est of patent capstans--I put this into her
myself--cabins panelled in teak and pitch-pine and cushioned with red
morocco, two suits of sails, besides a big spinnaker that does not
belong to her present rig, a serviceable dinghy--well, you can see for
yourselves without my saying more, that, even to break up, she is worth
quite double the money.

In what follows I shall take leave here and there to alter a name or
suppress it. With these exceptions you shall hear precisely how the
_Siren_ came into my hands.

Early in 1890 I determined, for the sake of my health, to take a longer
holiday than usual, and spend the months of July, August, and September
in a cruise about the Channel. My notion was to cross over to the
French coast, sail down as far as Cherbourg, recross to Salcombe, and
thence idle westward to Scilly, and finish up, perhaps, with a run over
to Ireland. This, I say, was my notion: you could not call it a plan,
for it left me free to anchor in any port I chose, and to stay there
just as long as it amused me. One fixed intention I had, and one only--
to avoid the big regattas. Money had to be considered, and I thought at
first of hiring. I wanted something between twenty-five and forty tons,
small enough to be worked by myself and a crew of three or at most three
men and a boy, and large enough to keep us occupied while at sea.

Of course, I studied the advertisement columns, and for some time found
nothing that seemed even likely to suit. But at last in _The Field_,
and in the left-hand bottom corner--where it had been squeezed by the
lists of the usual well-known agencies--I came on the following:--

"YAWL, 35 tons. For immediate SALE, that fast and comfortable
cruiser _Siren_. Lately refitted and now in perfect condition
throughout. Rigging, etc., as good as new. Cabin appointments of
unusual richness and taste. 400 pounds. Apply, Messrs. Dewy and
Moss, Agents and Surveyors, Portside Street, F--."

On reading this I took Lloyd's _Yacht Register_ from its shelf, and
hunted for further details. _Sirens_ crowd pretty thickly in the
Register; only a little less thickly than _Undines_. Including
_Sirenes_ and _Sirenas_, I found some fourteen--and not a yawl amongst
them, nor anything of her tonnage. There were two more in Lloyd's _List
of American Yachts_--one a centre-board schooner, the other a
centre-board sloop; and, in a further list, I came upon a _Siren_ that
had