of its defects. If you could always have a steady fair wind he would enjoy the boat as much as a coach or a very slow railway train, but he will chafe at every delay. None of the details that delight you can have the slightest interest for him. The sails, and particularly the cordage, seem to him an irritating complication which, he thinks, might be simplified, and he will not give any mental effort to master them. He cares nothing about those qualities of sails and hull which have been the subject of such profound scientific investigation, such long and passionate controversy. You cannot speak of anything on board without employing technical terms which, however necessary, however unavoidable, will seem to him a foolish and useless affectation by which an amateur tries to give himself nautical airs. If you say "the mainsheet" he thinks you might have said more rationally and concisely "the cord by which you pull towards you that long pole which is under the biggest of the sails," and if you say "the starboard quarter," he thinks you ought to have said, in simple English, "that part of the vessel's side that is towards the back end of it and to your right hand when you are standing with your face looking forwards." If you happen to be becalmed he suffers from an infinite _ennui_. If you have to beat to windward he is indifferent to the wonderful art and vexed with you because, as his host, you have not had the politeness and the forethought to provide a favorable breeze. If you are a yachtsman of limited means and your guest has to take a small share in working the vessel, he will not perform it with any cheerful alacrity, but consider it unfit for a gentleman. If this goes on for long it is likely that there will be irritation on both sides, snappish expressions, and a quarrel. Who is in fault? Both are excusable in the false situation that has been created, but it ought not to have been created at all. You ought not to have invited a man without nautical instincts, or he ought not to have accepted the invitation. He was a charming companion on land, and that misled you both. Meet him on land again, receive him hospitably at your house. I would say "forgive him!" if there were anything to forgive, but it is not any fault of his or any merit of yours if, by the irrevocable fate of congenital idiosyncrasy, the amusement that you were destined to seek and enjoy is the _corvée_ that he was destined to avoid.