ts, three in number, besides the air-chambers, so
that if she was filled in any one, she could yet sail on, and if all
three compartments had been entirely full of water, she would still float
with her air-chambers, and with five hundredweight to spare. {208}

The buoyancy of the yawl was very remarkable. She easily carried twenty
men, and in the same space one could accommodate five ladies of
reasonable circumference.

A boat's mop is, of course, well known to be always fair spoil to him who
can take it, and whatever other article the yachtsman leaves loose on an
unguarded deck, he never omits to hide or lock up the mop, for a mop is
winged like an umbrella, it strays, but seldom returns. The usual
protection of mops is their extreme badness, and it is on this account,
no doubt, that you never can find a good mop to buy. The Rob Roy's mop
was the only bad article on board, and I left it out loose in perfect
confidence. Often and often it had evidently been turned over, but on
examination it was found supremely bad, worse than the thief's own mop,
and not worth stealing. At last, however, and in Cowes, too, the focus
of yachting, if not of honesty, my mop was stolen. The man who took it
is to be pitied, for, clearly, before he coveted a bad mop, he must have
been long enduring a worse one.

Nor is the property in boats' anchors quite free from the legal
subtleties which allow but a dim sort of ownership in things that are
attached to the soil.

When, indeed, your boat is at one end of the cable, you will scarcely
fear that the anchor should be stolen from the other end. But when
necessity or convenience causes you to slip anchor and sail away, you
must recollect that though the anchor is the emblem of hope, it does not
warrant any _expectation_ that on returning you will find the anchor
acknowledged to be yours. It has now passed into the category of "found
anchors," and it is not yet decided how the rights to these are best
determined. However, I may here mention one mode of settling the matter.

A gentleman we shall call N., sailing from a port on the Thames, had to
slip his anchor, and he said to the lad ashore--"You see I am leaving my
anchor here, and be good enough to tell your father to get it when the
tide falls, and to carry it to where my yacht is, and when I return here
to-morrow I will give him half-a-crown."

After his sailing was over, N. came back and said to the father, "Well,
have you got