The schooner was turned over to the dockyard people that same afternoon,
and duly surveyed; and on the following day, when I presented myself at
the admiral's office, the old boy handed me a list, as long as the main
bowline, setting forth the several alterations deemed necessary to fit
the little craft for His Majesty's service.

"Here, Mr Courtenay, just run your eye over that list, and tell me what
you think of it," he cried, as he passed it to me across the table.

I "ran my eye over it."

"New gang of rigging fore and aft--new bulwarks, six feet high, fitted
with hammock rail, etcetera, complete--deck strengthened by doubling the
deck-beams--new coamings to hatchways,"--and so on, and so on, until my
imagination had conjured up a picture of the trim little _Susanne_
transmogrified out of recognition, and so stiffened and hampered by her
extra deck-beams and new rigging, that we should have reason to deem
ourselves fortunate should we ever succeed in screwing six knots out of
her on a bowline.

The admiral must have beheld my face growing ever longer as I worked my
way through this precious list to the end of it, for when I had finished
it, and looked up at him blankly, he laughed aloud, as he exclaimed--

"Why, boy, what is the matter with you? Your face is as long as a
fiddle!"

"Oh, sir," I exclaimed, in accents of despair, "you surely will not
allow those--those--dockyard people to completely ruin the poor little
hooker by making all these alterations and additions to her? She is a
new vessel, sir--I understood from the mate of her that this was her
first voyage. She is as sound and strong as wood and iron can make her,
and any attempt to further strengthen her can only result in the
destruction of her sailing powers. Then, as to those high bulwarks,
sir, what will be the use of them? They will not afford us an atom of
protection, while they will make her sag away to leeward like a barge!
And this new gang of rigging--"

The admiral again burst out laughing. "There, there," he said
soothingly, as he held up his hand to stop me, "don't distress yourself
any further, Mr Courtenay; I'll go aboard her myself this afternoon,
and see how much of this she really requires before signing the order.
Meanwhile, go aboard yourself and draw up a list of such alterations and
additions as you may think needful, and hand it to me when I come down
to have a look round."

I did so, and the upshot of it all was that