In what follows I shall take leave here and there to alter a name or suppress it. With these exceptions you shall hear precisely how the _Siren_ came into my hands. Early in 1890 I determined, for the sake of my health, to take a longer holiday than usual, and spend the months of July, August, and September in a cruise about the Channel. My notion was to cross over to the French coast, sail down as far as Cherbourg, recross to Salcombe, and thence idle westward to Scilly, and finish up, perhaps, with a run over to Ireland. This, I say, was my notion: you could not call it a plan, for it left me free to anchor in any port I chose, and to stay there just as long as it amused me. One fixed intention I had, and one only-- to avoid the big regattas. Money had to be considered, and I thought at first of hiring. I wanted something between twenty-five and forty tons, small enough to be worked by myself and a crew of three or at most three men and a boy, and large enough to keep us occupied while at sea. Of course, I studied the advertisement columns, and for some time found nothing that seemed even likely to suit. But at last in _The Field_, and in the left-hand bottom corner--where it had been squeezed by the lists of the usual well-known agencies--I came on the following:-- "YAWL, 35 tons. For immediate SALE, that fast and comfortable cruiser _Siren_. Lately refitted and now in perfect condition throughout. Rigging, etc., as good as new. Cabin appointments of unusual richness and taste. 400 pounds. Apply, Messrs. Dewy and Moss, Agents and Surveyors, Portside Street, F--." On reading this I took Lloyd's _Yacht Register_ from its shelf, and hunted for further details. _Sirens_ crowd pretty thickly in the Register; only a little less thickly than _Undines_. Including _Sirenes_ and _Sirenas_, I found some fourteen--and not a yawl amongst them, nor anything of her tonnage. There were two more in Lloyd's _List of American Yachts_--one a centre-board schooner, the other a centre-board sloop; and, in a further list, I came upon a _Siren_ that had changed her name to _Mirage_--a screw-schooner of one hundred and ninety tons, owned by no less a person than the Marquis of Ormonde. On the whole it seemed pretty clear that Lloyd knew not of the existence of this "fast and comfortable cruiser" of thirty-five tons. However, if half the promises of the advertisement were genuine, the chance ought not to be lost for lack of further inquiry. So I sat down there and then and wrote a letter to the poetically-named Dewy and Moss, asking some questions in detail about the boat, and, in particular, where she was to be seen.