"So would I," said Hutton.

"How jolly she looks!" "Ever so much more fun than knocking about on this stupid old river," chimed in I.
"I say, you fellows," cried Hall, struck by a sudden idea, "why shouldn't we have a little cruise in the bay?
It would be glorious a day like this!" "I'm not sure old Rogers," (that was the disrespectful way in which, I regret to say, we were wont to designate Dr Rogers, our head master) "would like it," I said; "he's got some notion into his head about currents and tides, and that makes him fidgety." "Currents and fiddlesticks!" broke in Hall, with a laugh; "what does _he_ know about them?
I tell you, a day like this, with a good sailing breeze, and four of us to row, in case it dropped, there'd be no more difficulty in going over there and back than there would in rowing from here back to Parkhurst." "How long would it take to get to Shargle ?" inquired Hutton.
"Why, only two hours, and perhaps less.

The wind's exactly right for going and coming back too.

We can be back by four easily, and that allows us an hour or two to land there." It certainly was tempting; the day was perfection, and Colveston Bay had never looked more fascinating.

The headlands stood out so distinctly in the clear air that it was hard to imagine Shargle Head was five miles distant from where we sat.
When the proposition had first been made I had felt a passing uncomfortableness as to the lawfulness of such an expedition without the distinct sanction of the head master; but the more I gazed on the bay, and the more Hall talked in his enthusiastic manner of the delights of a cruise, and the longer I watched the fairy-like progress of the little white-sailed fishing-boat, the less I thought of anything but the pleasure which the scheme offered.
So when Hall said, "Shall we go, boys?
What do you say ?" I for one replied, "All serene." All this while one of our party had been silent, watching the fishing- boat, but taking no part in our discussion.