"A tub is a tub and a boat is a boat," said Jack, sententiously. "This one couldn't tip over if it tried. Don't you see it's most square? In fact, we didn't mean to get it quite so wide; but, after all, it is better than those canoe-like things, which are always rocking from one side to the other."
"What are you going to name it?" asked Jim.
Jack looked nonplussed. This necessity had not occurred to him before.
He appealed to Rob.
"Suppose," replied the latter, after mature deliberation,—"suppose we call it the Sylph? There's a, story in the Boys' Own about a beautiful boat called the Sylph."
"Cricky! it looks about as much like a sylph as—well, as Mary Ann does!" said Jim. Since the stout, good-natured cook was heavy, and nearly square in figure, the comparison was amusingly apt.
"Do you remember the tents at Coney Island in summer, where a regular wooden circus procession goes round in a ring, keeping time to the music?" asked Leo.
"Yes, and by paying five cents you can take your choice, and ride on a zebra or a lion or a big gold ostrich, or anything that's there. And once we chose a scrumptious boat, all blue and silver, and drawn by two swans," responded Jim.
"Well, what was the name of that?" said Leo.
"I think the man told us she was known as the Fairy," answered Jim.
Again they looked at the boat and shook their heads. It would not do.