She came to flying anchor
At the twilight time of day,
But the strain on the cable sank her,
And her crew, oh, where were they?
[THE “THEODORE”]
There was nothing very grand about the appearance of the “Theodore”; we were in a great hurry to go out, so could only build her very badly, but in spite of that she was a jolly good clipper.
She was built out of a long cardboard box, and had the lines of her ports painted on with ink, and the portholes were cut out. She did not have any masts, we did not have time to make any for her.
THE VERY LONG VOYAGE OF THE “THEODORE.”
The “Theodore” was launched to the north of the Two Snags, but[Pg 18] she caught fire suddenly—really, we set fire to a lot of touchwood and stuff inside her because we wanted to see what a ship on fire would look like on the river.
And she looked splendid with the crimson flames coming out of her ports, and the reflection on the still piece of water just under the cliffs was beautiful.
The fire burnt away like mad, and did not go out till she got as far as Safety Cove. But the fire had not done the old “Theodore” a bit of harm; the water kept the fire from burning through her, except for one big hole the fire had burnt through just above the water line.