ou can, there's the question of the crew. Sal has her
thwarts manned--or womanned, as you choose to put it--and maybe a
dozen reserves to pick from in case of accident. She means business,
I tell you. There's Regatta not five weeks away, and pretty fools we
shall look if she sends round the crier on Regatta Day 'O-yessing' to
all the world that Saltash men can't raise a boat's crew to match a
passel of females, and two of 'em"--he meant Mary Kitty Climo and Ann
Pengelly--"mothers of long families."

They discussed it long and they discussed it close, and this way
and that way, until at last Landlord Oke had roughed-out a crew.
There was no trouble about a stroke. That thwart went _nem. con._
to a fellow called Seth Ede, that worked the ferry and had won prizes
in his day all up and down the coast: indeed, the very Plymouth men
had been afraid of him for two or three seasons before he gave up
racing, which was only four years ago. Some doubted that old Roper
Retallack, who farmed the ferry that year, would spare Seth on
Regatta Day: but Oke undertook to arrange this. Thwart No. 4 went
with no more dispute to a whackin' big waterman by the name of
Tremenjous Hosken, very useful for his weight, though a trifle thick
in the waist. As for strength, he could break a pint mug with one
hand, creaming it between his fingers. Then there was Jago the
Preventive man, light but wiry, and a very tricky wrestler: "a proper
angle-twitch of a man," said one of the company; "stank 'pon both
ends of 'en, and he'll rise up in the middle and laugh at 'ee."
So they picked Jago for boat-oar. For No. 5, after a little dispute,
they settled on Tippet Harry, a boat-builder working in Runnell's
yard, by reason that he'd often pulled behind Ede in the
double-sculling, and might be trusted to set good time to the
bow-side. Nos. 2 and 3 were not so easily settled, and they
discussed and put aside half a score before offering one of the
places to a long-legged youngster whose name I can't properly give
you: he was always called Freckly-Faced Joe, and worked as a
saddler's apprentice. In the end he rowed 2; but No. 3 they left
vacant for the time, while they looked around for likely candidates.

Landlord Oke made no mistake when he promised that Sally meant
business. Two days later she popped her head in at his bar-parlour--
'twas in the slack hours of the afternoon, and he happened to be
sitting there all by himself, tipping a sheaf of