in jail not
half so bad as you--women doing time who've done less mischief in the
world than you have.'"

"Wasn't that pretty rough, Tommie?"

"Rough? Lord, yes--but true, Joe, true. And if you'd only see poor
Maurice lying there! Cried? I could've cried, Joe--not since my mother
died did I come so near to it. But it was done.

"Well, I made Minnie go and get her grandmother. And, Joe, if you'd
seen that fine old lady--oh, but she's got a heart in her--stoop and
put Maurice's head on her bosom as if he was a little child. 'The
poor, poor boy. No mother here,' she said, 'and the best man on earth
might come to it. Leave him to me, Tommie.' Lord, I could have knelt
down at her feet--the heart in her, Joe."

"And how has Maurice been since?"

"All right. That was the first time in his life that he was drunk. I
think it will be his last. But let's go aboard the Johnnie."

After looking over the Johnnie Duncan and admiring her to our hearts'
content, we sat down in her cabin and began to talk of the seining
season to come. Others came down and joined in--George Moore, Eddie
Parsons among others--and they asked Clancy what he was going to do.
Was he going to see about a chance to go seining, or what? Moore said
he's been waiting to see what Maurice Blake was going to do; but as it
was beginning to look as though Maurice was done for, he guessed he'd
take a look around. He asked Clancy what he thought, and Clancy said
he didn't know--time enough yet.

Maurice Blake himself dropped down then. He was looking better, and
everybody was glad to see it. He'd quit drinking--that was certain;
and now he was a picture of a man--not pretty, but strong-looking,
with his eyes glowing and his skin flushing with the good blood inside
him. He took a seat on the lockers and began to whittle a block of
soft pine into a model of a hull, and after a while, with a squint
along the sheer of his little model, he asked if anybody had seen Tom
O'Donnell or Wesley Marrs. Several said yes, they had, and he asked
where, and when they told him he got up and said he guessed he'd go
along--as he couldn't get a vessel himself, he might as well see about
a chance to go hand. "And as we've been together so much in times gone
by, Tommie, and you, Eddie and George, what do you say if we go
together now?"

"All right," said Clancy, "but wait a minute--who's that in the
gangway?"

It turned out to be Johnnie Duncan. He had a fat bundle under his arm,