Page:Cruise of the Jasper B (1916).djvu/144

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teed to do in ten hours what might ordinarily have taken a week.

Under the leadership of this capable Watkins, the workmen rushed at the vessel with the dash and vim of a gang of circus employees engaged in putting up a big tent and making ready for a show. To a casual observer it might have seemed a scene of confusion. But in reality the work jumped forward with order and precision, for the position of every bolt, chain, nail, cord, piece of iron and bit of wood had been calculated beforehand to a nicety; there was not a wasted movement of saw, adze, or hammer. The Jasper B., in short, had been measured accurately for a suit of clothes, the clothes had been made; they were now merely being put on.

Refreshed by the first sound sleep she had been able to obtain for several nights, Lady Agatha joined Cleggett at an eight-o'clock breakfast. It was the first of May, and warm and bright; in a simple morning dress of pink linen Lady Agatha stirred in Cleggett a vague recollection of one of Tennyson's earlier poems. The exact phrases eluded him; perhaps, indeed, it was the underlying sentiment of nearly all of Tennyson's earlier poems of which she reminded him—those lyrics which