however, explained to me that the picture represented the _Rogue_
doubling something or other on the well-known occasion of her winning the
Medway Challenge Shield. Mr. Pertwee assumed that I knew all about the
event, so that I did not like to ask any questions. Two specks near the
frame of the picture, which at first I had taken for moths, represented,
it appeared, the second and third winners in this celebrated race. A
photograph of the yacht at anchor off Gravesend was less impressive, but
suggested more stability. All answers to my inquiries being
satisfactory, I took the thing for a fortnight. Mr. Pertwee said it was
fortunate I wanted it only for a fortnight--later on I came to agree with
him,--the time fitting in exactly with another hiring. Had I required it
for three weeks he would have been compelled to refuse me.

The letting being thus arranged, Mr. Pertwee asked me if I had a skipper
in my eye. That I had not was also fortunate--things seemed to be
turning out luckily for me all round,--because Mr. Pertwee felt sure I
could not do better than keep on Mr. Goyles, at present in charge--an
excellent skipper, so Mr. Pertwee assured me, a man who knew the sea as a
man knows his own wife, and who had never lost a life.

It was still early in the day, and the yacht was lying off Harwich. I
caught the ten forty-five from Liverpool Street, and by one o'clock was
talking to Mr. Goyles on deck. He was a stout man, and had a fatherly
way with him. I told him my idea, which was to take the outlying Dutch
islands and then creep up to Norway. He said, "Aye, aye, sir," and
appeared quite enthusiastic about the trip; said he should enjoy it
himself. We came to the question of victualling, and he grew more
enthusiastic. The amount of food suggested by Mr. Goyles, I confess,
surprised me. Had we been living in the days of Drake and the Spanish
Main, I should have feared he was arranging for something illegal.