-brown
smoke issuing from her funnel from start to finish. If anyone happened
to have taken the trouble to get up the race with the express object of
ascertaining the best speed of the _Thetis_, they knew it now; it was
fourteen knots, rising to nearly fifteen for a few minutes occasionally
when the conditions were especially favourable!

With the approach of the end of the month the yachts began to thin out
more and more perceptibly every day, the racers going westward and the
cruisers following them; the steam-yachts hanging on to accompany the
Channel Match to Weymouth. The _Thetis_ was one of these; and Jack
allowed it to be pretty generally understood that after the Weymouth
regatta was over he intended to run north for a month or so, visiting
the Baltic, and perhaps proceeding as far east as Cronstadt. But
yachtsmen are among the most capricious of men--some of them never know
from one moment to another what they really intend to do; thus it is,
after all, not very surprising that when the _Thetis_ arrived off the
mouth of the Tyne Jack Singleton should suddenly give orders for her
nose to be turned shoreward, and that, an hour or two later, she should
glide gently up alongside and make fast to the private wharf of
Singleton, Murdock, and Company. What is surprising is that, when she
was seen approaching, some fifty of Singleton, Murdock, and Company's
most trusty hands received sudden notice that they were required for an
all-night job; and that at dawn the next morning the _Thetis_ drew a
full foot more water than she had done when she ran alongside the wharf
some twelve hours earlier, although in the interim she had not taken an
ounce of coal into her bunkers.

It so happened that Mr Murdock was absent on important business when
the _Thetis_ arrived alongside the wharf, and he did not return to
Newcastle until nearly midnight, when he, of course, made the best of
his way to his own house. But he was at the works betimes next morning,
and, knowing that the yacht was expected, he took the wharf on his way
to the office, with the object of ascertaining whether she had arrived.
The sight of her lying alongside in all her bravery of white enamel
paint, gilt mouldings, and polished brasswork caused him to heave a
great sigh of relief; and he joyously hurried forward to greet Jack,
whom he saw standing on the wharf engaged in earnest conversation with
the yard foreman.

"Good-morning, Singleton!--Morning, Pric