of the preceding night seemed to him very like a dream.
He went on deck, and examined with a critical eye the standing and
running rigging, than which nothing could be neater or better. The old
tub in which he had been blown off the day before was anchored near her,
with a slack line from her stern to the yacht, as he had left her. The
dingy old craft looked so mean and insignificant compared with the
yacht, that the contrast put him almost out of conceit with the
brilliant plan he had considered to purchase the former. He was rather
doubtful whether he should be willing to invest the ten dollars--if he
should obtain it--in such an enterprise.

Just then it occurred to him that he did not even know the name of the
yacht. He walked out on the foot-rope at the end of the main boom, in
order to see if it was painted on the stern. There it was--SKYLARK; only
this, and nothing more. The port from which she hailed was not there.
Skylark was a very good name, though it was not particularly appropriate
for a thing that was to sail on the water, and not in the air. But
"skylarking" was a term applied to frolicking, to rude play; and in this
sense "Skylark" was entirely proper. On the whole, he did not object to
the name, and would not if the owner had appeared at that moment and
made him a present of her. He was entirely satisfied both with the
yacht and her name; and, having completed his survey by daylight, he
again pondered the subject of smuggling in a general way, and then in
its relations to the incidents of the previous night. No higher views,
no better resolutions, came to him. The contraband cargo was safe under
the eaves of the cottage, where no one would be likely to find it;
though he could not help thinking what a disaster it would be if Ezekiel
should happen to discover those boxes, which doubtless contained liquor
enough to keep him drunk for a whole year.

Turning away from the great moral question which confronted him, Little
Bobtail began to feel--distinctly to feel, rather than to think--that it
was about breakfast time. He went forward and removed the scuttle from
over the cook-room. Jumping down into the little apartment, he made a
fire in the stove, and put on the tea-kettle. While it was warming up,
he went on deck again, for he heard the dip of a pair of oars near the
yacht.

"Hullo, Monkey!" he shouted, as he recognized the occupant of a
dilapidated old dory, who was taking a leisurely survey of the tr