please--and hand me the chalk."

She reached up and signed her name bold and free, being a fair
scholar. "And now, my little fellow," says she, turning to her
husband, "put down that pipe and come'st along home. The man's at
the top of the tree, is he? You'll wish you were, if I catch you at
any more tricks!"

Well, at first the mankind at the "Fish and Anchor" allowed that Sal
couldn't be in earnest; this challenge of hers was all braggadoshy;
and one or two went so far as to say 'twould serve her right if she
was taken at her word. In fact, no one treated it seriously until
four days later, at high-water, when the folks that happened to be
idling 'pon the Quay heard a splash off Runnell's boat-building yard,
and, behold! off Runnell's slip there floated a six-oared gig, bright
as a pin with fresh paint. 'Twas an old condemned gig, that had
lain in his shed ever since he bought it for a song off the
_Indefatigable_ man-o'-war, though now she looked almost too smart to
be the same boat. Sally had paid him to put in a couple of new
strakes and plane out a brand-new set of oars in place of the old
ashen ones, and had painted a new name beneath the old one on the
sternboard, so that now she was the _Indefatigable Woman_ for all the
world to see. And that very evening Sally and five of her mates
paddled her past the Quay on a trial spin, under the eyes of the
whole town.

There was a deal of laughing up at the "Fish and Anchor" that night,
the most of the customers still treating the affair as a joke.
But Landlord Oke took a more serious view.

"'Tis all very well for you fellows to grin," says he, "but I've been
trying to make up in my mind the crew that's going to beat these
females, and, by George! I don't find it so easy. There's the boat,
too."

"French-built, and leaks like a five-barred gate," said somebody.
"The Admiralty condemned her five year' ago."

"A leak can be patched, and the Admiralty's condemning goes for
nothing in a case like this. I tell you that boat has handsome
lines--handsome as you'd wish to see. You may lay to it that what
Sal Hancock doesn't know about a boat isn't worth knowing."

"All the same, I'll warrant she never means to row a race in that
condemned old tub. She've dragged it out just for practice, and
painted it up to make a show. When the time comes--if ever it do--
she'll fit and borrow a new boat off one of the war-ships. We can do
the same."

"Granted that y