stovepipe in the kitchen fell down, there followed the sound
as of some scaly creature dragging its body across the linoleum. Then
there came a fall of plaster, and the kitchen stove itself appeared
stealthily through the bedroom wall.

"My conscience!" said Elmer Higgins at the height of his mystification.

But we anticipate. It will be well at this point to look in on the
affairs of Hat Tyler for a moment. When it became apparent that the
_Minnie Williams_ would not leave the ways until softer weather had
loosened up the launching grease the crowd drifted away from her. The
cook banked his fires and the crew went ashore for a carouse.

Then it was that Hat had it out with Tyler. Jed said himself afterward
that it was a regular old-fashioned session, but further than that he
would not commit himself, beyond saying that of course Hat was
sensitive--awful sensitive--and just as thin-skinned as she could be,
and it was only natural she should get up on her high horse when once
she had him alone. It was not till near midnight that, red of eye and
with her hair stringing down any old how, she put her head out of the
companionway and looked vengefully at the Higgins place across the way.

"If looks could kill," Tyler said, thrusting his jaw out with hers,
"there wouldn't be a grease spot left of that shack, would there, Hat?"

Hat made no answer. She had felt an indefinable sensation at the soles
of her feet.

"We're away, Tyler, we're away!" she gasped.

It was even so. Swift as a swallow on the wing and noiseless as a thief
in the night the _Minnie Williams_ left the smoking ways, with that deep
and graceful bow always so thrilling to beholders when there are
beholders; the first and most beautiful motion of the ship.

"You christian her, Hat!" cried Tyler. "I'll drop the hook."

Hat broke the bottle over her stern works at the very moment that a roar
of chain going out at the hawse pipe forward set the sleeping gulls
flapping seaward. The _Minnie Williams_ floated there lightly as a
feather drifted from the wings of sleep, soundless save for the chain
rattling out of her lockers. She had chosen that whimsical hour of the
night to take her first bath, and who should say the lady nay?

Now by insensible degrees the near shore receded and the far shore drew
near. Still slack chain rattled out of the hawse pipe.

Hat strode forward.

"For the Lord's sake, ain't you going to snub this ship!" she cried in a
voice