theological acuteness, or the young Telemachus suiting his
temper to the dolphin's moods, since he must somehow get on shore on
the dolphin's back. Captain Welsh could not perceive in Temple the
personifier of Alcibiades, nor Telemachus in me; but he was aware of an
obstinate obstruction behind our compliance. This he called the devil
coiled like a snake in its winter sleep. He hurled texts at it openly,
or slyly dropped a particularly heavy one, in the hope of surprising it
with a death-blow. We beheld him poring over his Bible for texts that
should be sovereign medicines for us, deadly for the devil within us.
Consequently, we were on the defensive: bits of Cicero, bits of
Seneca, soundly and nobly moral, did service on behalf of Paganism;
we remembered them certainly almost as if an imp had brought them
from afar. Nor had we any desire to be in opposition to the cause he
supported. What we were opposed to was the dogmatic arrogance of a
just but ignorant man, who had his one specific for everything, and saw
mortal sickness in all other remedies or recreations. Temple said to
him,

'If the Archbishop of Canterbury were to tell me Greek and Latin authors
are bad for me, I should listen to his remarks, because he 's a scholar:
he knows the languages and knows what they contain.'

Captain Welsh replied,

'If the Archbishop o' Canterbury sailed the sea, and lived in Foul
Alley, Waterside, when on shore, and so felt what it is to toss on top
of the waves o' perdition, he'd understand the value of a big, clean,
well-manned, well-provisioned ship, instead o' your galliots wi' gaudy
sails, your barges that can't rise to a sea, your yachts that run to
port like mother's pets at first pipe o' the storm, your trim-built
wherries.'

'So you'd have only one sort of vessel afloat!' said I. 'There's the
difference of a man who's a scholar.'

'I'd have,' said the captain, 'every lad like you, my lad, trained in
the big ship, and he wouldn't capsize, and be found betrayed by his
light timbers as I found you. Serve your apprenticeship in the Lord's
three-decker; then to command what you may.'

'No, no, Captain Welsh,' says Temple: 'you must grind at Latin and Greek
when you 're a chick, or you won't ever master the rudiments. Upon my
honour, I declare it 's the truth, you must. If you'd like to try, and
are of a mind for a go at Greek, we'll do our best to help you through
the aorists. It looks harder than Latin, but after a sta