The boys went ashore in the boat. Bruce then returned for Captain Corbet, who was touched by this small attention. As Bart and the rest waited on the beach, they noticed a small, neat, freshly-painted boat drawn up not far away, which needed not the name of Fawn on the stern to assure them that it could belong to nothing else than the smart schooner. While they were looking at it and admiring it, a man advanced towards them, who regarded them with a puzzled and curious expression. He was a man of middle age and medium stature, with clean-shaven face, close-cut hair, and keen gray eye. He wore a dark-blue frock coat and wide-awake hat, and did not seem at all like a seaman; yet somehow the boys could not help feeling that this very neatly-dressed man must have something to do with the Fawn. He came up to them, and looked at them with a smile. “Who in thunder are you, anyhow?” he exclaimed, at length. “I can’t make you out at all. You belong to that queer-looking tub out there, I see; but who you are and what you are after is beyond me.” This style of address struck the boys as being rather uncivil; but the good-natured expression of the stranger’s face showed that no incivility was meant, and won their hearts at once. “O, well,” said Bart, with a laugh, “you must never judge by appearances, you know. We’re not a fishing vessel. In fact, we’re a sort of chartered yacht, though we’re a very unpretending sort of yacht, and we don’t go in for show. We’re a schooner, cruising about in a plain, off-hand, homely manner for pleasure, and all that sort of thing.” At this the stranger burst into a shout of laughter, which was so cheery, and so hearty, and so good-natured, that the boys found it impossible to resist its contagion, and at length they all joined in also, though why they were laughing, or what they were laughing at, they had not the smallest idea in the world. “Look here, boys,” exclaimed the stranger, at length, as soon as he had recovered from his laughter; “excuse me, but I can’t help it. I’ll knock under. I cave in. I don’t understand it at all. Have you a looking-glass aboard your tub out there? Has any one of you any idea what he looks like? Or have you ever examined one another?” At this the boys could not help looking at one another, and at themselves, and at this survey they began to perceive what they had not at all suspected--that they were one and all a most disreputable-looking crowd. Their clothes were torn and stained with mud, and gave signs in every seam and fibre of long scrambles through wood and water, and long struggles with the elements. But, in fact, no one of them had thought of this until this moment, when they found themselves confronted and laughed at by this well-dressed stranger.