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Page 29
"Well, I don't care," said Columbus, with a short laugh. "I'm the one they
celebrate, so what's the odds? I'd rather stay down here in the
smoking-room enjoying a small game, anyhow, than climb up that mast and
strain my eyes for ten or a dozen hours looking for evidence to prove or
disprove the correctness of another man's theory. I wouldn't know evidence
when I saw it, anyhow. Send Judge Blackstone."
"I draw the line at the mizzentop," observed Blackstone. "The dignity of
the bench must and shall be preserved, and I'll never consent to climb up
that rigging, getting pitch and paint on my ermine, no matter who asks me
to go."
[Illustration: JUDGE BLACKSTONE REFUSES TO CLIMB TO THE MIZZENTOP]
"Whomsoever I tell to go, shall go," put in Holmes, firmly. "I am
commander of this ship. It will pay you to remember that, Judge
Blackstone."
"And I am the Court of Appeals," retorted Blackstone, hotly. "Bear that in
mind, captain, when you try to send me up. I'll issue a writ of _habeas
corpus_ on my own body, and commit you for contempt."
"There's no use of sending the Judge, anyhow," said Raleigh, fearing by
the glitter that came into the eye of the commander that trouble might
ensue unless pacificatory measures were resorted to. "He's accustomed to
weighing everything carefully, and cannot be rushed into a decision. If he
saw any evidence, he'd have to sit on it a week before reaching a
conclusion. What we need here more than anything else is an expert seaman,
a lookout, and I nominate Shem. He has sailed under his father, and I have
it on good authority that he is a nautical expert."
Holmes hesitated for an instant. He was considering the necessity of
disciplining the recalcitrant Blackstone, but he finally yielded.
"Very well," he said. "Shem be it. Bo'sun, pipe Shem on deck, and tell him
that general order number one requires him to report at the mizzentop
right away, and that immediately he sees anything he shall come below and
make it known to me. As for the rest of us, having a very considerable
appetite, I do now decree that it is dinner-time. Shall we go below?"
[Illustration: SHEM IN THE LOOKOUT]
"I don't think I care for any, thank you," said Raleigh. "Fact is--ah--I
dined last week, and am not hungry."
Noah laughed. "Oh, come below and watch us eat, then," he said. "It'll do
you good."
But there was no reply. Raleigh had plunged head first into his
state-room, which fortunately happened to be on the upper deck. The rest
of the spirits repaired below to the saloon, where they were soon engaged
in an animated discussion of such viands as the larder provided.
"This," said Dr. Johnson, from the head of the table, "is what I call
comfort. I don't know that I am so anxious to recover the House-boat,
after all."
"Nor I," said Socrates, "with a ship like this to go off cruising on, and
with such a larder. Look at the thickness of that puree, Doctor--"
"Excuse me," said Boswell, faintly, "but I--I've left my note-bub-book
upstairs, Doctor, and I'd like to go up and get it."
"Certainly," said Dr. Johnson. "I judge from your color, which is highly
suggestive of a modern magazine poster, that it might be well too if you
stayed on deck for a little while and made a few entries in your
commonplace book."
"Thank you," said Boswell, gratefully. "Shall you say anything clever
during dinner, sir? If so, I might be putting it down while I'm up--"
"Get out!" roared the Doctor. "Get up as high as you can--get up with Shem
on the mizzentop--"
"Very good, sir," replied Boswell, and he was off.
"You ought to be more lenient with him, Doctor," said Bonaparte; "he means
well."
"I know it," observed Johnson; "but he's so very previous. Last winter, at
Chaucer's dinner to Burns, I made a speech, which Boswell printed a week
before it was delivered, with the words 'laughter' and 'uproarious
applause' interspersed through it. It placed me in a false position."
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