To confess the truth, it looked a little too balloonish to suit any body’s fancy. The captain broke into a laugh. The professor speculated upon the quantity of stones that would be required to ballast it, measured by the ton; our sagaman began to institute comparisons between it and the ancient Phœnician craft, contending that the latter possessed decided advantages in a sea-way, which nobody doubted for a moment. The photographers came running along after it with their camera; the artists ran after it with their pencils—particularly a young gentleman much given to caricature (who, for short, bore the euphonious name of Blob), and who in a twinkling sketched her launched from an iceberg into an atmosphere of green above a golden sea, sailing away like a kite, with our trader for a bob. The trader was not there at first, but he came up in time to make a liberal offer of pork and beans, or a note of hand, in exchange for it—any thing of that description would be so handy to have on board the _Panther_—a boat thirty-six feet long—handy as the door-plate in the Toodles house. Some one asked Mr. Anthon if he would not be good enough “to have the thing shoved off, that we might get a touch of its quality.” “Of course—by all means,” replied the pastor. Then he called the crew together. “Now, shades of Harvard and Oxford defend us, _what_ a crew! and what a rig!” exclaimed the Prince, breaking into a laugh as the crew appeared. And he was quite right. It was a strange rig for a boat’s crew, without any sort of doubt. Very long boots that reached above the knees, of divers colors and pretty shape, gave a trim and natty look to the pedal extremities. Then they wore seal-skin pantaloons, very short, beginning where the boots left off and ending midway on the hips, where they met a jacket bright of hue, and lined with fawn-skin. This jacket was trimmed around the neck with black fur, beneath which peeped up a white covering to the throat. The hair was drawn out of the way, and tied with red ribbon on the top of the head; and altogether the costume was calculated to show off the respective figures of the crew to the greatest possible advantage. Then the Prince laughed again when the pastor called their names. “They’re a jolly lot,” said he. “Go along,” said Mr. Anthon; “go along, Maria, and take the others with you.” Maria proved to be stroke-oar, and she called, “Catherina, Christina, Dorothea, Nicholina, Concordia, here, come along.”