e three boats from the LADY ALICE from which Clayton's
boat had become separated.

Over a smooth sea they had rowed to the mainland in less than three
days. None of the horrors of shipwreck had been theirs, and though
depressed by sorrow, and suffering from the shock of the catastrophe
and the unaccustomed hardships of their new existence there was none
much the worse for the experience.

All were buoyed by the hope that the fourth boat had been picked up,
and that a thorough search of the coast would be quickly made. As all
the firearms and ammunition on the yacht had been placed in Lord
Tennington's boat, the party was well equipped for defense, and for
hunting the larger game for food.

Professor Archimedes Q. Porter was their only immediate anxiety. Fully
assured in his own mind that his daughter had been picked up by a
passing steamer, he gave over the last vestige of apprehension
concerning her welfare, and devoted his giant intellect solely to the
consideration of those momentous and abstruse scientific problems which
he considered the only proper food for thought in one of his erudition.
His mind appeared blank to the influence of all extraneous matters.

"Never," said the exhausted Mr. Samuel T. Philander, to Lord
Tennington, "never has Professor Porter been more difficult--er--I
might say, impossible. Why, only this morning, after I had been forced
to relinquish my surveillance for a brief half hour he was entirely
missing upon my return. And, bless me, sir, where do you imagine I
discovered him? A half mile out in the ocean, sir, in one of the
lifeboats, rowing away for dear life. I do not know how he attained
even that magnificent distance from shore, for he had but a single oar,
with which he was blissfully rowing about in circles.

"When one of the sailors had taken me out to him in another boat the
professor became quite indignant at my suggestion that we return at
once to land. 'Why, Mr. Philander,' he said, 'I am surprised that you,
sir, a man of letters yourself, should have the temerity so to
interrupt the progress of science. I had about deduced from certain
astronomic phenomena I have had under minute observation during the
past several tropic nights an entirely new nebular hypothesis which
will unquestionably startle the scientific world. I wish to consult a
very excellent monograph on Laplace's hypothesis, which I understand is
in a certain private collection in New York City. Your