Maggie was a little taken aback by a decision which was in favour of her brother’s judgment.  She was apt to think rather highly of her own, and even now she pondered, and then put another question—­

“But if the waves were so very, very big, Cousin, they would swallow up the ships!”

“No, Maggie, not if the sailors manage their ship properly, and turn her about so that she meets the wave in the right way.  Then she rides over it instead of being buried under it.”

“It would be dreadful if they didn’t!” said Maggie.

“I remember being in a ship that didn’t meet one of these waves in the right way,” said Cousin Peregrine.

“Tell us all about it,” said Fred, settling himself with two or three severe fidgets into the seat of his chair.

“I was going to have protested against the children asking you for another story so soon, Peregrine,” said Mamma, “but now I feel selfish, for your wave-story will be quite as much for me as for the little ones.”

“Where was it, Cousin Peregrine?”

“Where was the wave, do you mean?  It was in the great South Seas.  As to where I was, I was in a sailing-vessel bound for South Australia.  To begin at the beginning, I must explain to you that this vessel was one of those whose captains accepted the instruments offered by the Board of Trade to any ship that would keep a meteorological log.  I was fond of such matters, and I took the trouble off the captain’s hands, by keeping his meteorological log for him.”

“What is a meteorological log, Cousin?”

“A kind of diary, in which you put down the temperature of the sea and air, how cold or hot they are—­the way the wind blows, how the barometer is, and anything special and interesting about the weather overhead or the currents in the sea.  Now I must tell you that there had been a good deal of talk about currents of warm water in the Southern Ocean, like the Gulf Stream of the Atlantic, which keeps the west coasts of Great Britain so warm.  But these South Sea currents had not been very accurately observed, and information on the subject was desired.  Well, one day we got right into a warm current.”

“How did you know, Cousin?”

“By drawing up a bucket of water out of the sea, and putting the thermometer into it.  But I ought to tell you what a thermometer is—­”

“We know quite well,” said Maggie.  “Nurse always put it into Baby’s bath when he had fits, to see if the water was the right warmth.”

“Very good, Maggie.  Then let me tell you that the water of the sea got nearly thirty degrees warmer on that day between noon and midnight.”

“How did you know about midnight?” Maggie inquired doubtfully; “weren’t you in bed?”

“No, I was not, I was very busy all day ‘taking observations’ every hour or two, and it was at twelve o’clock this very night that the ‘comber’ broke on deck.”

“What is a ’comber’?”