terrifically at creation in general.

"Starboard your helm - starboard!" he cried, removing his weapon for
the purpose.

"Starboard it is!" I answered,

"Clear away for action!" growled the Imp. "Double-shot the
cannonades, and bo'sun, pipe all hands to quarters."

Whereupon I executed a lively imitation of a boatswain's whistle.
Most children are blessed with imagination, but the Imp in this
respect is gifted beyond his years. For him there is no such thing
as "pretence"; he has but to close his eyes a moment to open them
upon a new and a very real world of his own - the golden world of
Romance, wherein so few of us are privileged to walk in these cold
days of common-sense. And yet it is a very fair world peop1ed with
giants and fairies; where castles lift their grim, embattled towers;
where magic woods and forests cast their shade, full of strange
beasts; where knights ride forth with lance in rest and their armour
shining in the sun. And right well we know them. There is Roland,
Sir William Wallace, and Hereward the Wake; Ivanhoe, the Black
Knight, and bold Robin Hood. There is Amyas Leigh, old Salvation
Yeo, and that lovely rascal Long John Silver. And there, too, is
King Arthur, with his Knights of the Round Table - but the throng
is very great, and who could name them all?

So the Imp and I sailed away into this wonderful world of romance
aboard our gallant vessel, which, like any other pirate ship that
ever existed - in books or out of them - "luffed, and filling upon