for in the materials for her construction; and as it
happened to suit Leslie's requirements exceedingly well, he very wisely
determined not to alter it. The work of putting together the bulkheads,
lining the saloon, fitting up the staterooms, and generally completing
her interior arrangements, was not laborious, but there was a great deal
of it, and some of it came very awkwardly to their hands, due, no doubt,
to a great extent, to the unaccustomed character of the work in the
first place, and, in the second, to the confined spaces in which much of
it was necessarily to be done; but at length there came a day when,
after a most careful inspection of the craft, inside and out, Dick
pronounced her hull complete and ready for launching. But at the last
moment he decided that it would be more convenient to step her
lower-mast ere she left the stocks; and, one thing leading naturally to
another, an additional day was devoted to the job of stepping this
important spar, getting the bowsprit into position, setting up all the
rigging connected with these two spars, and getting the main-boom and
gaff into their places. Then, with the remainder of her spars and all
her sails aboard, they knocked off work for the night, with the
understanding that the little craft was to be consigned to "her native
element" on the morrow.

The dawn of that morrow promised as fair a day as heart could wish for
so important a ceremony; and the three men were early astir and busy
upon the final preparations. The most important of these was the
greasing of the launching ways; and as Dick had foreseen this necessity
from the very outset, he had not only adopted the precaution of bringing
ashore from the brig every ounce of tallow and grease of every
description that he had been able to find aboard her, but had rigorously
saved every morsel that had resulted from their cooking during the whole
period of their sojourn upon the island. Thus it happened that, when it
came to the point, he found that he had what, with judicious and strict
economy, might prove sufficient for the purpose. But he intended that
there should be no room for doubt in so important a matter as this, and
he therefore ruthlessly sacrificed almost the whole of a big case of
toilet soap, with which he and the other two men went diligently over
the ways, rubbing the soap on dry until a film of it covered the ways
throughout their whole length. Then, upon the top of this, they
plast