y to.

"There was a brig about a mile away, and when she saw us layin' to, she
put about and made for us, and when she was near enough she hailed to
know if anything was the matter. She was a French brig, but Captain Dork
understood her, and I told him to bid her 'Good morning,' and to tell
her that nothin' was the matter, but that we were just stoppin' to rest.
I don't know what he did tell her, but she put about her helm and was
off again on her own business.

"'Now,' said I to Captain Dork, 'I want you to back this steamer due
east to the Island of Ushant.'

"He looked at me and began to swear. He took me for a maniac,--a wild,
crazy man, and told me the best thing I could do would be to go below
and turn in, and he would take me back to my friends, if I had any.

"I didn't want to tell him what I was up to, but I found I had to, and
so I explained to him that I was a rich sailor takin' a lark, and the
lark I wanted to take was, to sail on a parallel of latitude a hundred
miles in a steamer, and then to back that steamer along that same
parallel to the place where she started from. I didn't believe that
there was ever a ship in the world that had done that, and bein' on a
lark, I wanted to do it, and was willin' to pay for it; and if his
engineers and his crew grumbled about backing the steamer for a hundred
miles, he could explain to them how the matter stood, and tell them that
bein' on a lark I was willin' to pay for all extra trouble I might put
them to, and for any disturbances in their minds which might rise from
sailin' a vessel in a way which didn't seem to be accordin' to the
ordinary rules of navigation.

"Now, when Captain Dork knew that I was a rich sailor on a lark, he
understood me, and he made no more objections, though he said he
wouldn't have spent his money in that way; and when he told his crew and
his engineers and men about the extra pay, they understood the matter,
and they agreed to back her along the forty-eighth parallel just as nigh
as they could until they lay to two miles west of Ushant.

"So back we went, and they kept her due east just as nigh as they could,
and they seemed to take an interest in it, as if all of them wanted me
to have as good a lark as I could for my money, and we didn't skip that
parallel very much, although it wasn't an easy job, I can tell you, to
keep her head due west and her stern due east, and steam backwards. They
had to rig up the compass abaft the wheel,