“Be it so.”

“It is boundless:  there is always something floating, something being cast up.  It is the contribution of the sea—­the tax which the ocean pays to England.”

“With all my heart.  But pray conclude.”

“Your Grace understands that in this way the ocean creates a department.”

“Where?”

“At the Admiralty.”

“What department?”

“The Sea Prize Department.”

“Well?”

“The department is subdivided into three offices—­Lagan, Flotsam, and Jetsam—­and in each there is an officer.”

“And then?”

“A ship at sea writes to give notice on any subject to those on land—­that it is sailing in such a latitude; that it has met a sea monster; that it is in sight of shore; that it is in distress; that it is about to founder; that it is lost, etc.  The captain takes a bottle, puts into it a bit of paper on which he has written the information, corks up the flask, and casts it into the sea.  If the bottle goes to the bottom, it is in the department of the lagan officer; if it floats, it is in the department of the flotsam officer; if it be thrown upon shore, it concerns the jetsam officer.”

“And wouldst thou like to be the jetsam officer?”

“Precisely so.”

“And that is what thou callest uncorking the bottles of the ocean?”

“Since there is such an appointment.”

“Why dost thou wish for the last-named place in preference to both the others?”

“Because it is vacant just now.”

“In what does the appointment consist?”

“Madam, in 1598 a tarred bottle, picked up by a man, conger-fishing on the strand of Epidium Promontorium, was brought to Queen Elizabeth; and a parchment drawn out of it gave information to England that Holland had taken, without saying anything about it, an unknown country, Nova Zembla; that the capture had taken place in June, 1596; that in that country people were eaten by bears; and that the manner of passing the winter was described on a paper enclosed in a musket-case hanging in the chimney of the wooden house built in the island, and left by the Dutchmen, who were all dead:  and that the chimney was built of a barrel with the end knocked out, sunk into the roof.”

“I don’t understand much of thy rigmarole.”

“Be it so.  Elizabeth understood.  A country the more for Holland was a country the less for England.  The bottle which had given the information was held to be of importance; and thenceforward an order was issued that anybody who should find a sealed bottle on the sea-shore should take it to the Lord High Admiral of England, under pain of the gallows.  The admiral entrusts the opening of such bottles to an officer, who presents the contents to the queen, if there be reason for so doing.”

“Are many such bottles brought to the Admiralty?”

“But few.  But it’s all the same.  The appointment exists.  There is for the office a room and lodgings at the Admiralty.”