Saturday night all the Snarkites walked out on an opposite pier to take a look at the Snark and to make plans. Jack and Mrs. London were still smiling. It seemed impossible to dash their spirits.
From where we stood, the Snark showed up bravely. She was a little floating palace. Jack could not refrain from bragging to Mrs. London about her bow.
"Isn't it a beauty?" he asked again and again. "That bow was made to punch storms with! It laughs at the sea! Not a drop can come over her! We'll be as dry and comfortable as any craft afloat, with such a bow as that!" And Mrs. London would p044 laugh her assent, and find new virtues in the boat and in that bow.
"Well," I said at last. "We'll get away Tuesday, anyway."
"Yes, we'll get away Tuesday. Think of that!" Mrs. London cried in response. "It will be worth all the trouble, and all the expense. Once we're out on the ocean, we'll forget all our little worries, the accidents, and the Sellerses, and all the rest. Glorious? Glorious doesn't express it."
"And think of what we can do when we get the engine to running again," Jack went on. "Think of the inland work. With such an engine, there isn't a river in the world with current stiff enough to baffle us. We can see so much more by inland voyaging than we could by merely hanging around ports. Think of the people, and the natural scenery! The things we won't know about the various countries through which we pass won't be worth knowing."
"That reminds me," I broke in. "What do you think you'll write about?"
He smiled.
"Well, if we're boarded by pirates and fight it out until our deck becomes a shambles, I don't think I'll write about it. And if we're wrecked at sea, and are driven by starvation into eating one another I'll keep it quiet for the sake of our relatives. And if we're killed and eaten by cannibals, of course I shan't let the American public get an inkling of it."