Make use of the article to answer the questions.

CHAPTER SIX.

JACK HAS A DESPERATE ENCOUNTER.

We never can tell what a day or an hour may bring forth. This is a solemn fact on which young and old might frequently ponder with advantage, and on which we might enlarge to an unlimited extent; but our space will not admit of moralising very much, therefore we beg the reader to moralise on that, for him--or herself. The subject is none the less important, that circumstances require that it should be touched on in a slight, almost flippant, manner.

Had Jack Robinson known what lay before him that evening, he would--he would have been a wiser man! Nothing more appropriate than that occurs to us at this moment. But, to be more particular:--

When the party reached the nets, Jack left them to attend to their work, and went off alone to the vats, some of which, measuring about six feet in diameter, were nearly full of fish in pickle.

As he walked along the slight track which guided him towards them, he pondered the circumstances in which he then found himself, and, indulging in a habit which he had acquired in his frequent and prolonged periods of solitude, began to mutter his thoughts aloud.

"So, so, Jack, you left your farm because you were tired of solitude, and now you find yourself in the midst of society. Pleasant society, truly!--bullies and geese, without a sympathetic mind to rub against. Humph! a pleasant fix you've got into, old fellow."

Jack was wrong in this to some extent, as he afterwards came to confess to himself, for among his men there were two or three minds worth cultivating, noble and shrewd, and deep, too, though not educated or refined. But at the time of which we write, Jack did not know this. He went on to soliloquise:

1. what is a fact?
2. who should the reader moralise this on?
3. Did Jack know what was to happen?
4. what if he did?
5. where did Jack leave?
6. why?
7. where did he go?
8. was it kind?
9. was he alone often before?
10. what would he do when alone?
11. what were in the vats?
12. were they large?
13. how big?
14. who was there?
15. was he with the party?
16. who was he with then?
17. what was the party doing?
18. where?
19. how many minds did he feel were worth cultivating?
20. were they educated?

Numbered answers:
1. We never can tell what a day or an hour may bring forth.
2. him--or herself
3. no
4. would have been a wiser man
5. his farm
6. tired of solitude
7. society
8. yes
9. yes
10. mutter his thoughts aloud.
11. fish in pickle
12. yes
13. six feet in diameter
14. Jack
15. no
16. alone
17. attending to their work
18. the nets
19. two or three
20. no