the table, which indeed rested on it at one end. It appeared to be a
long, low triangle, running lengthways with the boat and dividing the
naturally limited space into two.

'You see, she's a flat-bottomed boat, drawing very little water
without the plate; that's why there's so little headroom. For deep
water you lower the plate; so, in one way or another, you can go
practically anywhere.'

I was not nautical enough to draw any very definite conclusions from
this, but what I did draw were not promising. The latter sentences
were spoken from the forecastle, whither Davies had crept through a
low sliding door, like that of a rabbit-hutch, and was already busy
with a kettle over a stove which I made out to be a battered and
disreputable twin brother of the No. 3 Rippingille.

'It'll be boiling soon,' he remarked, 'and we'll have some grog.'

My eyes were used to the light now, and I took in the rest of my
surroundings, which may be very simply described. Two long
cushion-covered seats flanked the cabin, bounded at the after end by
cupboards, one of which was cut low to form a sort of miniature
sideboard, with glasses hung in a rack above it. The deck overhead
was very low at each side but rose shoulder high for a space in the
middle, where a 'coach-house roof' with a skylight gave additional
cabin space. Just outside the door was a fold-up washing-stand. On
either wall were long net-racks holding a medley of flags, charts,
caps, cigar-boxes, banks of yam, and such like. Across the forward
bulkhead was a bookshelf crammed to overflowing with volumes of all
sizes, many upside down and some coverless. Below this were a