lowing advertisement:--

TO YACHTSMEN.--Unique Opportunity.--"Rogue," 28-ton Yawl.--Owner, called
away suddenly on business, is willing to let this superbly-fitted
"greyhound of the sea" for any period short or long. Two cabins and
saloon; pianette, by Woffenkoff; new copper. Terms, 10 guineas a
week.--Apply Pertwee and Co., 3A Bucklersbury.

It had seemed to me like the answer to a prayer. "The new copper" did
not interest me; what little washing we might want could wait, I thought.
But the "pianette by Woffenkoff" sounded alluring. I pictured
Ethelbertha playing in the evening--something with a chorus, in which,
perhaps, the crew, with a little training, might join--while our moving
home bounded, "greyhound-like," over the silvery billows.

I took a cab and drove direct to 3A Bucklersbury. Mr. Pertwee was an
unpretentious-looking gentleman, who had an unostentatious office on the
third floor. He showed me a picture in water-colours of the _Rogue_
flying before the wind. The deck was at an angle of 95 to the ocean. In
the picture no human beings were represented on the deck; I suppose they
had slipped off. Indeed, I do not see how anyone could have kept on,
unless nailed. I pointed out this disadvantage to the agent, who,
however, explained to me that the picture represented the _Rogue_
doubling something or other on the well-known occasion of her winning the
Medway Challenge Shield. Mr. Pertwee assumed that I knew all about the
event, so that I did not like to ask any questions. Two specks near the
frame of the picture, which at first I had taken for moths, represented,
it appeared, the second and third winners in this celebrated race. A
photograph of the yacht at anchor off Gravesend was less impressive, but
suggested more stability. All answers to my inquiries being
satisfactory, I took the thing for a fortnight. Mr. Pertwee said it was
fortunate I wanted it only for a fortnight--later on I came to agree with
him,--the time fitting in exactly with another hiring. Had I required it
for three weeks he would have been compelled to refuse me.

The letting being thus arranged, Mr. Pertwee asked me if I had a skipper
in my eye. That I had not was also fortunate--things seemed to be
turning out luckily for me all round,--because Mr. Pertwee felt sure I
could not do better than keep on Mr. Goyles, at present in charge--an
excellent skipper, so Mr. Pertwee assured me, a man who knew the sea as a