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- 13364
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:36.278Z
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- 13280
- text
- This rebuke not only abashed Mr. Pert, but for a time intimidated the
rest; and the professor was obliged to proceed, and extricate the
British fleet by himself. He concluded by awarding Admiral Rodney the
victory, which must have been exceedingly gratifying to the family
pride of the surviving relatives and connections of that distinguished
hero.
“Shall I clean the board, sir?” now asked Mr. Pert, brightening up.
“No, sir; not till you have saved that crippled French ship in the
corner. That ship, young gentlemen, is the Glorieuse: you perceive she
is cut off from her consorts, and the whole British fleet is giving
chase to her. Her bowsprit is gone; her rudder is torn away; she has
one hundred round shot in her hull, and two thirds of her men are dead
or dying. What’s to be done? the wind being at northeast by north?”
“Well, sir,” said Mr. Dash, a chivalric young gentleman from Virginia,
“I wouldn’t strike yet; I’d nail my colours to the main-royal-mast! I
would, by Jove!”
“That would not save your ship, sir; besides, your main-mast has gone
by the board.”
“I think, sir,” said Mr. Slim, a diffident youth, “I think, sir, I
would haul back the fore-top-sail.”
“And why so? of what service would _that_ be, I should like to know,
Mr. Slim?”
“I can’t tell exactly; but I think it would help her a little,” was the
timid reply.
“Not a whit, sir—not one particle; besides, you can’t haul back your
fore-top-sail—your fore-mast is lying across your forecastle.”
“Haul back the main-top-sail, then,” suggested another.
“Can’t be done; your main-mast, also, has gone by the board!”
“Mizzen-top-sail?” meekly suggested little Boat-Plug.
“Your mizzen-top-mast, let me inform you, sir, was shot down in the
first of the fight!”
“Well, sir,” cried Mr. Dash, “I’d tack ship, anyway; bid ’em good-by
with a broadside; nail my flag to the keel, if there was no other
place; and blow my brains out on the poop!”
“Idle, idle, sir! worse than idle! you are carried away, Mr. Dash, by
your ardent Southern temperament! Let me inform you, young gentlemen,
that this ship,” touching it with his cutlass, “_cannot_ be saved.”
Then, throwing down his cutlass, “Mr. Pert, have the goodness to hand
me one of those cannon-balls from the rack.”
Balancing the iron sphere in one hand, the learned professor began
fingering it with the other, like Columbus illustrating the rotundity
of the globe before the Royal Commission of Castilian Ecclesiastics.
“Young gentlemen, I resume my remarks on the passage of a shot _in
vacuo_, which remarks were interrupted yesterday by general quarters.
After quoting that admirable passage in ‘Spearman’s British Gunner,’ I
then laid it down, you remember, that the path of a shot _in vacuo_
describes a parabolic curve. I now add that, agreeably to the method
pursued by the illustrious Newton in treating the subject of
curvilinear motion, I consider the _trajectory_ or curve described by a
moving body in space as consisting of a series of right lines,
described in successive intervals of time, and constituting the
diagonals of parallelograms formed in a vertical plane between the
vertical deflections caused by gravity and the production of the line
of motion which has been described in each preceding interval of time.
This must be obvious; for, if you say that the passage _in vacuo_ of
this cannon-ball, now held in my hand, would describe otherwise than a
series of right lines, etc., then you are brought to the _Reductio ad
Absurdum_, that the diagonals of parallelograms are——”
“All hands reef top-sail!” was now thundered forth by the boatswain’s
mates. The shot fell from the professor’s palm; his spectacles dropped
on his nose, and the school tumultuously broke up, the pupils
scrambling up the ladders with the sailors, who had been overhearing
the lecture.
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