Prudence was, in essence, a fat cargo hold partitioned off from the rest of the universe by a carapace of bent planks, with a nod, here and there, to requirements of propulsion: diverse oar-locks, and a stubby mast with elementary rigging. There was no wind to-day—the rain was a steady soaker, not a lashing howler—and so he had hired four Rotherhithe lads to kneel on the deck and stir up the Thames with oars. The oarsmen were situated out-board, along the gunwales, sheltered by naught but big-brimmed hats of waxy canvas. They looked as wretched as any Mediterranean galley-slaves. Daniel, Orney, Kikin, and Threader were in the hold, where Orney had improvised a bench by throwing a plank between two clapped-out sawbucks. When this was augmented by cushions, it rose just high enough that the four Clubb members could sit on it, all in a line like worshippers on a pew, and gaze out through a narrow horizontal slit between the fraying and weeping tarp-hem above, and the bashed and tar-slopped gunwale below. This would make them perfectly invisible to any who might spy on them from the shore or the Bridge, as Orney had pointed out several times already, and would persist in doing until a plurality of the Clubb agreed with him, or told him to shut up. Orney used Prudence to make runs up and down and across the river for supplies, e.g., oakum, brown stuff, tar, and pitch, all of which the hold smelled like. There were other vessels like it scooting about the Pool.