'Behold yonder moon,' continued the doctor, pointing with the stem of his pipe to the luminary, beautiful with her greenish tinge, so sparklingly and brilliantly edged, too, so marvellously clear-cut, that you might then realize, if you never did before, the miracle of her self-poised flight through the domain of violet ether. 'She is a circle,' said the doctor. 'So is the sun. So are the stars. The flight of our system through space, if not a circle, is nearly so--enough to justify my theory that, when the Great Hand launched Creation, the design was one of circles.' 'Oh, blow that!' said one of the gentlemen. 'Parry, hand us a cheroot.' 'Whatever brings God closer to us is good,' said the doctor. 'This theory of construction proves the existence of a genius like to man's in the Great Spirit, and we can be in sympathy with it.' 'The breeze seems scanting,' said Captain Parry. 'If this voyage goes on lasting, I shall be like the sailor who, when he was washed ashore on a desert island in his shirt, complained that he certainly did feel the want of a few necessaries.' 'A man going home to be married ought not to be becalmed,' said the doctor. 'How do you like the idea of being married, Parry?' said the third gentleman, who was one Lieutenant Piercy. Captain Parry viewed the beautiful moon in silence. 'Until I got married myself,' said the Doctor, 'I used to express marriage by what I consider an excellent image. A man marrying is like unto a ship that grounds on a bar and beats over, where she lies unable to get out; so other ships passing behold her riding, royal yards across, and the bar thick under the bows.' Captain Parry continued to view the moon. 'A man for comfort,' said Piercy, 'should marry a roomy woman. You know what I mean--a woman who'll give him plenty of geographical and intellectual room to move in. He's still contained in her, d'ye see, still in sympathy, still sacramentally one, yet he's got plenty of room,' he drawled. 'I remember some idiots who berthed a number of horses on board ship, and allowed no room for the toss of their heads. It's room that a chap wants in marriage.' 'Isn't that something white ahead there?' said Parry, pointing into the starry visionary distance, right over the bow. The others seemed to look. 'Something white should be a ghost,' said Piercy. 'I wonder if ghosts walk the sea as they do churchyards?' 'The most terrifying ghost that, to my mind, ever appeared,' said the doctor, 'must have been the spirit of the Prince of Saxony. He came in complete steel, suddenly, upon his unhappy relative, who had idly pronounced his name, never dreaming to see him, and said: "Karl, Karl, was wollst du mit mich?" Is it the German that makes this question awful?' 'The worst of all ghosts,' said Captain Parry, who had been straining his eyes at the elusive gleam ahead, 'are the phantasies of the sick eye.' 'Right,' said the doctor.