ome for me. So I didn't enter, but kept on to Crow's Nest
instead.

IV

LITTLE JOHNNIE DUNCAN STANDS EXAMINATION

By this time I should have gone home, I suppose, and had something to
eat--it was getting on into the afternoon--but I didn't want to have a
talk with my mother yet awhile, and so kept on to Crow's Nest, where I
found half a dozen good-natured loafers. Not all were loafers
exactly--three or four were simply waiting around before shipping on
some seiner for the mackerel season. It promised to shower at the
time, too, and of course the gentlemen who formed old Peter's staff
could not think of venturing out in threatening weather.

And there they were, with Peter Hines, the paid man in charge of
Crow's Nest, keeping a benevolent eye on them. Yarning, arguing,
skylarking, advising Peter, and having fun with little Johnnie Duncan
they were when I entered. Johnnie was the grandson of the head of the
Duncan firm, a fine, clear-eyed boy, that nobody could help liking. He
thought fishermen were the greatest people in the world. Whatever a
fisherman did was all right to Johnnie.

I had got all the news at Crow's Nest and was just thinking of moving
along toward home when Tommie Clancy popped in. Of course that made a
difference. I wasn't going to move while Clancy was around.

"My soul, but here's where the real gentlemen are," he had to say
first, and then, "Anybody seen Maurice to-day?"

I told him I had, and where.

"Anybody with him?"

"Well, not with him exactly." I shook my head, and said nothing of
Minnie Arkell, nor of Sam Hollis, although Clancy, looking at me, I
could see, guessed that there was something else; and he might have
asked me something more only for the crowd and little Johnnie Duncan.

Johnnie was trying to climb up onto Clancy, and so Clancy, turning
from me, took Johnnie up and gave him a toss that all but hit his head
against the roof. "And how's she heading, Johnnie-boy?" and taking a
seat stood Johnnie up beside him.

"East-s'uth-east, and a fair, fair wind," answered Johnnie.

"East-s'uth-east--my, but you said that fine. And a fair wind? Must be
bound Georges Bank way. And how long will you hold that course?"

"From Eastern Point--a hundred and thirty-five mile."

"Yes--and then?"

"Then you throw her up and heave the lead."

"And heave the lead--sure enough. And then?"

"And then, if you find you're clear of the North Shoal, you put her to
the s'uth'ard and