incipient baseball games were abandoned that Saturday morning; people ran
out of their houses, teamsters halted their carts. The breathless
excitement, the exaltation I had felt on leaving the alley were now
tinged with other feelings, unanticipated, but not wholly lacking in
delectable quality,--concern and awe at these unforeseen forces I had
raised, at this ever growing and enthusiastic body of volunteers
springing up like dragon's teeth in our path. After all, was not I the
hero of this triumphal procession? The thought was consoling,
exhilarating. And here was Nancy marching at my side, a little subdued,
perhaps, but unquestionably admiring and realizing that it was I who had
created all this. Nancy, who was the aptest of pupils, the most loyal of
followers, though I did not yet value her devotion at its real worth,
because she was a girl. Her imagination kindled at my touch. And on this
eventful occasion she carried in her arms a parcel, the contents of which
were unknown to all but ourselves. At length we reached the muddy shores
of Logan's pond, where two score eager hands volunteered to assist the
Petrel into her native element.

Alas! that the reality never attains to the vision. I had beheld, in my
dreams, the Petrel about to take the water, and Nancy Willett standing
very straight making a little speech and crashing a bottle of wine across
the bows. This was the content of the mysterious parcel; she had stolen
it from her father's cellar. But the number of uninvited spectators,
which had not been foreseen, considerably modified the programme,--as the
newspapers would have said. They pushed and crowded around the ship, and
made frank and even brutal remarks as to her seaworthiness; even Nancy,
inured though she was to the masculine sex, had fled to the heights, and
it looked at this supreme moment as though we should have to fight for
the Petrel. An attempt to muster her doughty buccaneers failed; the
gunner too had fled,--Gene Hollister; Ham Durrett and the Ewanses were