"If you can't tell which is wrong of two, then how much harder must it be to tell which is wrong of two dozen?
With only two, it's a fifty-fifty split that one or the other is wrong." "But don't you realize--" "I realize that it's all a great foolishness, all this highbrow stuff about navigation.

I've got clerks fourteen years old in my offices that can figure circles all around you and your navigation.

Ask them that if two chronometers ain't better than one, then how can two thousand be better than one?
And they'd answer quick, snap, like that, that if two dollars ain't any better than one dollar, then two thousand dollars ain't any better than one dollar.

That's common sense." "Just the same, you're wrong on general principle," Grimshaw would oar in.

"I said at the time that the only reason we took Captain Doane in with us on the deal was because we needed a navigator and because you and me didn't know the first thing about it.