Miss Lena Ranken, Mr. Blair’s niece, creased her brow in pert little wrinkles:  “I’m not sure that I know anything; Marion there studies questions of all sorts, but an ordinary girl has to do without knowledge.  I know that when auntie and I were wishing you would drop us over into the water, I thought of the men who use the same damp bed for two months instead of having changes and all that.”

“What is your idea now, Ferrier, about the business?  I’m not asking you for a gratis lecture, but I want to see how far you would go.”

“Well, frankly, at present I think that Fullerton’s the best guide for all of us.  I should be a mock-modest puppy if I pretended not to know a good deal about books, because books are my stock-in-trade; but I’ve just seen a new corner of life, and I’ve learned how little I really know.  Head is all well in its way; a good head may administer, but great thoughts spring from the heart.”

“Very good, Professor.  Oh, bee-yootiful!  Great thoughts spring from the heart.”

Fullerton broke in with dreamy distinctness, “I think the doctor will agree with me that you must never frame a theory from a small number of instances.  I never even ventured to hint what I should like to any of our friends until I had been at sea here for a long time.  I’m convinced now that there is much misery all over the fishing banks, and I have a conviction that I shall help to remove it.  I am called to make the effort, but I never listen to sentiment without also hearing what common sense has to say.  Perhaps we should all see the everyday life of the men, and see a good deal of it before we begin theorizing.  Look at that smack away on our port bow.  I’ll be bound one or two are hurt in some way there.  That’s one of 120 sail that we saw; multiply 120 by 20, and then you have the number of vessels that we must attend under this crackbrained scheme of ours.  All the ledger and daybook men say we are crackbrained.  Now, if we can go on doing just a little with our ordinary dispensaries, is it wise to risk playing at magnificence?  You see I am taking the side of Mr. Commonsense against my own ideas.”

“I certainly think you may succeed,” said Miss Dearsley.

“So do I; and now you see my point.  We want to persuade other people as quickly as possible to think as we do.  To persuade, we must back all our talkee-talkee by facts, and to get facts we must work and endure in patience.  You see what an amazingly clear political economist I am.  Wait till we run into the fleet; we shall be sure to catch them before the trawls go down for the night, and, unless I’m mistaken, some of us will be astonished.  I never go into a new fleet without seeing what a little weir we have at present to check a Niagara of affliction.”