the ceiling, which
seemed in the half-light to be even nearer the floor than it was.

'You see,' were Davies's reassuring words, 'there's plenty of room to
_sit_ upright' (which was strictly true; but I am not very tall, and
he is short). 'Some people make a point of head-room, but I never
mind much about it. That's the centre-board case,' he explained, as,
in stretching my legs out, my knee came into contact with a sharp
edge.

I had not seen this devilish obstruction, as it was hidden beneath
the table, which indeed rested on it at one end. It appeared to be a
long, low triangle, running lengthways with the boat and dividing the
naturally limited space into two.

'You see, she's a flat-bottomed boat, drawing very little water
without the plate; that's why there's so little headroom. For deep
water you lower the plate; so, in one way or another, you can go
practically anywhere.'

I was not nautical enough to draw any very definite conclusions from
this, but what I did draw were not promising. The latter sentences
were spoken from the forecastle, whither Davies had crept through a
low sliding door, like that of a rabbit-hutch, and was already busy
with a kettle over a stove which I made out to be a battered and
disreputable twin brother of the No. 3 Rippingille.

'It'll be boiling soon,' he remarked, 'and we'll have some grog.'

My eyes were used to the light now, and I took in the rest of my
surroundings, which may be very simply described. Two long
cushion-covered seats flanked the cabin, bounded at the after end by
cupboards, one of which was cut low to form a sort of miniature
sideboard, with glasses hung in a rack above it. The deck overhead
was very low at each side but rose shoulder high for a space in the
middle, where a 'coach-house roof' with a skylight gave additional
cabin space. Just outside the door was a fold-up washing-stand. On
either wall were long net-racks holding a medley of flags, charts,
caps, cigar-boxes, banks of yam, and such like. Across the forward
bulkhead was a bookshelf crammed to overflowing with volumes of all
sizes, many upside down and some coverless. Below this were a
pipe-rack, an aneroid, and a clock with a hearty tick. All the
woodwork was painted white, and to a less jaundiced eye than mine the
interior might have had an enticing look of snugness. Some Kodak
prints were nailed roughly on the after bulkhead, and just over the
doorway was the photograph of a young girl.