oat!" cried Madge, waving her hand toward the half
dozen disreputable looking canal boats huddled close together.

"Where?" asked Jack in amazement.

"Oh, I don't know just exactly where," returned Madge with twinkling
eyes. "Everyone look here, please." She took two large squares of
white paper out of her bag. "You see, it is this way, Jack: We found
that to rent a houseboat takes such a lot of money that we decided
yesterday, to try to turn one of these old canal boats into a
houseboat, and I have drawn the plans of what I think ought to be done."

Madge, who had a decided talent for drawing, had sat up late into the
night to make her two sketches. One pictured the shanty boat as it
was, dingy and dirty, with a broken-down cabin of two rooms at the
stern. In the second drawing Madge's fairy wand, which was her gift of
imagination, had quite transformed the ugly boat. The deck of the
canal boat was about forty feet long, with a twelve-foot beam. To the
two rooms, which the ordinary shanty boat contains, she had added
another two, forming an oblong cabin, with four windows on each side
and a flat roof. The flat roof formed the second deck of the
prospective houseboat. It had a small railing around it, and a pair of
steps that led up from the outside to the upper deck. Madge had
decorated her fairy ship with garlands of flowers that hung far over
the sides of the deck.

Jack Bolling looked at the drawing a long time without saying a word.

"Don't you think it can be done, Jack?" inquired Madge eagerly. "You
see, this old boat could be cleaned and painted, and any good carpenter
could put up the extra rooms."

"Right you are, Madge," Jack answered at last, making a low bow. "Hats
off to the ladies, as usual. Who is that queer-looking customer coming
this way?"

"He is the man who is to see about our canal boat," answered Phil, as
though they were already in possession.

Madge had gone forward. "Have you found the boat for us?" she
inquired. "I simply can't wait to find out."

The man grinned. "There is one towed alongside of mine that you might
be able to git. I had a hard time finding it."

"That is all right," declared Jack, stepping forward, "you will be paid
for your work. Will you please take us out to look at the boat?"

"Got to cross my shanty to git to it," the man replied, leading the way
across a rickety gang-plank.

There were three or four dirty children playing on the deck of h