Neither
Roscoe nor I know anything about navigation, and the summer is gone,
and we are about to start, and the problems are thicker than ever,
and the treasury is stuffed with emptiness. Well, anyway, it takes
years to learn seamanship, and both of us are seamen. If we don't
find the time, we'll lay in the books and instruments and teach
ourselves navigation on the ocean between San Francisco and Hawaii.
There is one unfortunate and perplexing phase of the voyage of the
Snark. Roscoe, who is to be my co-navigator, is a follower of one,
Cyrus R. Teed. Now Cyrus R. Teed has a different cosmology from the
one generally accepted, and Roscoe shares his views. Wherefore
Roscoe believes that the surface of the earth is concave and that we
live on the inside of a hollow sphere. Thus, though we shall sail
on the one boat, the Snark, Roscoe will journey around the world on
the inside, while I shall journey around on the outside. But of
this, more anon. We threaten to be of the one mind before the
voyage is completed. I am confident that I shall convert him into
making the journey on the outside, while he is equally confident
that before we arrive back in San Francisco I shall be on the inside
of the earth. How he is going to get me through the crust I don't
know, but Roscoe is ay a masterful man.
P.S. - That engine! While we've got it, and the dynamo, and the
storage battery, why not have an ice-machine? Ice in the tropics!
It is more necessary than bread. Here goes for the ice-machine!
Now I am plunged into chemistry, and my lips hurt, and my mind
hurts, and how am I ever to find the time to study navigation?
CHAPTER II - THE INCONCEIVABLE AND MONSTROUS
"Spare no money," I said to Roscoe. "Let everything on the Snark be
of the best. And never mind decoration. Plain pine boards is good
enough finishing for me. But put the money into the construction.
Let the Snark be as staunch and strong as any boat afloat. Never
mind what it costs to make her staunch and strong; you see that she
is made staunch and strong, and I'll go on writing and earning the
money to pay for it."
And I did . . . as well as I could; for the Snark ate up money
faster than I could earn it. In fact, every little while I had to
borrow money with which to supplement my earnings. Now I borrowed
one thousand dollars, now I borrowed two thousand dollars, and now I
borrowed five thousand dollars. And all the time I went on working
every day and sinking the earnings in the venture.
