e?"

"Anywhere--North Pole; South Pole; tropics. Start free from all
trammels, open new ground away from the regular beaten tracks. You
don't want to go by line steamers to regular ports. Get a big
ocean-going yacht, and sail round the world. Here, what are you
grinning at, patient?"

"At your idea, sir. It is so wild."

"Wild to you, sir, because you are so tame. It may have seemed a little
wild for Captain Cook and Bougainville and the old Dutch navigators,
with their poor appliances and ignorance of what there was beyond the
seas. Wild too for Columbus; but wild now! Bah! I'm ashamed of you."

"You must recollect that Jack is no sailor," said Sir John, interposing.
"He was very ill when we crossed to Calais."

"Ill! A bit sea-sick. That's nothing."

"I am not sailor enough to manage a yacht."

"What of that? Charter a good vessel, and get a clever captain and
mate, and the best crew that can be picked. You can afford it, and to
do it well, and relieve yourself of all anxieties, so as to be free both
of you to enjoy your cruise."

"Enjoy!" said Jack piteously.

"But the responsibility?" said Sir John thoughtfully. "I should like it
vastly. But to take a sick lad to sea? Suppose he were taken worse?"

"Couldn't be."

"Don't exaggerate, doctor. Fancy us away from all civilised help, and
Jack growing far weaker--no medical advice."

"I tell you he would grow stronger every day. Well, take a few boxes of
pills with you; fish for cod, and make your own cod-liver oil, and make
him drink it--oil to trim the lamp of his waning life and make it burn.
He won't want anything of the kind--rest for his brain and change are
his medicines."

"I dare not risk it," said Sir John sadly, and Jack's face began to
light up.

"Well then, if you must do something foolish, take a doctor with you."

"Ah, but how to get the right man?"

"Pooh! Hundreds would jump at the chance."

Jack sighed, and looked from one to the other, while Sir John gazed hard
at the doctor, who said merrily--

"There, don't sit trying to bring up difficulties where there is nothing
that cannot be surmounted. What have you got hold of now?"

"I have not got hold of him. I am only trying to do so."

"What do you mean?"

"The doctor. Will you go with us, Instow?"

"I?" cried Doctor Instow, staring. "Only too glad of the chance. I'm
sick of spending all my days in the sordid practice of trying to make
money, when the wo