koned the last month of the
year. It was only in the reign of Charles IX. of France, or in the
second half of the sixteenth century, that the civil year was made to
begin on the 1st of January. As the end of February was five days
before the 1st or kalends of March, the extra day was known by the
phrase _bis sexto_ (_ante_) _calendus martii_. Hence the fourth year
is termed in the calendar _bissextile_, but is more usually called by
us in England _leap year_."

"The remedy is certainly simple; but are your figures perfectly
square? If you add a day every four years, do you not overleap the
earth's fraction?"

"Yes, from ten to eleven minutes."

"And what becomes of these minutes? Are they allowed to run up another
score?"

"No, not exactly. In 1582, the civil year had got ten clear days the
start of the solar year, and Pope Gregory XIII. resolved to cancel
them, which he effected by calling the day after the 4th of October
the 15th."

"That manner of altering the rig and squaring the yards," said Willi
laughing, "would make the people that lived then ten days older. If it
had been ten years, the matter would have been serious. Had the Pope
said to me privately, 'Willis, you are now only forty-seven, but
to-morrow, my boy, you will fill your sails and steer right into
fifty-seven,' I should have turned 'bout ship and cleared off. Few men
care about being put upon a short allowance of life, any more than we
sailors on short rations of rum."

"But you forget, Willis, that, though ten years were added to your
age, you would not have died a day sooner for all that."

"Still, it is my idea that the Pope was not much smarter at taking a
latitude than Mr. Julius Caesar--but what are you laughing at?"

"Nothing; only Julius Caesar is not generally honored with the prefix
_Mr_. It is something like the French, who insist upon talking of _Sir
Newton_ and _Mr. William Shakespeare_; the latter, however, by way of
amends, they sometimes style the _immortal Williams_.'"

"Not so bad, though, as a Frenchman I once met, who firmly believed
the Yankees lived on a soup made of bunkum and soft-sawder. But who
was Julius Caesar."

"Julius Caesar," replied Jack, sententiously, "was first of all an
author, Laving published at Rome an Easy Introduction to the Latin
Language; he afterwards turned general, conquered France and England,
and gave _Mr._ Pompey a sound thrashing at the battle of Pharsalia."

"He must have been a cleve