knew; and if none of the killers would give me a
chance, then I'd try some old pod of a skipper. My mother would just
have to let me go. It was only summer fishing after all--seining
wasn't like winter trawling--and in the end she would see it as I
did.

I walked along, and as the last man in my mind was Maurice Blake, of
course he was the first I had to run into. He was not looking well; I
mean he was not looking as he should have looked. There was a reckless
manner about him that no more belonged to him than a regularly quiet
manner belonged to his friend Tommie Clancy. And I guessed why--he had
been drinking. I had heard it already. Generally when a man starts to
drink for the first time everybody talks about it. I was surprised,
and I wished he hadn't. But we are always finding out new things about
men. In my heart I was not blaming Maurice so much maybe as I should.
I'd always been taught that drinking in excess was an awful habit, but
some otherwise fine men I knew drank at times, and I wasn't going to
blame Maurice till I knew more about it.

And we can forgive a lot, too, in those we like. Maurice had no family
to think of, and it must have been a blow to him not to get so fine a
vessel as the Fred Withrow after he had been promised and had set his
heart on it. And then to see her go to a man like Sam Hollis! and with
the prospect of not getting another until a man like Withrow felt like
saying you could. Everybody in Gloucester seemed to know that Withrow
was doing all he could to keep Maurice from getting a vessel, and as
the owners had banded together just before this for protection, as
they called it, "against outside interference," and as Withrow was one
of the largest owners and a man of influence beyond his vessel
holdings, he was quite a power at this time.

Maurice Blake was far from being drunk, however, when I met him this
day. Indeed, I do not believe that in his most reckless hour up to
this time he had ever lost control of himself so far as not to know
pretty nearly what he was doing all the time; but certainly he had
been drinking this day, and the drinking manner did not set well on
him.

Maurice was standing on the front steps of Mrs. Arkell's boarding-house
when I saw him. It was Mrs. Arkell's granddaughter Minnie that married
the wealthy Mr. Miner--a rather loud sort of man, who had been reported
as saying that he would give her a good time and show her life. He may
have given her a good