o. Always thought a bark was bigger. A scow's more
her size, ain't it?"

"Scow?" Cleggett frowned. The Jasper B. a scow! "You mean a
schooner, don't you?"

"Schooner?" Mr. Goldberg grinned good-naturedly at his departing
customer. "A kind of a schooner-scow, huh?"

"No, sir, a schooner!" said Cleggett, reddening, and turning in the
doorway. "Understand me, Mr. Goldberg, a schooner, sir! A schooner!"

And standing with a frown on his face until every vestige of the smile
had died from Mr. Goldberg's lips, Cleggett repeated once more: "A
schooner, Mr. Goldberg!"

"Yes, sir--there's no doubt of it--a schooner, Mr. Cleggett," said Mr.
Goldberg, turning pale and backing away from the door.

The ordinary man inspects a house or a horse first and buys it, or
fails to buy it, afterward; but genius scorns conventions; Cleggett was
not an ordinary man; he often moved straight towards his object by
inspiration; great poets and great adventurers share this faculty;
Cleggett paid for the Jasper B. first and went back to inspect his
purchase later.

The vessel lay about two miles from the center of Fairport. He could
get within half a mile of it by trolley. Nevertheless, when he reached
the Jasper B. again after leaving Mr. Goldberg it was getting along
towards dusk.

He first entered the cabin. It was of a good size and divided into
several compartments. But it was in a state of dilapidation and
littered with a jumble of odds and ends which looked like the ruins of
a barroom. As he turned to ascend to the deck again, after possibly
five minutes, intending to take a look at the forecastle next, he heard
the sound of a motor.

Looking out of the cabin he saw a taxicab approaching the boat from the
direction of Fairport. It was a large machine, but it was overloaded
with seven or eight men. It stopped within twenty yards of the vessel,
and two men got out, one of them evidently a person who imposed some
sort of leadership on the rest of the party. This was a tall fellow,
with a slouching gait and round shoulders. And yet, to judge from his
movements, he was both quick and powerful. The other was a short,
stout man with a commonplace, broad red face and flaxen hair. The two
stood for a moment in colloquy in the road that led from Fairport
proper to the bayside, passing near the Jasper B., and Cleggett heard
the shorter of the two men say:

"I'm sure I saw somebody aboard of her."

"How long ago, Heinri