like all midshipmen, anticipating fun, and quite
thoughtless of the consequences.

The second day after they had been anchored in Vallette harbour, the
boatswain and gunner, Jack and Gascoigne, obtained permission to go on
shore. Mr Easthupp, the purser's steward, dressed in his best blue
coat with brass buttons and velvet collar, the very one in which he had
been taken up when he had been vowing and protesting that he was a
gentleman, at the very time that his hand was abstracting a pocket book,
went up on the quarter-deck, and requested the same indulgence, but Mr
Sawbridge refused, as he required him to return staves and hoops at the
cooperage. Mesty also, much to his mortification, was not to be spared.

This was awkward, but it was got over by proposing that the meeting
should take place behind the cooperage at a certain hour, on which Mr
Easthupp might slip out and borrow a portion of the time appropriated to
his duty, to heal the breach in his wounded honour. So the parties all
went on shore, and put up at one of the small inns to make the necessary
arrangements.

Mr Tallboys then addressed Mr Gascoigne, taking him apart while the
boatswain amused himself with a glass of grog, and our hero sat outside
teasing a monkey.

"Mr Gascoigne," said the gunner, "I have been very much puzzled how
this duel should be fought, but I have at last found it out. You see
that there are _three_ parties to fight; had there been two or four
there would have been no difficulty, as the right line or square might
guide us in that instance; but we must arrange it upon the _triangle_ in
this."

Gascoigne stared; he could not imagine what was coming.

"Are you aware, Mr Gascoigne, of the properties of an equilateral
triangle?"

"Yes," replied the midshipman, "that it has three equal sides--but what
the devil has that to do with the duel?"

"Everything, Mr Gascoigne," replied the gunner; "it has resolved the
great difficulty: indeed, the duel between three can only be fought upon
that principle. You observe," said the gunner, taking a piece of chalk
out of his pocket, and making a triangle on the table, "in this figure
we have three points, each equidistant from each other; and we have
three combatants--so that placing one at each point, it is all fair play
for the three: Mr Easy, for instance, stands here, the boatswain here,
and the purser's steward at the third corner. Now, if the distance is
fairly measured, it will be