here is no end to the foolishness of the
questions which landsmen ask when they are at sea. Once I heard a man
stop a sailor, as he was going up the shrouds, to inquire of him whether
he thought they would see any whales on that voyage."

"And what did the sailor tell him?" asked Rollo.

"He told him," replied the surgeon, "that he thought there would be some
in sight the next morning about sunrise. So the passenger got up early
the next morning and took his seat on the deck, watching every where for
whales, while the sailors on the forecastle, who had told the story to
one another, were all laughing at him."

Rollo himself laughed at this story.

"These questions, after all, are not really so foolish as they seem,"
said the surgeon. "For instance, if a passenger asks about seeing
whales, he means merely to inquire whether there are whales in that part
of the ocean, and whether they are usually seen from the ships that pass
along; and if so, how frequently, in ordinary cases, the sight of them
may be expected. All this, rightly understood, is sensible and proper
enough; but sailors are not great philosophers, and they generally see
nothing in such inquiries but proofs of ridiculous simplicity and
chances for them to make fun.

"You can tell just how it seems to them yourself, Rollo," continued the
surgeon, "by imagining that some farmer's boys lived on a farm where
sailors, who had never been in the country before, came by every day,
and asked an endless series of ridiculous questions. For instance, on
seeing a sheep, the sailor would ask what that was. The farmer's boys
would tell him it was a sheep. The sailor would ask what it was for.
The boys would say they kept sheep to shear them and get the wool. Then
presently the sailor would see a cow, and would ask if that was a kind
of sheep. The farmer's boys would say no; it was a cow. Then the sailor
would ask if they sheared cows to get the wool. No, the boys would say;
we milk cows. Then presently he would see a horse, and he would ask
whether that was a cow or a sheep. They would say it was neither; it was
a horse. Then the sailor would ask whether they kept horses to milk them
or to shear them and so on forever."

Rollo laughed loud and long at these imaginary questionings. At last he
said,--

"But I don't think we ask quite such foolish questions as these."

"They do not seem so foolish to you," replied the surgeon, "but they do
to the sailors. The sailors,