as a navigator, you know; clever to have been able to
build the sailing boat; still more clever to have designed and very
nearly built such a beautiful craft as the cutter; and most clever of
all to have built this bungalow. He said that he could understand that
a clever sailor like you might be able to build a boat; but he could not
understand how any sailor--even _you_--could build such a fine house.
He wanted to know how long it took us to build it, and how we set about
it, whether you invented it as we went on, or whether you drew it out on
paper beforehand; and when I said that you had drawn it all out before
we began to build, he said that he'd dearly like to see the drawing,
because it would give him some wrinkles if he should ever again be
shipwrecked."

"And what did you say to that?" I asked.

"Well," said Billy, "you see, I thought it was perhaps his roundabout
way of asking me to show him the plan, so I said I didn't know where it
was; that I rather thought you had destroyed it; and when I said that,
the poor chap looked so disappointed that I showed him what it was like,
by sketching it out on the ground with the point of a sail needle."

"That is very interesting," I said. "Here is paper and a pencil. Just
reproduce on it, as nearly as you can, the sketch you made on the
ground."

The boy took the pencil and paper, and in a few minutes completed a
rough but quite accurate plan of the bungalow, showing the relative
positions of the several rooms in the front and rear portions of the
house. I observed also that he indicated with scrupulous fidelity the
position of every window and door, showing the possibility of passing
from any one room to any other, through the passages and the living-
room.

"This sketch does you credit," I said. "It gives an excellent idea of
the general arrangement of the house; but I really do not see how the
information it affords is in the least degree likely to be of use to Van
Ryn, even should he be shipwrecked a dozen times over. To speak quite
frankly, I would very much rather that you had not made that sketch on
the ground for his information. Do you think he understood it?"

"No," confessed Billy, "I don't believe he did, for he asked all sorts
of silly questions about it that he wouldn't have asked if he had
understood the plan."

"Ah, indeed!" said I. "Do you happen to remember any of those
questions?"

"N-o, I don't think I do," replied Billy. "They were