ready for sea, he would take a trial trip in her across the Bay of Biscay to Spain—a bold first venture for the amateur. He invited the author to accompany him, but the latter could not see his way to avail himself of this kind offer. He would take no advice save from a man professing to be a boat-builder, who was ignorant of his work, but who set himself in a very leisurely fashion to patch the old craft up and make a good profit out of this callow youth. For months the work of preparation went on. The hull of the yacht was beautiful to the eye with glossy black paint and gold streak (concealing rotten planking and putty-filled holes). Her mast and topmast towered higher than those of any vessel ever before seen at Hammersmith; she attracted crowds of admirers from the neighbouring slums. But, alas! it was soon discovered that her beauty was skin deep indeed. Her decks, when an attempt was made to scrape them, came away in lumps of tinder, so that half the planks had to be replaced by new ones. Then her mast was found to be dangerously unsound at the usual spot—where the spar traverses the deck,—so a new mast had to be bought. There was no end to the useless and unworkmanlike patching: each day revealed some fresh defect; and though the young man was dismayed at the expense, his friend the boat-maker tinkered cheerfully on, as sanguine as ever in his opinion that the craft would shortly be fit to sail to Spain. A
