Mr. Collinson looked at Mr. Graham; Mr. Graham looked at Mr. Collinson. For some moments there was absolute silence, each waiting for the other to speak.
"Fire away!" prompted the patient.
"It's your show," retorted the Scoutmaster, then without a break he addressed his lads: "Mr. Collinson has made the troop a present. He will explain the nature of the gift."
Mr. Collinson cleared his throat. He realized that the Scoutmaster was "one up". He had no option but to speak.
"It's only this," he began. "You're a jolly decent crowd of fellows. I've had you under observation, don't you see, and you're really smart at boat work. Your Scoutmaster tells me that you have only an old ship's boat. You deserve something better. I am giving you a yacht—no, not the Ocean Bride," he said hurriedly, as more than one pair of eyes turned in the direction of the yacht lying alongside. "The one I'm handing over to you is the Spindrift, which is a little more than half the size of the Ocean Bride."
"Thanks awfully much, sir," replied the Sea Scouts in chorus; then in their excitement they volleyed a string of questions: "Where is she, sir? What is she like? When can we have her?"
"Steady!" protested Mr. Collinson smilingly. "One question at a time. Do any of you fellows know what a Falmouth quay punt is like?"
Most of the Sea Scouts did not. The word "punt" conveyed the idea of a small, flat-bottomed craft used for duck-shooting. That sounded like "very small beer" compared with a yacht.
"I know, sir," replied Findlay. "A square-sterned boat, drawing about six feet, with a dipping-lug mainsail and a standing lug mizzen. I've read about them in one of the yachting papers."
"Good lad!" exclaimed the donor approvingly. "Well, the Spindrift is something of that type, only she's a yacht. She is thirty-two feet over all, with a beam of nine feet and a draught of five feet ten inches. She is straight-stemmed and has a transom stern. She's an old boat but quite sound, so you needn't be afraid of the keel dropping off in a seaway. In fact, the whole of the keel bolts were renewed eighteen months ago. What is a dipping-lug, Coles?"