For it was odd; there was no doubt about that. In the first place, it was painted in such a funny way. The lower part of the hull was green--a real pea-green like the boat that the Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea in--and above that was a foot-wide streak of reddish-pink, and above that again the hull was finished off in white. She looked very much like a scow with a little cottage on board. There was a suggestion of a bow, however, and a rudder-post arose a few inches above the level of the deck at the stern. In length she was about thirty feet and in breadth about ten. There was a few feet of deck space at the bow and a few more at the stern, just enough to accommodate a small dinghy and leave room to pass, and it seemed just possible to walk along the side of the boat without falling off. But the rest of the deck was monopolized by a cabin, or, more properly, house, some eight feet high. This was painted a dazzling white, while the two doors and the six one-sash windows which faced them were trimmed with green. The top of the house seemed to be something between a promenade deck and a roof-garden. There was a railing about it and it was covered with a faded red-and-white canvas awning. Here and there about the edge were red flower-boxes filled with crimson geraniums which were masses of bloom, German ivy which was already creeping up and along the iron railing and the white-and-green-leaved vinca whose drooping sprays made a swaying festoon along the top of the house. There were several green willow chairs on the roof-deck, a small table holding magazines and books and some bright-hued rugs beneath. At the stern a flight of steps gave access from the deck below, while at the bow the house was crowned with a small pilot-house. The windows were curtained with white dimity and through one of the doors, which stood partly open, they saw an engine. (“Gasolene,” murmured Dick knowingly.) On the hull at the bow was painted the name in bold black letters: _Jolly Roger_; and above, from a pole at the forward end of the roof-deck was a white flag which, when the little breeze spread its folds, displayed the gruesome skull-and-cross-bones in black! “Must be a pirate ship,” said Roy, and Harry looked somewhat uneasy until she saw that the others took it as a joke. “Isn’t she a wonder, though!” exclaimed Chub, half in admiration and half in derision. “I think she’s perfectly lovely!” cried Harry. “Wouldn’t it be the biggest fun to live in a boat like that and travel all around the world?” “Well,” Roy laughed, “I don’t believe I’d want to go across the ocean in her! Still you could have lots of fun.” “Why don’t you buy her?” asked Chub. “She’s for sale, you see.” Which was true, since on the forward end of the house was a board bearing the inscription in startlingly large letters: FOR SALE! INQUIRE WITHIN OR WITHOUT