to be this or that. Surely, the
rules of the raft were the rules of life, and in what, then, did these
visitor-ladies' grievance consist?

Puzzled and a little sulky, I pushed open the door of the deserted
nursery, where the raft that had rocked beneath so many hopes and fears
still occupied the ocean-floor. To the dull eye, that merely tarries
upon the outsides of things, it might have appeared unromantic and even
unraftlike, consisting only as it did of a round sponge-bath on a bald
deal towel-horse placed flat on the floor. Even to myself much of the
recent raft-glamour seemed to have departed as I half-mechanically
stepped inside and curled myself up in it for a solitary voyage. Once I
was in, however, the old magic and mystery returned in full flood, when
I discovered that the inequalities of the towel-horse caused the bath
to rock, slightly, indeed, but easily and incessantly. A few minutes
of this delightful motion, and one was fairly launched. So those women
below didn't want us? Well, there were other women, and other places,
that did. And this was going to be no scrambling raft-affair, but a
full-blooded voyage of the Man, equipped and purposeful, in search of
what was his rightful own.

Whither should I shape my course, and what sort of vessel should I
charter for the voyage? The shipping of all England was mine to pick
from, and the far corners of the globe were my rightful inheritance. A
frigate, of course, seemed the natural vehicle for a boy of spirit to
set out in. And yet there was something rather "uppish" in commanding
a frigate at the very first set-off, and little spread was left for
the ambition. Frigates, too, could always be acquired later by sheer
adventure; and your real hero generally saved up a square-rigged ship
for the final achievement and the rapt return. No, it was a schooner
that I was aboard of--a schooner whose masts raked devilishly as the
leaping seas hissed along her low black gunwale. Many hairbrained youths
started out on a mere cutter; but I was prudent, and besides I had some
inkling of the serious affairs that were ahead.

I have said I was already on board; and, indeed, on this occasion I was
too hungry for adventure to linger over what would have been a special
delight at a period of more leisure--the dangling about the harbour, the
choosing your craft, selecting your shipmates, stowing your cargo, and
fitting up your private cabin with everything you might want to put yo