to me fast enough; but then there's a puzzle. I've been
thinking this week how I can make them know it. I can't put out a board
and say, Beazeley, _Boat-builder_, because I'm no boatbuilder, but still
I want a sign."

"Lord, father, haven't you got one already?" interrupted young Tom;
"you've half a boat stuck up there, and that means that you're half a
boat-builder."

"Silence, Tom, with your frippery; what do you think. Jacob?"

"Could you not say, `Boats repaired here?'"

"Yes, but that won't exactly do; they like to employ a builder--and
there's the puzzle."

"Not half so puzzling as this net," observed Tom, who had taken up the
needle, unseen by his mother, and begun to work; "I've made only ten
stitches, and six of them are long ones."

"Tom, Tom, you good-for-nothing--why don't you let my net alone?" cried
Mrs Beazeley; "now 'twill take me as much time to undo ten stitches as
to have made fifty."

"All right, mother."

"No, Tom, all's wrong; look at these meshes?"

"Well, then, all's fair, mother."

"No, all's foul, boy; look how it's tangled."

"Still, I say, all's fair, mother, for it is but fair to give the fish
one or two chances to get away, and that's just what I've done; and now,
father, I'll settle your affair to your own satisfaction, as I have
mother's."

"That will be queer satisfaction, Tom, I guess; but let's hear what you
have to say."

"Then, father, it seems that you're no boat-builder, but you want people
to fancy that you are--a'n't that the question?"

"Why, 'tis something like it, Tom, but I do nobody no harm."

"Certainly not; it's only the boats which will suffer. Now, get a large
board, with `Boats _built to order_, and boats repaired, by Tom
Beazeley.' You know if any man is fool enough to order a boat, that's
his concern; you didn't say you're a boat-builder, although you have no
objection to try your hand."

"What do you say Jacob?" said old Tom, appealing to me.

"I think that Tom has given very good advice, and I would follow it."

"Ah! Tom has a head," said Mrs Beazeley, fondly. "Tom, let go my net
again, will you? What a boy you are! Now touch it again if you dare,"
and Mrs Beazeley took up a little poker from the fire-place and shook
it at him.

"Tom has a head, indeed," said young Tom, "but as he has no wish to have
it broken, Jacob, lend me your wherry for half-an-hour, and I'll be
off."

I assented, and Tom, first tossing the cat upon his moth