a dozen magic
squares, "but how do you do it? Do you have to remember all those
figures and just where they go?"

"Don't remember any of him," the other answered. "He has to go so."

"But I can't make them come that way," exclaimed the boy, after trying
for a few minutes. "What's the trick?"

"All friends," repeated the old man, and in his curiously jolting speech
he told Eric the startling links that are found in the powers of
numbers. As soon as he had the principle clearly in mind, the boy found
that there was no great difficulty in making up the most astonishing
magic squares.

As the winter drew on, and calls for help on the stormy waters
increased, the opportunities for sessions with the shrewd old
mathematician grew fewer, but Eric stuck fast to his promise to spend
all the time he could afford with his instructor. He was keenly
disappointed that the puzzle-maker showed such an absolute disregard of
the actual things the boy wanted to prepare for in his examinations. But
Eric had been rigidly trained by his father in the sportsmanlike
attitude of never complaining about any arrangement he had made
himself, and he paid for his coaching out of his small earnings without
a word. In order to make up for what he inwardly felt was lost time, he
worked by himself at his books in such few minutes as he was able to
snatch from his life-saving duties. And, although he was tired almost to
exhaustion, many and many a day, he found that even in that work he was
getting along quite well.

Eric could never get his eccentric teacher to look at the books required
in his preparatory work. What was more, he had a feeling that he
couldn't really be getting much good from his hours spent with Dan,
because he enjoyed them so much. Early schooldays had made him associate
progress with discomfort.

For example, one day Dan showed him tricks with cards--and then
explained the mathematics of it, making the most puzzling mysteries seem
only unusual applications of very simple principles. Another day, the
puzzle-maker told him of curious problems of chance, by dice, by
lotteries, and so forth, and almost before Eric realized what the old
man was driving at, the essential ideas of insurance and actuary work
were firmly fixed in his mind.

It was not until a couple of weeks before the expected close of
navigation that the puzzle-maker said,

"Let me see book!"

Astonished at the now unexpected request, Eric handed him the much
b