“We moored our logs, and my father at once went to the authorities and reported the finding of a raft, and as usual an officer came down to inspect and put a mark on the timbers.  His inspection was finished, and he was about to go upon other business when a boy who had, with some companions, been scampering about the raft, fell into the water.  At once a number of men jumped on the raft, which was nearly submerged by the additional weight; but what was worse the cordage binding the logs together gave way, and behold, bobbing among the floating men were seen a series of floating cylinders!  The men were hauled out of the water, and so were the curious tin cases, while with the latter my father was hauled off to appear before the magistrates on a charge of smuggling.”

“A clear case I should say, Alec,” I remarked.

“Well, so everyone thought; but, strange to say, my father was discharged with a caution.  The turning point of the case was, did we pick up separate logs of timber and construct the raft, or did we find the raft already made?  Our case was that we had picked up the whole raft at sea, and not having examined it, were not supposed to know what was hanging beneath it.  Beside which, had not M. Ducas gone straight away and given notice to the proper authorities?  We obtained the benefit of the doubt, but it was a very close squeak.”

“It was indeed.  Now do you not remember any little adventure of your own you could tell me?”

“Adventures!  I could fill a whole book with them; some of them so strange that they would appear to most people more like falsehoods than solid fact.”

“But, you know, Alec, it is only a hair line that frequently separates the sublime from the ridiculous, and perhaps the line that divides your true tales of the marvellous from story book fiction is so thin, that ordinary persons cannot quite detect it; but never mind, let’s have something mild, and I’ll undertake to swallow everything you tell me, even if I have to bite it in two first.”

“There, now, you’re laughing at me before I begin, and you shall not have a strand of a yarn, so you may go to sleep again at once.”

Then I had to coax him, and he soon came round.  He could not bear to be doubted, much less laughed at.

“Tell me about bringing that little cockle-shell of a yacht from London to Guernsey, that you were speaking about the other day.”

“Oh! the ‘Dewdrop.’  Why, that’s no yarn at all.”

Then, thought I to myself, here’s something really true:  and so I afterwards proved it to be.