of the Esperanza, and he was a very promising chap. He knew his way
about the North Sea blindfold, and all he didn't know about his trade
wasn't worth knowing. If you had asked him who Mr. Gladstone was he
would probably have said, "I've heerd on him," but he could not have
told you anything about Mr. Gladstone or any other statesman. So far as
the world ashore went, Joe was as ignorant as a five-year-old child, and
you would have laughed till you cried had you seen his delight when the
pictures in a nursery-book were explained to him. It is hardly possible
to imagine the existence of a grown man who is ignorant of things that
are known to a child in the infant school; but there are many such
knocking about at sea. What can you expect? They live amid the moaning
desolation of that sad sea all the year round; they never used to have
any schooling, and their world even now is limited by the blank horizon,
with the rail of their boat for inner barrier. Glenn could very nearly
read Moore's Almanac, and, as that great work was the only literature on
board, he often interpreted it, and he was counted a great scholar.
Then, he could actually use a sextant, and his way of working out his
latitude was chaste and picturesque. Supposing he made the sun 29 deg.
18 min., and the declination for the day was 6 deg. 34 min. 22 sec., then
he put down his figures this way:--

8948
2918
6300
634
5356

and when his chums saw him working out this profound calculation on the
side of a bucket or on the companion hatch, they would say, "He's a
wonnerful masterpiece. Yea, but he is, and nothin' but that."

Glenn was daring--but that is nothing to say, for all the fishermen seem
insensible to fear. He was only once scared, and that was when he found
a man leaning against the boat one pitch-dark night, just after the
fishers had hauled. Joe thought the fellow was loafing, so he hit him a
clout on the head, and made very uncomplimentary remarks. The victim of
the assault took it very coolly, and one of the crew shouted--

"Don't touch that theer! He come up in the net while you was below."

Then Joe looked at the face, and when he found he had been punching a
dead man he was sick.

But under any ordinary circumstances you couldn't shake the man's nerve,
and he was fit to go anywhere, and do anything so far as the sea was
concerned.

The Esperanza got up to her consorts, and then the usual toilsome
monotony of the f