e was sinking.
And Pepperleigh said it was perfect scandal and passed the news on to
his wife and she said that they had no business to allow it and that if
the steamer sank that was the last excursion she'd go on.

So the news went all round the boat and everywhere the people gathered
in groups and talked about it in the angry and excited way that people
have when a steamer is sinking on one of the lakes like Lake Wissanotti.

Dean Drone, of course, and some others were quieter about it, and said
that one must make allowances and that naturally there were two sides to
everything. But most of them wouldn't listen to reason at all. I think,
perhaps, that some of them were frightened. You see the last time but
one that the steamer had sunk, there had been a man drowned and it made
them nervous.

What? Hadn't I explained about the depth of Lake Wissanotti? I had
taken it for granted that you knew; and in any case parts of it are deep
enough, though I don't suppose in this stretch of it from the big reed
beds up to within a mile of the town wharf, you could find six feet of
water in it if you tried. Oh, pshaw! I was not talking about a steamer
sinking in the ocean and carrying down its screaming crowds of people
into the hideous depths of green water. Oh, dear me no! That kind of
thing never happens on Lake Wissanotti.

But what does happen is that the Mariposa Belle sinks every now and
then, and sticks there on the bottom till they get things straightened
up.

On the lakes round Mariposa, if a person arrives late anywhere and
explains that the steamer sank, everybody understands the situation.

You see when Harland and Wolff built the Mariposa Belle, they left some
cracks in between the timbers that you fill up with cotton waste every
Sunday. If this is not attended to, the boat sinks. In fact, it is part
of the law of the province that all the steamers like the Mariposa Belle
must be properly corked,--I think that is the word,--every season. There
are inspectors who visit all the hotels in the province to see that it
is done.

So you can imagine now that I've explained it a little straighter, the
indignation of the people when they knew that the boat had come uncorked
and that they might be stuck out there on a shoal or a mud-bank half the
night.

I don't say either that there wasn't any danger; anyway, it doesn't feel
very safe when you realize that the boat is settling down with every
hundred yards that she go