Page:The Floating Prince - Frank R Stockton.djvu/50

Rh up at last, and cast loose from shore, first landing the old master, who positively refused to desert his scholars. The admiral took the helm, and, the wind being fair, the ship sailed away.

The swift cruiser, which was sent in the direction taken by the admiral's vessel, passed her in the night, and as she was a very fast cruiser, and it was therefore impossible for the admiral's ship to catch up with her, the two vessels never met.

"Now, then," said the admiral the next day, as he sat with the helm in his hand, "we are free again to sail where we please. But I do not like to sail without an object. What shall be our object?"

The philosophers immediately declared that nothing could be more proper than that they should take a voyage to make some great scientific discovery. "All right," said the admiral. "That suits me. What discovery shall we make?"

The philosophers were not prepared to answer this question at that moment, but they said they would try to think of some good discovery to make.

So the philosophers sat in a row behind the admiral, and thought and thought; and the admiral sat at the helm, with his blue-and-red stilts dangling in the water behind; and the cook prepared the meals, swept the deck, dusted the sail, and put things in order.

After several hours, the admiral turned around to ask the philosophers if they had thought of any discovery yet, when, to his amazement, he saw that each one of them had put his bag upon his head.

"What did you do that for?" cried the admiral, when each of the philosophers gave a little start; and then they explained that it was much easier to think with one's head in a bag. The outer