But Mr Tallboys had, as we observed before, a great idea of the importance of a gunner, and, among other qualifications, he considered it absolutely necessary that he should be a navigator. He had at least ten instances to bring forward of bloody actions, in which the captain and all the commissioned officers had been killed or wounded, and the command of the ship had devolved upon the gunner.

  “Now, sir,” would he say, “if the gunner is no navigator, he is not fit to take charge of his Majesty’s ships. The boatswain and carpenter are merely practical men; but the gunner, sir, is, or ought to be, scientific. Gunnery, sir, is a science — we have our own disparts and our lines of sight — our windage and our parabolas and projectile forces — and our point blank, and our reduction of powder upon a graduated scale. Now, sir, there’s no excuse for a gunner not being a navigator; for knowing his duty as a gunner, he has the same mathematical tools to work with.” Upon this principle Mr Tallboys had added John Hamilton Moore to his library, and had advanced about as far into navigation as he had in gunnery, that is, to the threshold, where he stuck fast, with all his mathematical tools, which he did not know how to use. To do him justice, he studied for two or three hours everyday, and it was not his fault if he did not advance — but his head was confused with technical terms; he mixed all up together, and disparts, sines and cosines, parabolas, tangents, windage, seconds, lines of sight, logarithms, projectiles and traverse sailing, quadrature and Gunter’s scales, were all crowded together, in a brain which had not capacity to receive the rule of three. “Too much learning,” said Festus to the apostle, “hath made thee mad.” Mr Tallboys had not wit enough to go mad, but his learning lay like lead upon his brain: the more he read, the less he understood, at the same time that he became more satisfied with his supposed acquirements, and could not speak but in “mathematical parables.”

  “I understand, Mr Easy,” said the gunner to him one day, after they had sailed for Malta, “that you have entered into the science of navigation — at your age it was high time.”

  “Yes,” replied Jack, “I can raise a perpendicular, at all events, and box the compass.”

  “Yes, but you have not yet arrived at the dispart of the compass.”

  “Not come to that yet,” replied Jack.

  “Are you aware that a ship sailing describes a parabola round the globe?”

  “Not come to that yet,” replied Jack.

  “And that any propelled body striking against another flies off at a tangent?”

  “Very likely,” replied Jack, “that is a sine that he don’t like it.”

  “You have not yet entered into acute trigonometry?”

  “Not come to that yet,” replied Jack.

  “That will require very sharp attention.”

  “I should think so,” replied Jack.

  “You will then find out how your parallels of longitude and latitude meet.”

  “Two parallel lines, if continued to infinity, will never meet,” replied Jack.

  “I beg your pardon,” said the gunner.

  “I beg yours,” said Jack.

  Whereupon Mr Tallboys brought up a small map of the world, and showed Jack that all the parallels of latitude met at a point at the top and bottom.

  “Parallel lines never meet,” replied Jack, producing Hamilton Moore.

  Whereupon Jack and the gunner argued the point, until it was agreed to refer the case to Mr Jolliffe, who asserted, with a smile, that those lines were parallels and not parallels.

  As both were right, both were satisfied.

  It was fortunate that Jack would argue in this instance: had he believed all the confused assertions of the gunner, he would have been as puzzled as the gunner himself. They never met without an argument and a reference, and as Jack was put right in the end, he only learned the faster. By the time that he did know something about navigation he discovered that his antagonist knew nothing. Before they arrived at Malta Jack could fudge a day’s work.

  But at Malta Jack got into another scrape. Although Mr Smallsole could not injure him, he was still Jack’s enemy; the more so as Jack had become very popular: Vigors also submitted, planning revenge; but the parties in this instance were the boatswain and purser’s steward. Jack still continued his forecastle conversation with Mesty; and the boatswain and purser’s steward, probably from their respective ill-will towards our hero, had become great allies. Mr Easthupp now put on his best jacket to walk the dog-watches with Mr Biggs, and they took every opportunity to talk at our hero.

