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 of odds and ends. No two planks seemed the same width, while, as for length, they were anywhere from two feet to ten. Water trickled in from innumerable seams. The engine was a diminutive thing of one cylinder, with a fly-wheel scarcely larger than a good-sized dinner-plate, but it pushed the boat along at a good gait, the boat shaking and trembling at every explosion in the cylinder. The skipper, seated on an empty box by the engine, laughed.

"How do you like her?" he asked. "Some cruiser, eh? I knocked her together two, three years ago. Got that engine out of a yacht dinghy that sank over by Eagle Beak one time. She's sort of wet underfoot, but she generally gets there. You fellers from Hillman's?"

Bob said they were.

"Fine man, the Doctor. Used to work for him sometimes when I was in high school. Mowed grass and so on a couple of summers. My name's Ambrose Wilkins. Called Brose generally. What sort of a baseball team you fellers going to have up there this year?" He gave a negligent tug at the tiller-line and swerved around the stern of a tug that was backing out