268 OCCASIONAL HAPPY THOUGHTS. 



Sweden. All hands to pump. Had to put back," &c. Or 

 you can use strong language about your " Confounded Cap- 

 tain, who always will mistake your sailing orders, and who 

 ought to have met you at Cowes." 



Secondly, the purchase of a telescope (one second-hand, 

 and utterly out of order, can be got for a mere trifle) is a 

 necessity, as, whenever there's nothing else to be done at 

 Cowes, the rule is to look through a glass of some sort, if a 

 telescope, so much the better. The object is unimportant ; 

 but, if you must have one as a subject of conversation, you 

 can always be on the look out for your boat, or for your 

 confounded Captain (call him Captain Harris), who won't be 

 punctual, hang him ! and whom you intend, you can say 

 severely, to dismiss the instant he arrives. 



This method of " looking like it " will only cost you your 

 ordinary living, and with a trip or two on the steamboat 

 round the island and over to Southampton and Portsmouth 

 (always, of course, in Search of your missing idiotic Captain 

 — (for you must keep up the character), you'll have had most 

 of the pleasure of yachting without any of the expense or 

 bother attached to yacht-ownership. 



A propos of " ownership," a nautical jeu de mot (and it's 

 just as well to have these things ready) would be that the 

 possession of a Yacht can't be properly described as Own-a- 

 ship. 



Also, with perfect truth, anyone who follows the above 

 directions will be able to say to a landsman, " Ah, my boy ! 

 there's a heap of pleasure to be got out of a yacht ! " — and 

 you will make a mental reservation to the effect that what- 