  “It’s my peculiar hopinion,” said Mr Easthupp, one evening, pulling at the frill of his shirt, “that a gentleman should behave as a gentleman, and that if a gentleman professes hopinions of hequality and such liberal sentiments, that he is bound as a gentle man to hact up to them.”

  “Very true, Mr Easthupp; he is bound to act up to them; and not because a person, who was a gentleman as well as himself, happens not to be on the quarter-deck, to insult him because he only has perfessed opinions like his own.”

  Hereupon Mr Biggs struck his rattan against the funnel, and looked at our hero.

  “Yes,” continued the purser’s steward, “I should like to see the fellow who would have done so on shore however, the time will come when I can hagain pull on my plain coat, and then the insult shall be vashed out in blood, Mr Biggs.”

  “And I’ll be cursed if I don’t some day teach a lesson to the blackguard who stole my trousers.”

  “Vas hall your money right, Mr Biggs?” inquired the purser’s steward.

  “I didn’t count,” replied the boatswain magnificently.

  “No — gentlemen are above that,” replied Easthupp; “but there are many light-fingered gentry habout. The quantity of vatches and harticles of value vich were lost ven I valked Bond Street in former times is incredible.”

  “I can say this, at all events,” replied the boatswain, “that I should be always ready to give satisfaction to any person beneath me in rank, after I had insulted him. I don’t stand upon my rank, although I don’t talk about equality, damme — no, nor consort with niggers.” All this was too plain for our hero not to understand, so Jack walked up to the boatswain, and taking his hat off, with the utmost politeness, said to him:

  “If I mistake not, Mr Biggs, your conversation refers to me.”

  “Very likely it does,” replied the boatswain. “Listeners hear no good of themselves.”

  “It appears that gentlemen can’t converse without being vatched,” continued Mr Easthupp, pulling up his shirt-collar.

  “It is not the first time that you have thought proper to make very offensive remarks, Mr Biggs; and as you appear to consider yourself ill-treated in the affair of the trousers, for I tell you at once, that it was I who brought them on board, I can only say,” continued our hero, with a very polite bow, “that I shall be most happy to give you satisfaction.”

  “I am your superior officer, Mr Easy,” replied the boatswain.

  “Yes, by the rules of the service; but you just now asserted that you would waive your rank — indeed, I dispute it on this occasion; I am on the quarter-deck, and you are not.”

  “This is the gentleman whom you have insulted, Mr Easy,” replied the boatswain, pointing to the purser’s steward.

  “Yes, Mr Heasy, quite as good a gentleman as yourself, although I av ad misfortune — I ham of as hold a family as hany in the country,” replied Mr Easthupp, now backed by the boatswain; “many the year did I valk Bond Street, and I ave as good blood in my weins as you, Mr Heasy, halthough I have been misfortunate — I’ve had hadmirals in my family.”

  “You have grossly insulted this gentleman,” said Mr Biggs, in continuation; “and notwithstanding all your talk of equality, you are afraid to give him satisfaction — you shelter yourself under your quarter-deck.”

  “Mr Biggs,” replied our hero, who was now very wroth, “I shall go on shore directly we arrive at Malta. Let you, and this fellow, put on plain clothes, and I will meet you both — and then I’ll show you whether I am afraid to give satisfaction.”

  “One at a time,” said the boatswain.

  “No, sir, not one at a time, but both at the same time — I will fight both or none. If you are my superior officer, you must descend,” replied Jack, with an ironical sneer, “to meet me, or I will not descend to meet that fellow, whom I believe to have been little better than a pickpocket.”

  This accidental hit of Jack’s made the purser’s steward turn pale as a sheet, and then equally red. He raved and foamed amazingly, although he could not meet Jack’s indignant look, who then turned round again.

  “Now, Mr Biggs, is this to be understood, or do you shelter yourself under your forecastle?”

  “I’m no dodger,” replied the boatswain, “and we will settle the affair at Malta.”

  At which reply Jack returned to Mesty.

  “Massa Easy, I look at um face, dat feller, Eastop, he no like it. I go shore wid you, see fair play, anyhow — suppose I can?”

