that the dinner should be furnished from the contents of the basket.

As soon as tide turned the anchor was hove up and the _Susan_ got
under way again. The boys soon learnt the meaning of the word beating,
and found that it meant sailing backwards and forwards across the
channel, with the wind sometimes on one side of the boat and sometimes
on the other. Geoffrey wanted very much to learn why, when the wind was
so nearly ahead, the boat advanced instead of drifting backwards or
sideways. But this was altogether beyond the power of either Master
Lirriper or Joe Chambers to explain. They said every one knew that when
the sails were full a vessel went in the direction in which her head
pointed. "It's just the same way with yourself, Master Geoffrey. You
see, when you look one way that's the way you go. When you turn your
head and point another way, of course you go off that way; and it's
just the same thing with the ship."

"I don't think it's the same thing, Master Lirriper," Geoffrey said
puzzled. "In one case the power that makes one go comes from the
inside, and so one can go in any direction one likes; in the other it
comes from outside, and you would think the ship would have to go any
way the wind pushes her. If you stand up and I give you a push, I push
you straight away from me. You don't go sideways or come forward in the
direction of my shoulder, which is what the ship does."

John Lirriper took off his cap and scratched his head.

"I suppose it is as you say, Master Geoffrey, though I never thought of
it before. There is some reason, no doubt, why the craft moves up
against the wind so long as the sails are full, instead of drifting
away to leeward; though I never heard tell of it, and never heard