g between mockery and respect.

The old man, either that it was his habit to talk to himself, or that
hearing some one behind incited him to speech, began to soliloquize
while he looked into space.

"The meridian, from which the right ascension is calculated, is marked
in this century by four stars--the Polar, Cassiopeia's Chair,
Andromeda's Head, and the star Algenib, which is in Pegasus. But there
is not one visible."

These words followed each other mechanically, confused, and scarcely
articulated, as if he did not care to pronounce them. They floated out
of his mouth and dispersed. Soliloquy is the smoke exhaled by the inmost
fires of the soul.

The skipper broke in, "My lord!"

The old man, perhaps rather deaf as well as very thoughtful, went on,--

"Too few stars, and too much wind. The breeze continually changes its
direction and blows inshore; thence it rises perpendicularly. This
results from the land being warmer than the water. Its atmosphere is
lighter. The cold and dense wind of the sea rushes in to replace it.
From this cause, in the upper regions the wind blows towards the land
from every quarter. It would be advisable to make long tacks between the
true and apparent parallel. When the latitude by observation differs
from the latitude by dead reckoning by not more than three minutes in
thirty miles, or by four minutes in sixty miles, you are in the true
course."

The skipper bowed, but the old man saw him not. The latter, who wore
what resembled an Oxford or Gottingen university gown, did not relax his
haughty and rigid attitude. He observed the waters as a critic of waves
and of men. He studied the billows, but almost as if he was about to
demand his turn to speak amidst their turmoil, and teach them something.
There was in him both pedagogue and soothsayer. He seemed an oracle of
the deep.

He continued his soliloquy, which was perhaps intended to be heard.

"We might strive if we had a wheel instead of a helm. With a speed of
twelve miles an hour, a force of twenty pounds exerted on the wheel
produces three hundred thousand pounds' effect on the course. And more
too. For in some cases, with a double block and runner, they can get two
more revolutions."

The skipper bowed a second time, and said, "My lord!"

The old man's eye rested on him; he had turned his head without moving
his body.

"Call me Doctor."

"Master Doctor, I am the skipper."

"Just so," said the doctor.

The doctor,