Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/89

 Greenwood, dropping his shirt indifferently to the floor. "But still I contend—"

"Low bridge!"

The cabin became as silent as the tomb of Shalmaneser himself save when a roller broke on the metal sides of the ship under the open port.

Of course, William had to recount this little adventure the following morning, and thereupon had his first glimpse behind the corner of his school-teacher's past.

"Can't you see the pair of them rowing over every tombstone they come to? If there's anything left of the Tower of Babel, believe me, some bricks are going to be missing. What's it all about? Who cares? Thirteen hundred before Christ; some past!" "Wouldn't you be interested to know how they got water up to the hanging gardens of Babylon, there in the desert? Wouldn't you like to know what machinery they had, how they manufactured their cloths, made their weapons, lived, worked, and died?"

"Why, sure I would!"

"Well, your ancients, as you call them, are endeavoring to find out these very things, to learn if humanity has really progressed in all these centuries. My father was a scientist and spent most of his time trying to find some method of overcoming gravity or neutralizing it. There is no other quest so interesting as that pursued by the man of science, the explorer. What hardships accepted unmurmuringly! For money? No.