self told
me this morning. 'And I hope he'll never come back,' he said at the
same time. ''Tis you that takes a licking hard. But maybe 'tis the
insurance,' I says. 'If that's what you're thinking,' says he, 'she
isn't insured.' 'Then it must be the divil's own repair she's in
when no company at all will insure her,' I says. Sure, we had hard
words over it, but that won't bring back Maurice--he's gone in the
Flamingo, Joe."

I went after Clancy then, and after a long chase, that took me to
Boston and back, I caught up with him. He was full of repentance and
was gloomy. It was up in his boarding-house--in his room. He, looking
tired, was thinking of taking a kink of sleep.

"Hulloh, Joe! And I don't wonder you look surprised, Joe. I must be
getting old. Thursday morning I got up after as fine a night's sleep
as a man'd want. That was Thursday. Then Thursday night, Friday,
Friday night, Saturday--two nights and three days, and I'm sleepy
already. Sleepy, Joe, and I remember the time I could go a whole week,
and then, after a good night's sleep, wake up fine and daisy and be
ready for another week. Joe, there's a moral in that if you can only
work it out."

Clancy stayed silent after that, not inclined to talk, I could see,
until I told him about Maurice having shipped in the Flamingo and the
hard crew that had gone in her.

That stirred him. "Great Lord, gone in that shoe-box! Why, Joe, I'd as
soon put to sea in a market basket calked with butter. And the man
that's got her--Dave Warner! He's crazy, Joe, if ever a man was crazy.
Clean out of his head over a girl that he met in Gloucester once, but
now living in Halifax, and she won't have anything to do with him.
He's daffy over her. If she was drowning alongside you'd curse your
luck because you had to gaff her in. That is, you would only she's a
woman, of course. Wants to get lost, Joe, I believe--wants to! If this
was Boston or New York and in older days, I'd say that Dave and
Withrow must have shanghaied a crew to man the Flamingo's kind. But
you c'n get men here to go in anything sometimes. Wait a bit and I'll
be along with you. We'll see old Duncan and maybe we c'n head the
Flamingo off."

XXXVII

THE GIRL IN CANSO

That was Saturday evening. The crew of the Johnnie had been told just
after the race by the skipper that he would not need them again until
Monday. Scattering on that, some going to Boston, they could not be
got together again until Mo