turned out to cook breakfast and wash decks. The latter was my stunt,
but one look at the dirty water overside and another at my fresh-painted
deck, deterred me. After breakfast, we started a game of chess. The
tide continued to fall, and we felt the sloop begin to list. We played
on until the chess men began to fall over. The list increased, and we
went on deck. Bow-line and stern-line were drawn taut. As we looked the
boat listed still farther with an abrupt jerk. The lines were now very
taut.

"As soon as her belly touches the bottom she will stop," I said.

Cloudesley sounded with a boat-hook along the outside.

"Seven feet of water," he announced. "The bank is almost up and down.
The first thing that touches will be her mast when she turns bottom up."

An ominous, minute snapping noise came from the stern-line. Even as we
looked, we saw a strand fray and part. Then we jumped. Scarcely had we
bent another line between the stern and the wharf, when the original line
parted. As we bent another line for'ard, the original one there crackled
and parted. After that, it was an inferno of work and excitement.

We ran more and more lines, and more and more lines continued to part,
and more and more the pretty boat went over on her side. We bent all our
spare lines; we unrove sheets and halyards; we used our two-inch hawser;
we fastened lines part way up the mast, half way up, and everywhere else.
We toiled and sweated and enounced our mutual and sincere conviction that
God's grudge still held against us. Country yokels came down on the
wharf and sniggered at us. When Cloudesley let a coil of rope slip down
the inclined deck into the vile slime and fished it out with seasick