bears eight points off the wind; but we haven't got any wind, for all
the barometer falling. Where's his centre now?"

"We will get the wind presently," mumbled Jukes.

"Let it come, then," said Captain MacWhirr, with dignified indignation.
"It's only to let you see, Mr. Jukes, that you don't find everything in
books. All these rules for dodging breezes and circumventing the winds
of heaven, Mr. Jukes, seem to me the maddest thing, when you come to
look at it sensibly."

He raised his eyes, saw Jukes gazing at him dubiously, and tried to
illustrate his meaning.

"About as queer as your extraordinary notion of dodging the ship head
to sea, for I don't know how long, to make the Chinamen comfortable;
whereas all we've got to do is to take them to Fu-chau, being timed to
get there before noon on Friday. If the weather delays me--very well.
There's your log-book to talk straight about the weather. But suppose
I went swinging off my course and came in two days late, and they asked
me: 'Where have you been all that time, Captain?' What could I say to
that? 'Went around to dodge the bad weather,' I would say. 'It must've
been dam' bad,' they would say. 'Don't know,' I would have to say; 'I've
dodged clear of it.' See that, Jukes? I have been thinking it all out
this afternoon."

He looked up again in his unseeing, unimaginative way. No one had ever
heard him say so much at one time. Jukes, with his arms open in the
doorway, was like a man invited to behold a miracle. Unbounded wonder
was the intellectual meaning of his eye, while incredulity was seated in