Читать книгу Captain Chub онлайн

58 страница из 67

The boys arrive at the wharf

At first glance the Jolly Roger looked like a scow with a little one-story white cottage on top, and a tiny cupola at one end of that. The hull was thirty-three feet long and thirteen feet wide and drew about four feet. There was a bluntly curving bow and the merest suggestion of a stern, but had it not been for the white cupola on top, which was in reality a tiny wheel-house, it would have been difficult to decide which was the bow end and which the stern end of the craft. The hull was painted pea-green to a point just above the water-line. Beyond that there was a strip of faded rose-pink, and then a narrow margin of white. The decks were gray, or had been at one time, the house and railings were white and the window and door trimming was green. So she didn’t lack for color.

Small as the boat was she was well built and, in spite of having been in use for several years, was in first-rate condition. It was nothing short of a miracle that so many rooms and passages and cubbyholes were to be found on her. Chub, in commenting on this feature, had said once: