emed supremely contented and happy.
Yachting as a general thing, he said, he found slow; but this cruise
had an element of novelty which made it vastly entertaining. He had
never heard of any one deliberately getting to sea quite under such
circumstances before. He didn't uphold the wisdom of the proceeding in
the least, for when I grunted something about the world not containing
such another pair of thorough-paced fools, he agreed with me promptly.
In fact, he was in far too jovial a humour to argue about anything, and
by degrees I began to fall in with his vein. "Let's split a bottle of
vermouth," said he, "and drink confusion to every one except our two
selves." And we did it.

The breeze lulled at daybreak, and northed till we had it nearly fair.

"This is great business," said Haigh. "I'll bet you five hundred pounds
that we make the islands in the next twenty-four hours. I.O.U.'s
accepted." He slipped off the after-hatch, and dragged up from the
counter a venerable relic of a spinnaker, which was one vivid mottle of
mildew. The sail was duly mocked and set. The wind was freshening, and
our pace increased. The cutter and her parasitical escort kicked up
enough wake for a Cardiff ore-steamer.

"Who says a foul bottom matters now?" said Haigh. "Who will suggest
that she isn't kicking past this scenery at nine knots? Bless the ugly
lines of her, we mustn't forget her builder's health. Hand up another
bottle of that vermouth and the dipper."

We lifted her through it all that morning at a splendid pace, the wake
boiling up astern like a mill-tail. The two booms did certainly make
occasional plunges which might have jarred timid nerves, but such a
trifle did not disturb us.

"It's the best bit of racing I've ever done," said Haigh. "There's a
pig of a following sea, and the wind's squally. Just her weather. If
we'd only got another craft trying to beat us, the thing would be
perfect. We should have some inducement to carry on then."

Whilst we were eating our mid-day meal (on deck, of course) that
variegated spinnaker went "pop," splitting neatly from head-cringle to
foot-rope. It was my trick at the tiller, and so I was tied aft. Haigh
peered round at the ruin, and returned to his occupation of knocking
weevils out of his biscuit. He didn't think it worth while to budge,
and so we let the canvas blow into whatever shaped ribands it chose. If
we couldn't carry the sail, we didn't want it.

The wind hardened down