"The former, probably," muttered Philip.

"We two alone – not even cook or cabin-boy.
I myself want work – good, hardy, earnest work.
We will take watch and watch, and, if it be
necessary to climb up the masts to let out sails, tie
things, and so forth, you, my friend, shall do it."

Bulkeley grasped my hand. I felt that the
compact was complete.

"Let's go to Cowes," said Philip, "and see
what is to be had."

I suggested Lymington, but a slight colour
stole over Philip's face.

"Dabchick Villa, Ryde," he said, in a low,
earnest tone, "is let to Mrs. Penquickle. She
is aunt to Serry Pollinger.

I at once acceded to the nearer vicinity, and
we went down to Cowes on the morrow. We
knew nothing whatever of yachting. Beyond
an occasional pull to Richmond or Kew, and one
voyage to the distant haven of Calais, neither of
us had ever dared the deep. "But you learn as
much, sir," said Philip, "in an hour's real dead
practice, as will make a seaman of you."

That evening, Philip returned to our hotel at
Cowes, Isle of Wight, from a solitary stroll, with
a huge brown book under his arm.

"I thought," said Philip, "we had better be
on the safe side." The book was entitled
Hopsetter's Navigation, and might, from its
venerable appearance, have formed part of a nautical
library inherited by the Ancient Mariner from
his grandfather.

My friend seated himself in a deep chair and
studied his author for nearly five minutes. Then,
he flung the book aside, with the simple interjection,
"Bosh!" and turned to the more genial
page of Bell's Life in London.

"Why, here," exclaimed Bulkeley, " is the
very thing we are in search of. Listen: 'For
Private Contract. – To be sold, a ridiculous
bargain, under peculiar circumstances, the
celebrated clipper yacht Minnie, twenty-five tons,
O.M. With almost fabulous amount of stores.
Winner of nineteen cups. Dingey, gig, &c. Apply
to Mr. Lawrence Batseye, North Cowes.'"

"I don't quite fancy the name," I said. "For
a vessel of that bigness – tonnage, I mean –
'Minnie' sounds insignificant. If it had been
Minnie something. Stop – an idea! She shall
have a surname."

"Very good. What?"

"Jimps."

"Jimps!"

"Precisely. Minnie Jimps. Nothing can be
better. The old Crimean conundrum – the
often quoted, mysterious, invisible, impossible
Minnie Jimps."

Thereupon I related to Philip Bulkeley how
Minnie Jimps, like one of those prodigies which
forerun great human crises, made her appearance,
no man knew whence, in that extraordinary
tongue which formed the medium of
communication between the English soldiers and
the peasants of Bulgaria. But who Minnie
was, the nature of the manoeuvre she was
supposed to execute, and wherefore she jimped at
all, are questions still unsettled.

"But," said Philip, "Jimps, according to
all human presumption, is a verb. It will hardly
do for a name."

"It does for a title. Pippa passes. If
Pippa pass unchallenged, shall Minnie Jimps be
questioned? My mind is made up. What say
you to going at once on board?"

"With all my heart."

Philip started up with an alacrity I had not
noticed in him for months past, and, lighting
our cigars, we strolled down to the
landing-place.

"Boat, sir?"

"Ye– ay, ay," replied Philip. "Presently.
I say, where do they put up – lay up, I mean –
the Minnie, twenty-five tons, O.M.?"

"She's in the stream, sir. Yonder she lays.
There's Jim Stodger, him as has charge of her,
just gone aboard, sir. It's pumping day."

"'Pumping day!' Well, shove ahead, we'll
have a look at her," said my friend.

The man obeyed, and pulled out in the direction
of the Minnie, which proved to be a cutter,
low, sharp, and of enormous length, having no
beam to speak of, an immense mast, and a
bowsprit of proportionate length, parallel to, and
all but touching, the water. She had, in fact,
so many racing features, that we could
distinguish nothing else.

"Just row round her front first," said
Bulkeley. "She's precious low in the water,
ain't she, Harry?"

"She'll lift a streak, sir," said the boatman;
"I 'spose there's a good deal in her."

There was, at all events, a good deal coming
out of her; for Mr. Stodger could be
distinguished hard at work at a powerful pump,
discharging huge volumes of water over her side.

"What, does she let in the sea?"

"Oh, 'tain't nothin'," said the man (we were
now alongside); "just keeps her hold fresh.
Them clippers are mostly strained, and she's a
flier is the Minnie. Hallo, mate! Two gem'
to see the craft."

Mr. Stodger touched his cap, and motioned
us on board.

"Well, let's see this clipper of yours," said
my friend. "Hallo! she isn't much, from one
side to the other," crossing her in about a pace
and a half.

Her deck was slightly convex, and altogether
it was something like standing upon a wall that
had a rounded top, and staggered.

"Well," said Mr. Stodger, "she ain't built
much for knocking about in heavy weather.
But, for gents as don't seem to care for to go
foreign and that, she's as nice and lively a little
thing as I know on; lovely in stays, and though
she is so long, you can turn her on a sixpencel"

Philip mechanically took out one of those
coins from his pocket, looked at it, and put it
in again, wondering how the manœuvre was
described in Hopsetter.

We walked up and down the deck, patted the
mast, squinted along the bowsprit, felt the
ropes, and peeped down below; but were advised
not to descend, as there was still an inch or so