is so; and I do not question your courage. Then on any
day that you will appoint, GOD willing, I will give you a sail; or indeed,
this morning, if duty does not incline you in another direction, and you
will step with me into my little boat yonder.

DISCIPULA. That shall I with right good will. But I shall have to make you
wait while I get my fishing tackle.

PISCATOR. Of necessity you shall not do that; for I remember now, I can
fit you with a spare harness of my own.

DISCIPULA. Then let us be going, say I. And is this the skiff? What a
painted little cockle-shell of a boat, with its two masts! I suppose it
will bear us both?

PISCATOR. It will bear twenty like you and me. Please let me help you to
step in; and though you feel it to give under your feet, and as it were,
slide away from beneath you, yet now when you are set down on the bench,
you perceive it is perfectly steady.

DISCIPULA. Oh, I shall not be in the least afraid. What a tiny little
schooner! But is it not bold to spread both sails? And see, now that we
come round to the wind, how the skiff keels over.

PISCATOR. It is entirely safe, my fair scholar; for since you have chosen
me to be your instructor and master in the science of the angle, you must
be content to be called my scholar. It is entirely safe; and you must
observe, that however much it may keel over, it cannot upset; for if
struck by a sudden squall, or flaw of the wind, the masts will go by the
board, and so it will right.

DISCIPULA. Excellently well contrived. But has not the breeze suddenly
died away? Yet the sails are distended, and miniature waves are thrown off
from either side of the bow.

PISCATOR. The breeze seems to have decreased, because we are moving in the
same direction with it; and you will see, now when I bring the boat more
toward the wind, that it blows as strong as before, and our motion is well
nigh stopped.

DISCIPULA. That I can very well see; and I pray you, my master, not to
bring the skiff so far into the wind to prove your proposition to me as to
capsize it. The masts bend over toward the water more than it is pleasant
to see.

PISCATOR. There is no danger; and after half an hour's experience you will
become used to it, and lose all apprehension. I think I will alter our
course a couple of points; so if you have a mind, since I cannot well
leave the tiller, you may unloose the cord that fastens the forward sail
to the side of the boat; wait a moment til