verhauled that selfsame year.

Having satisfied myself on a few other minor points, I pulled ashore and
again went up through the gardens to the agents' office. Mr. Matchem was
delighted to hear that I liked the yacht well enough to think of hiring
her at their own price (a rather excessive one, I must admit), and, I
don't doubt, would have supplied me with a villa in Bournemouth, and a
yachting box in the Isle of Wight, also on their own terms, had I felt
inclined to furnish them with the necessary order. But fortunately I was
able to withstand their temptations, and having given them my cheque for
the requisite amount, went off to make arrangements, and to engage a
crew.

Before nightfall I had secured the services of a handy lad in place of
the old man who had brought the boat round from Poole, and was in a
position to put to sea. Accordingly next morning I weighed anchor for a
trip round the Isle of Wight. Before we had brought the Needles abeam I
had convinced myself that the boat was an excellent sailer, and when the
first day's cruise was over I had no reason to repent having hired her.

Not having anything to hurry me, and only a small boy and my own
thoughts to keep me company, I took my time; remained two days in the
Solent, sailed round the island, put in a day at Ventnor, and so back to
Bournemouth. Then, after a day ashore, I picked up a nice breeze and ran
down to Torquay to spend another week, sailing slowly back along the
coast, touching at various ports, and returning eventually to the place
I had first hailed from.

In relating these trifling incidents it is not my wish to bore my
readers, but to work up gradually to that strange meeting to which they
were the prelude. Now that I can look back in cold blood upon the
circumstances that brought it about, and reflect how narrowly I escaped
missing the one event which was destined to change my whole life, I can
hardly realize that I attached such small importance to it at the time.
Somehow I have always been a firm believer in Fate, and indeed it would
be strange, all things considered, if I were not. For when a man has
passed through so many extraordinary adventures as I have, and not only
come out of them unharmed, but happier and a great deal more fortunate
than he has really any right to be, he may claim the privilege, I think,
of saying he knows something about his subject.

And, mind you, I date it all back to that visit to the old home, and to