

MY FIRST CRUISE 



By J. C. ABEL 



T was undoubtedly 

 Billy's fault. 



I am not a good 

 sailor. I hate the 

 water a trifle worse 

 every time I have to 

 go on it, but Billy 

 was insistent and 

 promised me immunity from heavy 

 seas, anyway, and so I yielded. 



Billy has a motor-boat, one of those 

 contraptions which a few years back 

 used to be called gasolene launches, but 

 which, with the coming of the automo- 

 bile, got proud and wanted a more mod- 

 ern name to accord with their more 

 modern fittings. Anyway, Billy has a 

 motor-boat. He's only had it a few 

 months, but the absurd way he ever- 

 lastingly talks about it would sicken 

 you. It is crank this and spark that and 

 compression t'other all the time, and 

 you'd think that he was a chief engineer 

 at the very least as he glibly rolls off 

 the mechanics of marine engines and 

 boasts of the speed of his old cruiser. 

 I don't understand the first thing about 

 it myself, but that does not fease Billy, 

 who would talk motor-boat to the brick 

 walls if there were no one to listen to 

 him. 



All the early Summer Billy had spent 

 his Saturday afternoons and Sundays 

 tuning her up, as he called it, but I had 

 declined his invitations to go on his "lit- 



tle runs'' with more force than polite- 

 ness, so just how I came to accept his 

 offer to go for a week's cruise with him 

 I am unable to say. He must have got 

 hold of me in a weak moment when I 

 was too dazed with his descriptions of 

 flywheels and oil caps and other things 

 to make a proper resistance. 



We made vigorous preparations for 

 a couple of weeks ahead. The boat was 

 what he called a cabin cruiser, with a 

 length of forty feet and a width of eight 

 feet six inches and an engine develop- 

 ing some 12 horse-power, which, ac- 

 cording to Billy, was sufficient to push 

 her along at a speed of something like 

 twelve miles an hour. I never was 

 particularly good at gauging speed, 

 even when riding a bicycle, so I had to 

 take Billy's word on this, as in most 

 other things, concerning that blessed 

 trip. About three-quarters of the boat 

 was given up to the cabin, which was 

 really handsomely fixed up, and made 

 as cozy a sleeping place by night and 

 living room by day as you could wish 

 for. The long, seats round the sides of 

 the cabin developed into bunks for 

 beds ; cushions there were in plenty. 



A regular ship's clock and compass 

 were provided, and what with electric 

 lights overhead, plush carpet, and the 

 cozy green plush cushions with the 

 really perfect finish of the woodwork in 

 the cabin, we were housed regally. 



