ightness on the water. The ceilings showed the
uncovered, dark carlines or rafters. The walls had, along the top, a
row of niches for books; and along the bottom, a deceptive sort of
wainscoting, each panel of which was a locker door. Between book niches
above and wainscoting below, the walls were paneled in green burlap
with brown rope for molding. The furnishing was plain.

[Illustration: THE HOUSEBOAT GADABOUT.]

The kitchen or galley was rather small as kitchens go, and rather large
as galleys go. It would not do to tell all the things that were in it;
for anybody would see that they could not all be there. Perhaps it
would be well to mention merely the gasoline stove, the refrigerator,
the pump and sink, the wall-table, the cupboards for supplies, the
closet for the man's serving coats and aprons, the racks of blue willow
ware dishes, and the big sliding door.

One has to mention the big sliding door; for it made such a difference.
It worked up and down like a window-sash, and always suggested the
conundrum, When is a galley not a galley? For when it was down, it
disclosed nothing and the galley was a galley; but when it was up, it
disclosed a recess in which two little gasoline motors sat side by
side, and the galley was an engine-room.

It was a very ingenious and inconvenient arrangement. Operating the
stove and the engines at the same time was scarcely practicable; and we
were often forced to the hard choice of lying still on a full stomach
or travelling on an empty one.

There yet remains to be described the crew's quarters. The crew
consisted of two hands, both strong and sturdy, and both belonging to
the same coloured man. Though our trusty tar, Henry, had doubtless
never heard "The Yarn of the 'Nancy Bell'" and had never eaten a
shipmate in his life, yet he had a whole crew within himself as truly
as the "elderly naval man" who had eaten one. There was therefore no
occasion for extensive quarters. Fortunately, an available space at the
stern was ample for the crew's cabin and all appointments.

All these interior arrangements were without the makeshifts so often
found in houseboats. There were no curtains for partition walls nor
crude bunks for beds. People aboard a houseboat must at best be living
in close quarters. But, upon even the moderate priced craft, much of
the comfort, privacy, and refinement of home life may be enjoyed by
heading off an outlay that tends toward gilt and grill work and turni