  Mr Biggs having declared that he would fight, of course had to look out for a second, and he fixed upon Mr Tallboys, the gunner, and requested him to be his friend. Mr Tallboys, who had been latterly very much annoyed by Jack’s victories over him in the science of navigation, and therefore felt ill-will towards him, consented; but he was very much puzzled how to arrange that three were to fight at the same time, for he had no idea of there being two duels; so he went to his cabin and commenced reading. Jack, on the other hand, dared not say a word to Jolliffe on the subject: indeed, there was no one in the ship to whom he could confide but Gascoigne: he therefore went to him, and although Gascoigne thought it was excessively infra dig of Jack to meet even the boatswain, as the challenge had been given there was no retracting: he therefore consented, like all midshipmen, anticipating fun, and quite thoughtless of the consequences.

  The second day after they had been anchored in Vallette harbour, the boatswain and gunner, Jack and Gascoigne, obtained permission to go on shore. Mr Easthupp, the purser’s steward, dressed in his best blue coat with brass buttons and velvet collar, the very one in which he had been taken up when he had been vowing and protesting that he was a gentleman, at the very time that his hand was abstracting a pocket book, went up on the quarter-deck, and requested the same indulgence, but Mr Sawbridge refused, as he required him to return staves and hoops at the cooperage. Mesty also, much to his mortification, was not to be spared.

  This was awkward, but it was got over by proposing that the meeting should take place behind the cooperage at a certain hour, on which Mr Easthupp might slip out and borrow a portion of the time appropriated to his duty, to heal the breach in his wounded honour. So the parties all went on shore, and put up at one of the small inns to make the necessary arrangements.

  Mr Tallboys then addressed Mr Gascoigne, taking him apart while the boatswain amused himself with a glass of grog, and our hero sat outside teasing a monkey.

  “Mr Gascoigne,” said the gunner, “I have been very much puzzled how this duel should be fought, but I have at last found it out. You see that there are three parties to fight; had there been two or four there would have been no difficulty, as the right line or square might guide us in that instance; but we must arrange it upon the triangle in this.”

  Gascoigne stared; he could not imagine what was coming.

  “Are you aware, Mr Gascoigne, of the properties of an equilateral triangle?”

  “Yes,” replied the midshipman, “that it has three equal sides — but what the devil has that to do with the duel?”

  “Everything, Mr Gascoigne,” replied the gunner; “it has resolved the great difficulty: indeed, the duel between three can only be fought upon that principle. You observe,” said the gunner, taking a piece of chalk out of his pocket, and making a triangle on the table, “in this figure we have three points, each equidistant from each other; and we have three combatants — so that placing one at each point, it is all fair play for the three: Mr Easy, for instance, stands here, the boatswain here, and the purser’s steward at the third corner. Now, if the distance is fairly measured, it will be all right.”

  “But then,” replied Gascoigne, delighted at the idea, “how are they to fire?”

  “It certainly is not of much consequence,” replied the gunner, “but still, as sailors, it appears to me that they should fire with the sun; that is, Mr Easy fires at Mr Biggs, Mr Biggs fires at Mr Easthupp, and Mr Easthupp fires at Mr Easy, so that you perceive that each party has his shot at one, and at the same time receives the fire of another.”

  Gascoigne was in ecstasies at the novelty of the proceeding, the more so as he perceived that Easy obtained every advantage by the arrangement.

  “Upon my word, Mr Tallboys, I give you great credit; you have a profound mathematical head, and I am delighted with your arrangement. Of course, in these affairs, the principals are bound to comply with the arrangements of the seconds, and I shall insist upon Mr Easy consenting to your excellent and scientific proposal.”

  Gascoigne went out, and pulling Jack away from the monkey, told him what the gunner had proposed, at which Jack laughed heartily.

  The gunner also explained it to the boatswain, who did not very well comprehend, but replied:

  “I dare say it’s all right — shot for shot, and damn all favours.”

