deed," retorted Captain Hull, gravely, "as he has
never existed!"

And each began to laugh, looking at Cousin Benedict.

Thus, then, in these conversations, and many others, which invariably
bore on some point of entomological science, whenever Cousin Benedict
took part, passed away long hours of this navigation against contrary
winds. The sea always fine, but winds which obliged the schooner to
tack often. The "Pilgrim" made very little headway toward the east--the
breeze was so feeble; and they longed to reach those parts where the
prevailing winds would be more favorable.

It must be stated here that Cousin Benedict had endeavored to initiate
the young novice into the mysteries of entomology. But Dick Sand had
shown himself rather refractory to these advances. For want of better
company the savant had fallen back on the negroes, who comprehended
nothing about it. Tom, Acteon, Bat, and Austin had even finished by
deserting the class, and the professor found himself reduced to
Hercules alone, who seemed to him to have some natural disposition to
distinguish a parasite from a thysanuran.

So the gigantic black lived in the world of coleopteras, carnivorous
insects, hunters, gunners, ditchers, cicindelles, carabes, sylphides,
moles, cockchafers, horn-beetles, tenebrions, mites, lady-birds,
studying all Cousin Benedict's collection, not but the latter trembled
on seeing his frail specimens in Hercules' great hands, which were hard
and strong as a vise. But the colossal pupil listened so quietly to the
professor's lessons that it was worth risking something to give them.

While Cousin Benedict worked in that manner, Mrs. Weldon did not leave
little Jack entirely unoccupied; She taught him to read and to write.
As to arithmetic, it was his friend Dick Sand who inculcated the first
elements.

At the age of five, one is still only a little child, and is perhaps
better instructed by practical games than by theoretical lessons
necessarily a little arduous.

Jack learned to read, not in a primer, but by means of movable letters,
printed in red on cubes of wood. He amused himself by arranging the
blocks so as to form words. Sometimes Mrs. Weldon took these cubes and
composed a word; then she disarranged them, and it was for Jack to
replace them in the order required.

The little boy liked this manner of learning to read very much. Each
day he passed some hours, sometimes in the cabin, sometimes on the
deck, in arranging