carried his authority back to his room, he
turned in and took his nap, in order to be ready for his watch at eight
bells in the afternoon watch. In fact, all but the watch on deck were
asleep.

The passengers seemed to be rather logy in their movements and heavy of
intellect, perhaps because they had slept so well. It was cool at sea in
comparison with the shore, and they had by this time become accustomed
to extremely hot weather. But they waked up before the meal was
finished, and all the talk was about the frolics of the last two days.

"What do you call the place where we go next, Captain Ringgold?" asked
Uncle Moses. "I see it spelled in the books with a single _l_ and with a
double _l_. Which is correct?"

"Both," replied the commander. "If you are writing Spanish, you use one
_l_; if you are writing English, you may use two _l's_, though I don't
believe in doing so."

"Do the Spaniards ever double the _l_?"

"I will leave the professor to answer that question," replied the
captain.

"They never spell Manila with two _l's_ when they spell it correctly;
for that would make another word of it,--a common noun instead of a
proper, and meaning quite another thing," the professor explained.

"Perhaps I am stupid, Professor, and I know next to nothing of the
Spanish language," added Uncle Moses, "but I don't quite understand you.
If a Spaniard spelled the capital of the Philippine Islands with a
double _l_ it wouldn't be the capital at all?"

"It would not."

"What would it be?"

"It would be something of which Miss Blanche has a couple in her
possession; and I may say the same of every lady at the table," said the
professor with a cheerful smile on his face.

"But which no gentleman has?" suggested the worthy trustee.

"I don't say that; for the word means in Spanish a small hand."

There was a general laugh around the table, and all the party held out
their paws like dancing bears.

"Then Spaniards must be good spellers," said Dr. Hawkes. "There is very
great difference between the capital of the Philippine Islands and Miss
Blanche's pretty little hands."

"_Ll_, which we call double _l_, is treated as one letter in Spanish,
and it has its own peculiar sound, nearly equivalent to _ly_ in English;
and therefore Miss Blanche's small hand would be called mah-nil-ya,
which is not the capital spoken off. The name of all the islands is
spelled in English with double _p_,--Philippine; but that is not
Spani