"Very true," said Euphemia, "if we could pick out the cheapest things
and then get some folks to buy a lot of the books."

"We could begin with very little," said I, trying hard to keep calm.

"Certainly," said the doctor, "you need make no more rooms, at first,
than you could furnish."

"Then there are no rooms," said Euphemia.

"No, there is nothing but one vast apartment extending from stem to
stern."

"Won't it be glorious!" said Euphemia to me. "We can first make a
kitchen, and then a dining-room, and a bedroom, and then a parlor--just
in the order in which our book says they ought to be furnished."

"Glorious!" I cried, no longer able to contain my enthusiasm; "I should
think so. Doctor, where is this canal-boat?"

The doctor then went into a detailed statement. The boat was stranded
on the shore of the Scoldsbury river not far below Ginx's. We knew where
Ginx's was, because we had spent a very happy day there, during our
honeymoon.

The boat was a good one, but superannuated. That, however, did not
interfere with its usefulness as a dwelling. We could get it--the doctor
had seen the owner--for a small sum per annum, and here was positively
no end to its capabilities.

We sat up until twenty minutes past two, talking about that house. We
ceased to call it a boat at about a quarter of eleven.

The next day I "took" the boat and paid a month's rent in advance. Three
days afterward we moved into it.

We had not much to move, which was a comfort, looking at it from one
point of view. A carpenter had put up two partitions in it which made
three rooms--a kitchen, a dining-room and a very long bedroom, which
was to be cut up into a parlor, study, spare-room, etc., as soon as
circumstances should allow, or my salary should be raised. Originally,
all the doors and windows were in the roof, so to speak, but our
landlord allowed us to make as many windows to the side of the boat
as we pleased, provided we gave him the wood we cut out. It saved him
trouble, he said, but I did not understand him at the time. Accordingly,
the carpenter made several windows for us, and put in sashes, which
opened on hinges like the hasp of a trunk. Our furniture did not amount
to much, at first. The very thought of living in this independent,
romantic way was so delightful, Euphemia said, that furniture seemed a
mere secondary matter.

We were obliged indeed to give up the idea of following the plan
detailed in our book, because