"We could begin with very little," said I, trying hard to keep
calm.

"Certainly," said the doctor, "you need make no more rooms, at
first, than you could furnish."

"Then there are no rooms," said Euphemia.

"No, there is nothing but one vast apartment extending from stem to
stern."

"Won't it be glorious!" said Euphemia to me. "We can first make a
kitchen, and then a dining-room, and a bedroom, and then a parlor--
just in the order in which our book says they ought to be
furnished."

"Glorious!" I cried, no longer able to contain my enthusiasm; "I
should think so. Doctor, where is this canal-boat?"

The doctor then went into a detailed statement. The boat was
stranded on the shore of the Scoldsbury river not far below Ginx's.
We knew where Ginx's was, because we had spent a very happy day
there, during our honeymoon.

The boat was a good one, but superannuated. That, however, did not
interfere with its usefulness as a dwelling. We could get it--the
doctor had seen the owner--for a small sum per annum, and here was
positively no end to its capabilities.