ve said, it was too fine to hurry.
Dinner was eaten with the two boats side by side, with only fenders
between, in a fairy pool. They found the place quite by accident when
exploring the shore of an island whose name they are to this day
ignorant of. There was an entrance to the tiny bay through which a
schooner might barely have scraped her way. Beyond the mouth lay a
wonder land. The pool was as round as a dish and its water the bluest
they had ever seen. Straight across from the entrance a cliff of granite
towered for a hundred feet or more, its tree-clad summit almost leaning
over the boats at anchor. Its face was clothed with vines and dwarf
evergreens and birches. On the other encircling shores of the pool
tumbled boulders hung over the blue depths and were reflected so clearly
that, looking down, one received the same impression of air and space as
when lying on one's back staring into the sky. There never were such
reflections, they declared. No one came to disturb them, and only the
songs and chirpings of birds and the sleepy sigh of the faint breeze in
the boughs broke the silence. Green and blue was that fairyland, warm
with the sun and redolent of the sea and the sappy fragrance of
sun-bathed foliage.

They ate dinner on the decks, the two boats snuggled so close that it
was the easiest thing in the world to pass dishes from one to another.
After dinner they lolled in the sunlight and gazed up at the sheer
granite bluff or the smiling and cloudless sky and talked lazily or
slumbered a little. And finally Wink Wheeler thought of fishing and in a
few minutes a half-dozen lines were overboard, and, while the catches
were not big, they were fairly frequent, and the question of what they
were to have for supper was solved there and then. It was Harry Corwin's
idea to stay in the pool overnight and everyone instantly applauded it.
Later, a party went ashore and explored, but there were no paths to be
found and Nature was jealous of her secrets and they came back without
more knowledge of this unknown island than they had had before. They
named it Mystery Island and called the little harbour Titania's Mirror,
a suggestion from Bert Alley which elicited jibes and a final agreement.

"It's not 'mushy' a bit," said Steve, in Bert's defence. "It's a fine
name for the prettiest bit of water any of us ever saw, and you know it.
The only trouble with you is that you're afraid someone will laugh at
you for being poetical