red with by its removal, but he insisted
that "Ironing-table Grange" would be just as good a name, and that
symmetrical propriety in such a case did not amount to a row of pins.

The result was, that we did have the ironing-table, and that Euphemia
was very much pleased with it. A great many other improvements were
projected and carried out by him, and I was very much worried. He made
a flower-garden for Euphemia on the extreme forward-deck, and having
borrowed a wheelbarrow, he wheeled dozens of loads of arable dirt up
our gang-plank and dumped them out on the deck. When he had covered
the garden with a suitable depth of earth, he smoothed it off and then
planted flower-seeds. It was rather late in the season, but most of
them came up. I was pleased with the garden, but sorry I had not made it
myself.

One afternoon I got away from the office considerably earlier than
usual, and I hurried home to enjoy the short period of daylight that I
should have before supper. It had been raining the day before, and as
the bottom of our garden leaked so that earthy water trickled down at
one end of our bed-room, I intended to devote a short time to stuffing
up the cracks in the ceiling or bottom of the deck--whichever seems the
most appropriate.

But when I reached a bend in the river road, whence I always had the
earliest view of my establishment, I did not have that view. I
hurried on. The nearer I approached the place where I lived, the more
horror-stricken I became. There was no mistaking the fact.

The boat was not there!

In an instant the truth flashed upon me.

The water was very high--the rain had swollen the river--my house had
floated away!

It was Wednesday. On Wednesday afternoons our boarder came home early.

I clapped my hat tightly on my head and ground my teeth.

"Confound that boarder!" I thought. "He has been fooling with the
anchor. He always said it was of no use, and taking advantage of my
absence, he has hauled it up, and has floated away, and has gone--gone
with my wife and my home!"

Euphemia and "Rudder Grange" had gone off together--where I knew
not,--and with them that horrible suggester!

I ran wildly along the bank. I called aloud, I shouted and hailed each
passing craft--of which there were only two--but their crews must have
been very inattentive to the woes of landsmen, or else they did not hear
me, for they paid no attention to my cries.

I met a fellow with an axe on his shoulder. I