as we had, supplemented by a certain quantity of deck planking,
would be sufficient for our purpose.

The next thing to be done was to proceed with the actual work, and this
we did forthwith.

I am not going to inflict upon the patient reader any wearisome details
of our work, step by step; I believe they may safely be left to his
imagination; moreover, I have other and more interesting things to tell.
I will therefore dismiss this part of my story by mentioning that,
although the work of building our craft proved to be considerably less
easy than we had anticipated, chiefly because of my lack of knowledge of
the details of carpentry, we made very fair progress after the first two
or three days, and especially after I had acquired the knack of handling
a plane properly. But I had to do every stroke of the actual work
myself. The women merely helped me by holding the various parts in
place while I bored the holes or drove the nails; and Julius positively
refused to lend the slightest assistance, because, forsooth, he had not
been consulted during the preparation of the plans! He would sit
smoking cigarettes and fishing, and watch, unmoved, his mother and
sister, to say nothing of the two stewardesses, straining themselves to
help me to lift heavy weights and bend the stout bottom planks to the
required curve. Also--chiefly, I think, because he knew that I
objected--he would persist in shooting at the gulls with a rifle; until
at length, in a fit of exasperation, I risked his mother's displeasure
and put an end to the wastage by locking up the ammunition and taking
possession of the key.

I have already mentioned the arrangement which we had made in the matter
of night watches. This, of course, only applied to those nights when
the moon afforded light enough to permit a passing ship to be seen. My
instructions were that, in the event of a sail being sighted, I was to
be called at once, when I would decide as to the advisability or
otherwise of making a flare to attract the attention of her crew. I was
quite prepared to receive Master Julius's refusal to participate in
these night watches, but, strangely enough, he did not; and thereby
hangs a tale.

The watches had been established a month or more, and no sail had been
seen. Then, on a certain morning, when Julius called me at three
o'clock--my watch followed his--I went on deck and, to my amazement,
discovered the flare which I had prepared to serve as a sig