e'd certainly have
need of her quarter and draught to stand up under it.

It was a great day for sailing, though--the finest kind of a breeze,
and smooth water. We early carried away our foretopmast, which had a
flaw in it. It was just as well to discover it then. Without topsail
and balloon we had it out with the Eastern Point on her way back from
Boston. She was not much of a steamer for speed, but her schedule
called for twelve knots and she generally made pretty near it--eleven
or eleven and a half, according to how her stokers felt, I guess. We
headed her off after a while, and that was doing pretty well for that
breeze, with a new vessel not yet loosened up.

"But the balloon was too much for her," said Mr. Duncan, as we shot
into the dock after beating the Eastern Point.

"No, the balloon was all right--'twas the topm'st was a bit light,"
answered Maurice.

Old Mr. Duncan smiled at that. "But what do you think of her, Captain
Blake?"

"Oh, she's like all the rest of them when she's alone--sails like the
devil," the skipper answered to that, but he smiled with it and we all
knew he was satisfied with her.

That night was the Master Mariners' Ball, and I waited up till late to
talk with my cousin Nell, who had gone there with Will Somers. Finally
they came along past my house and I hailed them.

Nell broke right in as usual with what was uppermost in her mind. "I
don't suppose you saw me and Alice, but we were in Mr. Duncan's office
when you and Mr. Clancy and Captain Blake were coming up the dock
to-day after the trial trip. Mr. Duncan told us what Captain Blake
said of the Johnnie Duncan, but now tell me, what did the rest of you
think of her? What does your friend Clancy say? He knows a vessel."

"Clancy," I answered, "thought what we all thought, I guess--that
she's a fast vessel any way you take her, but he won't say she's the
fastest vessel out of Gloucester, even after she's put in trim and
loosened up. But in a sea-going way and with wind enough--with wind
enough, mind--he thinks she'll do pretty well."

"With wind enough and in a sea-way?" repeated Nell. "Then I hope that
when the fishermen's race is sailed next fall it's a howling gale and
seas clear to your mast-head. Yes, and you needn't laugh--don't you
know what it means to Will?"

And I did realize. Somers, a fine fellow, was just then beginning to
get a chance at designing fishermen. So far he had done pretty well,
but it was on the Joh