  The parties then repaired to the spot with two pairs of ship’s pistols, which Mr Tallboys had smuggled on shore; and, as soon as they were on the ground, the gunner called Mr Easthupp out of the cooperage. In the meantime, Gascoigne had been measuring an equilateral triangle of twelve paces — and marked it out. Mr Tallboys, on his return with the purser’s steward, went over the ground, and finding that it was “equal angles subtended by equal sides,” declared that it was all right. Easy took his station, the boatswain was put into his, and Mr Easthupp, who was quite in a mystery, was led by the gunner to the third position.

  “But, Mr Tallboys,” said the purser’s steward, “I don’t understand this. Mr Easy will first fight Mr Biggs, will he not?”

  “No,” replied the gunner, “this is a duel of three. You will fire at Mr Easy, Mr Easy will fire at Mr Biggs, and Mr Biggs will fire at you. It is all arranged, Mr Easthupp.”

  “But,” said Mr Easthupp, “I do not understand it. Why is Mr Biggs to fire at me? I have no quarrel with Mr Biggs.”

  “Because Mr Easy fires at Mr Biggs, and Mr Biggs must have his shot as well.”

  “If you have ever been in the company of gentlemen, Mr Easthupp,” observed Gascoigne, “you must know something about duelling.”

  “Yes, yes, I’ve kept the best company, Mr Gascoigne, and I can give a gentleman satisfaction; but—”

  “Then, sir, if that is the case, you must know that your honour is in the hands of your second, and that no gentleman appeals.”

  “Yes, yes, I know that, Mr Gascoigne; but still I’ve no quarrel with Mr Biggs, and therefore, Mr Biggs, of course you will not aim at me.”

  “Why, you don’t think that I’m going to be fired at for nothing,” replied the boatswain; “no, no, I’ll have my shot anyhow.”

  “But at your friend, Mr Biggs?”

  “All the same, I shall fire at somebody; shot for shot, and hit the luckiest.”

  “Vel, gentlemen, I purtest against these proceedings,” replied Mr Easthupp; “I came here to have satisfaction from Mr Easy, and not to be fired at by Mr Biggs.”

  “Don’t you have satisfaction when you fire at Mr Easy,” replied the gunner; “what more would you have?”

  “I purtest against Mr Biggs firing at me.”

  “So you would have a shot without receiving one,” cried Gascoigne: “the fact is, that this fellow’s a confounded coward, and ought to be kicked into the cooperage again.”

  At this affront Mr Easthupp rallied, and accepted the pistol offered by the gunner.

  “You ear those words, Mr Biggs; pretty language to use to a gentleman. You shall ear from me, sir, as soon as the ship is paid off. I purtest no longer, Mr Tallboys; death before dishonour. I’m a gentleman, damme!”

  At all events, the swell was not a very courageous gentleman, for he trembled most exceedingly as he pointed his pistol.

  The gunner gave the word, as if he were exercising the great guns on board ship.

  “Cock your locks!”— “Take good aim at the object!”— “Fire!”— “Stop your vents!”

  The only one of the combatants who appeared to comply with the latter supplementary order was Mr Easthupp, who clapped his hand to his trousers behind, gave a loud yell, and then dropped down: the bullet having passed clean through his seat of honour, from his having presented his broadside as a target to the boatswain as he faced towards our hero. Jack’s shot had also taken effect, having passed through both the boatswain’s cheeks, without further mischief than extracting two of his best upper double teeth, and forcing through the hole of the farther cheek the boatswain’s own quid of tobacco. As for Mr Easthupp’s ball, as he was very unsettled, and shut his eyes before he fired, it had gone the Lord knows where.

  The purser’s steward lay on the ground and screamed — the boatswain spit his double teeth and two or three mouthfuls of blood out, and then threw down his pistols in a rage.

  “A pretty business, by God,” sputtered he; “he’s put my pipe out. How the devil am I to pipe to dinner when I’m ordered, all my wind ‘scaping through the cheeks?”

  In the meantime, the others had gone to the assistance of the purser’s steward, who continued his vociferations. They examined him, and considered a wound in that part not to be dangerous.