gain. But no one
can ever tell what strange things may happen to them, at any time."

"When father's along," added Corny.

This was all nuts to the shoemaker, for we gave him more money for his
second trip down the well. I hope this didn't put the idea into his head
of shutting people down below, and making their friends come after them,
and pay extra.

"There are some things about Mr. Chipperton that I like," said Rectus,
as we walked home together.

"Yes," said I, "some things."

"I like the cool way in which he takes bad fixes," continued Rectus, who
had a fancy for doing things that way himself. "Don't you remember that
time he struck on the sand-bank. He just sat there in the rain, waiting
for the tide to rise, and made no fuss at all. And here, he kept just as
cool and comfortable, down in that dungeon. He must have educated his
mind a good deal to be able to do that."

"It may be very well to educate the mind to take things coolly," said I,
"but I'd a great deal rather educate my mind not to get me into such
fixes."

"I suppose that would be better," said Rectus, after thinking a minute.

And now we had but little time to see anything more in Nassau. In two
days the "Tigris" would be due, and we were going away in her. So we
found we should have to bounce around in a pretty lively way, if we
wanted to be able to go home and say we had seen the place.

CHAPTER XVII.

WHAT BOY HAS DONE, BOY MAY DO.

There was one place that I wished, particularly, to visit before I left,
and that was what the people in Nassau called the Coral-reef. There were
lots of coral-reefs all about the islands, but this one was easily
visited, and for this reason, I suppose, was chosen as a representative
of its class. I had been there before, and had seen all the wonders of
the reef through a water-glass,--which is a wooden box, with a pane of
glass at one end and open at the other. You hold the glass end of this
box just under the water, and put your face to the open end, and then
you can see down under the water, exactly as if you were looking through
the air. And on this coral-reef, where the water was not more than
twelve or fourteen feet deep, there were lots of beautiful things to
see. It was like a submarine garden. There was coral in every form and
shape, and of different colors; there were sea-feathers, which stood up
like waving purple trees, most of them a foot or two high, but some a
good deal higher; there