be comfortable. Now here's my plan."

"Let's have it," cried the other boys.

"We can hire a cat-boat about twenty feet long, and she'll be big
enough, so that we can rig up a canvas cabin at night. We can anchor
her, and sleep on board her every night. We can carry mattresses, so we
needn't sleep on stones and stumps--"

"And coffee-pots," interrupted Joe.

"--and we can take lots of things, and live comfortably. We can sail
instead of rowing; and though I like to row as well as the next fellow,
we've had a little too much of that. Now we'll get a cat-boat next
summer, and we'll cruise from New York Bay to Montauk Point. We can go
all the way through the bays on the south side, and there are only three
places where we will have to get a team of horses to drag the boat
across a little bit of flat meadow. I know all about it, for I studied
it out on the map one day. What do you say to that for a cruise?"

"I'll go," said Harry.

"And I'll go," said Jim.

"Hurrah for the cat-boat!" said Joe. "We can be twice as moral and
piratical in a sail-boat as we can in a row-boat, even if it is the dear
little _Whitewing_."

THE END.

[Illustration]

In Africa wandered a yak;
A jaguar jumped up on his back.
Said the yak, with a frown,
"Prithee quick get thee down;
You're almost too heavy, alack!"

BITS OF ADVICE.

ENTERTAINING FRIENDS.

BY AUNT MARJORIE PRECEPT.

I once overheard a little bit of talk between two school-girls, one of
whom said, "Well, the Ames family are coming to our house next week, and
for my part I dread it. I don't expect to have a mite of enjoyment while
they are with us. I can not entertain people." I have forgotten her
companion's reply, but I know that the feeling is common among young
people, and when guests arrive they often slip off the responsibility of
making them happy upon papa and mamma. This is hardly fair. The art of
hospitality is really as easily acquired as a knowledge of geography or
grammar.

In the first place, the young girls in a family when expecting friends
of their own age should see that their rooms are pleasantly arranged,
the beds freshly made, toilet soap provided, and plenty of towels and
water at hand. Not new towels, dear girls; they are hard and slippery,
and nobody likes them. There should be a comb and brush, a button-hook,
pins in plenty, and space in the closet to hang dresses and coats, as
well as an empty drawer in the bu