"
"Hear! hear!" ejaculated Caesar.
"That is my reason, your Majesty, for inquiring as to the speed of your
late club-house," said the stranger, bowing courteously to Solomon. "Now
if Sir Christopher Wren can give me her measurements, we can very soon
determine at about what rate she is leaving us behind under favorable
circumstances."
"'Tisn't necessary for Sir Christopher to do anything of the sort," said
Noah, rising and manifesting somewhat more heat than the occasion seemed
to require. "As long as we are discussing the question I will take the
liberty of stating what I have never mentioned before, that the designer
of the House-boat merely appropriated the lines of the Ark. Shem, Ham, and
Japhet will bear testimony to the truth of that statement."
"There can be no quarrel on that score, Mr. Chairman," assented Sir
Christopher, with cutting frigidity. "I am perfectly willing to admit that
practically the two vessels were built on the same lines, but with
modifications which would enable my boat to sail twenty miles to windward
and back in six days less time than it would have taken the Ark to cover
the same distance, and it could have taken all the wash of the excursion
steamers into the bargain."
"Bosh!" ejaculated Noah, angrily. "Strip your old tub down to a flying
balloon-jib and a marline-spike, and ballast the Ark with elephants until
every inch of her reeked with ivory and peanuts, and she'd outfoot you on
every leg, in a cyclone or a zephyr.
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