We settled then that we should go together to take this last day's sail out of the Wave, and to make the most of the ladies' society, before the act of severing should take place. It would be difficult to say what were the hopes that seemed to peep out at me from the prospect of our arrangement; but plainly enough I did encourage the hope of some good that was to come of it. Perhaps I was brightened up by the change for the better that my lively and somewhat whimsical friend had introduced into my morning society. Certainly he was much wittier, and more amusing than my own thoughts, which had been my only companionship before. At any rate, having once agreed to the convention, I set about the preparation of myself and my traps with a good will. The day was lovely, and by happy accident not too hot. A light breeze was springing up which would carry us nicely out of the harbour. The only difficulty in the way of a start was touching the due manning of my craft, as Pierre and his little son Antoine, who had composed my former crew, had been paid off the day before, and were shipped aboard another craft by this time. Right sorry, too, they had been at the change, for both skipper and craft had been exactly to their taste. I was not up to navigating the boat entirely by myself, and had no great opinion of the value of my friend Hamilton as a watch-mate. However, he volunteered with such hearty good will, and the weather promised to afford so little room for seamanship, that I thought he might do at the pinch. It was the first time we had ever been out alone, for, frequently as we had been together, he had been constant to his character as a passenger. "Now Hamilton," said I, "you must work your passage. You must stand by to clap on a rope, or run to the tiller." "Ay, ay," said he, "never fear; I'll not shirk my work. I've had a wet jacket before I saw your craft. Did I never tell you about my cruise on the Cam?" "Never, Tom." "Then you do not know half my nautical experiences. Let me ask you how often you have been capsized in one day?" "Never but once, I am happy to say, and that was when Pierre held on too long at the sheet, against that old launch of the Bucephalus."