“Two days.”
“I should have thought it would have taken you a week. It is done handsome, my boy,”—patting him on the back; “nobody can better that. But, life of me, why didn’t you make a rule staff, and take spilings, instead of going to work in such a roundabout way as that? You couldn’t have done it any better; but you could have done it in a quarter part the time, and no fuss about it.”
“Then, there’s a rule?”
“To be sure there is.”
“What is a rule staff? What do you mean by taking spilings?”
“I’ll show you by and by.”
Charlie then told his friend the discovery he had made in relation to the floor timbers.
“That is what carpenters call the dead rise, and those middle timbers, that rise but little, are called dead flats. Now, my little boat-builder, I’ll show you how to take spilings. I suppose you wouldn’t be willing to take that garboard off again, because taking the spilings of a garboard is a little different from the rest.”
“Yes, I would; it isn’t nailed fast.”
“It is a little too narrow, though it is put on as well as I could do it.”