“You are right, madam,” said the captain cordially; “Dick is a capital fellow, and will be sure to be a first-rate sailor. He has an instinct which is little short of a genius; it supplies all deficiencies of theory. Considering how short an experience and how little instruction he has had, it is quite wonderful how much he knows about a ship.”
“Certainly for his age,” assented Mrs. Weldon, “he is singularly advanced. I can safely say that I have never had a fault to find with him. I believe that it is my husband’s intention, after this voyage, to let him have systematic training in navigation, so that he may be able ultimately to become a captain.”
“I have no misgivings, madam,” replied the captain; “there is every reason to expect that he will be an honour to the service.”
“Poor orphan!” said the lady; “he has been trained in a hard school.”
“Its lessons have not been lost upon him,” rejoined Captain Hull; “they have taught him the prime lesson that he has his own way to make in the world.”
The eyes of the two speakers turned as it were unwittingly in the direction where Dick Sands happened to be standing. He was at the helm.
“Look at him now!” said the captain; “see how steadily he keeps his eye upon the fore; nothing distracts him from his duty; he is as much to be depended on as the most experienced helmsman. It was a capital thing for him that he began his training as a cabin-boy. Nothing like it. Begin at the beginning. It is the best of training for the merchant service.”
“But surely,” interposed Mrs. Weldon, “you would not deny that in the navy there have been many good officers who have never had the training of which you are speaking?”
“True, madam; but yet even some of the best of them have begun at the lowest step of the ladder. For instance, Lord Nelson.”
Just at this instant Cousin Benedict emerged from the stern-cabin, and completely absorbed, according to his wont, in his own pursuit, began to wander up and down the deck, peering into the interstices of the network, rummaging under the seats, and drawing his long fingers along the cracks in the floor where the tar had crumbled away.
“Well, Benedict, how are you getting on?” asked Mrs. Weldon.
“I? Oh, well enough, thank you,” he replied dreamily; “but I wish we were on shore.”
“What were you looking for under that bench?” said Captain Hull.
“Insects, of course,” answered Benedict; “I am always looking for insects.”
“But don’t you know, Benedict,” said Mrs. Weldon, “that Captain Hull is far too particular to allow any vermin on the deck of his vessel?”
Captain Hull smiled and said—
“Mrs. Weldon is very complimentary; but I am really inclined to hope that your investigations in the cabins of the Pilgrim will not be attended with much success.”
Cousin Benedict shrugged his shoulders in a manner that indicated that he was aware that the cabins could furnish nothing attractive in the way of insects.
“However,” continued the captain, “I dare say down in the hold you could find some cockroaches; but cockroaches, I presume, would be of little or no interest to you.”
“No interest?” cried Benedict, at once warmed into enthusiasm; “why, are they not the very orthoptera that roused the imprecations of Virgil and Horace? Are they not closely allied to the Periplaneta orientalis and the American Kakerlac, which inhabit—”
“I should rather say infest,” interrupted the captain.
“Easy enough to see, sir,” replied Benedict, stopping short with amazement, “that you are not an entomologist!”
“I fear I must plead guilty to your accusation,” said the captain good-humouredly.
“You must not expect everyone to be such an enthusiast in your favourite study as yourself.” Mrs. Weldon interposed; “but are you not satisfied with the result of your explorations in New Zealand?”
“Yes, yes,” answered Benedict, with a sort of hesitating reluctance; “I must not say I was dissatisfied; I was really very delighted to secure that new staphylinid which hitherto had never been seen elsewhere than in New Caledonia; but still, you know, an entomologist is always craving for fresh additions to his collection.”
While he was speaking, Dingo, leaving little Jack, who was romping with him, came and jumped on Benedict, and began to fawn on him.
“Get away, you brute!” he exclaimed, thrusting the dog aside.
“Poor Dingo! good dog!” cried Jack, running up and taking the animal’s huge head between his tiny hands.
“Your interest in cockroaches, Mr. Benedict,” observed the captain, “does not seem to extend to dogs.”
“It isn’t that I dislike dogs at all,” answered Benedict; “but this creature has disappointed me.”
“How do you mean? You could hardly want to catalogue him with the Diptera or Hymenoptera?” asked Mrs. Weldon laughingly.
“Oh, not at all,” replied Benedict, with the most unmoved gravity. “But I understood that he had been found on the West Coast of Africa, and I hoped that perhaps he might have brought over some African Hemiptera in his coat; but I have searched his coat well, over and over again, without finding a single specimen. The dog has disappointed me,” he repeated mournfully.
“I can only hope,” said the captain, “that if you had found anything, you were going to kill it instantly.”
Benedict looked with mute astonishment into the captain’s face. In a moment or two afterwards, he said—
“I suppose, sir, you acknowledge that Sir John Franklin was an eminent member of your profession?”
“Certainly; why?”
“Because Sir John would never take away the life of the most insignificant insect; it is related of him that when he had once been incessantly tormented all day by a mosquito, at last he found it on the back of his hand and blew it off, saying, ‘Fly away, little creature, the world is large enough for both you and me!’ ”
“That little anecdote of yours, Mr. Benedict,” said the captain, smiling, “is a good deal older than Sir John Franklin. It is told, in nearly the same words, about Uncle Toby, in
