Page:Silver Shoal Light.djvu/196

176 "a four-masted barque?" Garth nodded vigorously.

"Is it dreadfully bad?" he asked.

Jim encircled him, dreamer and designer, with a kind arm.

"I'm afraid she couldn't be built from this, exactly," he said, "but you've the idea. Good lines. Did you do it according to rule?" Garth shook his head.

"No; I sort of thought her," he said.

"That's naughty," Jim said. "You ought to stick to thirty-footers." He smoked thoughtfully for a moment; then said:

"No; I'm wrong. 'Thinking' ships is something which I can't teach you and which is much better than rule."

"I gave up some of the sails," Garth said. "I got lost when I came to the jibs and stays'ls and the jigger."

"Let's put 'em in now," Jim suggested. "No; you do it," as Garth offered him the pencil, "and I'll tell you which and where."

They bent again over the table, until the early, storm-burdened dusk fell about them so thickly that Elspeth's warnings about eye-strain were at last heeded and they straightened the papers and leaned back. Jim gathered his son