This scheme vastly puzzled the commodore. "I'd like to get to the bottom of it. It's my private opinion that he deserves a tar-and-feather party, but I haven't anything to proceed on but strong suspicions. Every time I go to look in on Congress, blast me, if I don't run afoul of Murad. He told me, the last time, that a naval committee desired to question him on trade conditions in the East. Time must hang heavy on the hands of our representatives--hobnobbing with such a fellow! They better spend their hours in finding a way to set our American lads free from Turkish chains. Can't they see what Murad's up to? I can give a guess that'll turn out to be pretty near the truth. He's spying on Congress for the rulers of Barbary! If I can only get proof of it, we'll hang the Egyptian to the _Sally's_ yardarm!" There came a turn of events that prevented the commodore from making further inquiry into Murad's affairs--though it did not hinder him from spreading his opinions. The Administration chose the old sea-dog as a confidential messenger to bear certain important dispatches to Commissioner Benjamin Franklin, in Paris. Off he went, promising to return within six months, and pledging me that when he came back he would have a serious interview with the rector that would result in my getting permission to go to sea. Meanwhile the rector had gone to Virginia to attend a conference of ministers. He came back aflame with a new purpose, and with lips set in a thin line that spoke determination. "These stout-hearted settlers who are flocking out to settle in Kentucky," he said, "are sheep without shepherds! I have learned that there is a woeful lack of ministers in the new settlements. I have determined to spend a year there. My friend, Joshua Littleton, will occupy my place here until I return. He is a scholarly man. Your studies will not suffer under him." I did not like Mr. Littleton. He was a little dried-up man, too much occupied with studies to pay attention to the welfare of his pupils. I had a feeling that he regarded me merely as a mechanical thing that must be made to utter words and rules. You may note Mr. Littleton's industry by this advertisement that appeared frequently in a local journal: "There is a School in Baltimore, in Market Street, where Mr. Joshua Littleton, late of Yale Colledge, teaches Reading, Writing, Arithmatick, whole numbers and Fractions, Vulgar and Decimal, The Mariner's Art, Plain and Mercator's Way, also Geometry, Surveying, the Latin tongue, the Greek and Hebrew Grammars, Ethicks, Rhetorick, Logick, Natural Philosophy, and Metaphysicks, all or any of them at a reasonable price." After I had gleaned from him all he knew of the "Mariner's Art" I was eager to escape.