‘I wouldn’t sit in such a thing for the world. No, Bink, if I can’t have a long, narrow boat with a sharp nose, I’ll have a punt. I think I should really like a punt. I was so fond of that one. I feel quite sorry that the rats ate it. Yes; you must buy me a punt. There’ll be plenty of room in it for my drawing-board, and my books, and my crewel-work; for I mean to live on the river when the summer comes. How soon can you buy me my punt?’ ‘I think as how you’d better have a dingey, miss,’ said Bink. ‘It was all very well pushing about a punt in the creeks when you was a child, but a punt don’t do in deep water. You can have a nice-shaped dingey, not too much of a tub, you know, and a pair o’ sculls, and I’ll teach you to row. I can order it any arternoon that I can get an ’oliday, miss. There’s a good boat-builder at Stratford. I’ll order he to build it.’ ‘How lovely,’ cried Daphne, clapping her hands. ‘A boat built on purpose for me! It must have no end of cushions, for my sister will come with me very often, of course. And it must be painted in the early English style. I’ll have a dark red dado.’ ‘A what, miss?’ ‘A dado, Bink. The lower half of the inside must be painted dark red, and the upper half a lovely cream colour; and the outside must be a dark greenish-brown. You understand, don’t you?’ ‘Not over well, miss. You’d better write it down for the boat-builder.’ ‘I’ll do better than that, Bink—I’ll make a sketch of the boat, and paint it the colours I want. And it—she—must have a name, I suppose.’ ‘Boats has names mostly, miss.’ ‘My boat shall not be nameless. I’ll call her——’ A pause, then a sudden dimpling smile and a bright blush, loveliness thrown away on Bink, who stood at ease leaning on his hoe and staring at the river. ‘I’ll call her—Nero.’ ‘An ’ero, miss. What ’ero? The old Dook o’ Wellington? He were an ’ero, warn’t he? Or Nelson? That’s more of a name for a boat.’ ‘Nero, Bink, Nero. I’ll write it down for the boat-builder.’ ‘You’d better, please, miss. I never was good at remembering names.’ When Daphne had given Bink the sketch, with full authority to commission her boat, she had an after-thought about her father. The boat-house was his property; even the river in some measure belonged to him; he had at least riparian rights. So after dinner that evening, when Madoline and she were sitting opposite each other in silence at the pretty table, bright with velvety gloxinias and maidenhair ferns, while Sir Vernon leant back in his chair, sipping his claret, and grumbling vaguely about things in general, the indolence of his servants, the unfitness of his horses, the impending ruin of the land in which he lived, and the crass ignorance of the pig-headed body of men who were pretending to govern it, Daphne, in a pause of the paternal monologue, lifted up her voice. ‘Papa, may I have a dingey, please? I can buy it with my own money.’ ‘A dingey!’ exclaimed Sir Vernon. ‘What in Heaven’s name is a dingey?’