"Moved!" interrupted Captain Goyles. "You get the right wind behind the Rogue—"

I said: "What is the right wind?"

Captain Goyles looked puzzled.

"In the course of this week," I went on, "we have had wind from the north, from the south, from the east, from the west – with variations. If you can think of any other point of the compass from which it can blow, tell me, and I will wait for it. If not, and if that anchor has not grown into the bottom of the ocean, we will have it up to – day and see what happens."

He grasped the fact that I was determined.

"Very well, sir," he said, "you’re master and I’m man. I’ve only got one child as is still dependent on me, thank God, and no doubt your executors will feel it their duty to do the right thing by the old woman."

His solemnity impressed me.

"Mr. Goyles," I said, "be honest with me. Is there any hope, in any weather, of getting away from this damned hole?"

Captain Goyles’s kindly geniality returned to him.

"You see, sir," he said, "this is a very peculiar coast. We’d be all right if we were once out, but getting away from it in a cockle – shell like that – well, to be frank, sir, it wants doing."

I left Captain Goyles with the assurance that he would watch the weather as a mother would her sleeping babe; it was his own simile, and it struck me as rather touching. I saw him again at twelve o’clock; he was watching it from the window of the "Chain and Anchor."

At five o’clock that evening a stroke of luck occurred; in the middle of the High Street I met a couple of yachting friends, who had had to put in by reason of a strained rudder. I told them my story, and they appeared less surprised than amused. Captain Goyles and the two men were still watching the weather. I ran into the "King’s Head," and prepared Ethelbertha. The four of us crept quietly down to the quay, where we found our boat. Only the boy was on board; my two friends took charge of the yacht, and by six o’clock we were scudding merrily up the coast.

We put in that night at Aldborough, and the next day worked up to Yarmouth, where, as my friends had to leave, I decided to abandon the yacht. We sold the stores by auction on Yarmouth sands early in the morning. I made a loss, but had the satisfaction of "doing" Captain Goyles. I left the Rogue in charge of a local mariner, who, for a couple of sovereigns, undertook to see to its return to Harwich; and we came back to London by train. There may be yachts other than the Rogue, and skippers other than Mr. Goyles, but that experience has prejudiced me against both.

George also thought a yacht would be a good deal of responsibility, so we dismissed the idea.

"What about the river?" suggested Harris.

"We have had some pleasant times on that."

George pulled in silence at his cigar, and I cracked another nut.

"The river is not what it used to be," said I; "I don’t know what, but there’s a something – a dampness – about the river air that always starts my lumbago."

"It’s the same with me," said George. "I don’t know how it is, but I never can sleep now in the neighbourhood of the river. I spent a week at Joe’s place in the spring, and every night I woke up at seven o’clock and never got a wink afterwards."

"I merely suggested it," observed Harris. "Personally, I don’t think it good for me, either; it touches my gout."

"What suits me best," I said, "is mountain air. What say you to a walking tour in Scotland?"

"It’s always wet in Scotland," said George. "I was three weeks in Scotland the year before last, and was never dry once all the time – not in that sense."