"There!" cried Zack, pointing triumphantly across the room to
"Columbus." "Cudgel your brains, old boy, and guess what that is a
picture of, without coming to me to help you."
Mat attentively surveyed the figure of Columbus, the rig of his ship,
and the wings of the typical female spirits, hovering overhead in the
morning clouds--thought a little--then gravely and deliberately
answered:--
"Peter Wilkins taking a voyage along with his flying wives."
Zack pulled out his handkerchief, and stifled his laughter as well as
he could, out of consideration for Mat, who, however, took not the
smallest notice of him, but added, still staring intently at the
picture.
"Peter Wilkins was the only book I had, when I was a lad aboard ship. I
used to read it over and over again, at odds and ends of spare time,
till I pretty nigh got it by heart. That was many a year ago; and a
good lot of what I knowed then I don't know now. But, mind ye, it's my
belief that Peter Wilkins was something of a sailor."
"Well?" whispered Zack, humoring him, "suppose he was, what of that?"
"Do you think a man as was anything of a sailor would ever be fool
enough to put to sea in such a craft as that?" asked Mr. Marksman,
pointing scornfully to Columbus's ship.
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