"That looks like a lawyer's quibble," replied the captain with a hearty laugh. "You have opened the road for the retreat of the negative."
"The facts set forth by the speakers in our conference fail to be facts," persisted the legal gentleman.
"The fact was given as a general truth that the depth of the canal is twenty-six feet; but I think that no person as reasonable as Squire Scarburn of Von Blonk Park would insist that it should be absolutely of fully that depth in every part in order to comply with the general truth of the statement. The courts don't rule in that way. I read lately of a life insurance company which refused to pay a policy on the plea that the holder had been a drunkard; but the court ruled that the use of intoxicating liquors, or even an occasional over-indulgence, did not constitute a drunkard."
"We call a person a good man; but even the affirmative does not insist that he shall be absolutely without sin, stain, or fault in order to entitle him to this designation."
"There would not be a single good man in that case," laughed the doctor. "We admit the general truth that the canal is twenty-six feet deep."
"The canal has been dug out of loose sand for the most part, and it would have been impossible to make it of uniform depth. Some of the largest steamers in the world pass through the canal on their way to India, China, and Australia. The Orient Line has the Ophir, a twin-screw ship, about five hundred feet long, and others nearly as large.
"This big ditch across the isthmus has an average width of three hundred feet, or two hundred less than the length of the Ophir. She could not, therefore, get across the channel. There is a current in this water, and fierce winds sometimes blow across it, and both of these affect the inertia of the vessels. A comparatively small steamer like the Guardian-Mother can be twisted about by these causes, and her bow or her stern may catch on the sloping sides."
"You have made out your case, Captain Ringgold; and the moral is that general truths are not invariably true," said Uncle Moses good-naturedly.
"I only hope we shall not get aground," added Mrs. Belgrave.
"We are fairly started now, and we have Lake Menzaleh on one side, and a low sandy plain, once covered with water, on the other," continued the commander. "It is difficult to believe that the swamp and lagoon on the starboard were once covered with fertile fields, watered by two of the branches of the Nile, where wheat was raised in abundance, from which Rome and other countries were supplied with food."