adow of her masts rising up to the clouds and we can open up
the cabin and go below and have a smoke. Come, Maurice. Come on,
Joe."

And down to the cabin of the Johnnie Duncan we went, and Clancy never
in such humor. For three hours--from a little after three o'clock
until after six--we sat on the lockers, Clancy talking and we smoking
and roaring at him. Only the sun coming up over Eastern Point,
lighting up the harbor and striking into the cabin of the Johnnie
Duncan, brought Clancy to a halt.

He moved then and we with him. We left Maurice at the door of old Mrs.
Arkell's, the old lady herself in the doorway and asking us if we had
a good time at the ball. Standing on the steps, before he went in,
Maurice said to me: "Tell your cousin, Joe, that when I do race the
Johnnie, I'll take the spars out of her before anything gets by--take
the spars out or send her under. I can't do any more than that."

The Johnnie Duncan was to leave at ten o'clock and so I left Clancy at
his boarding-house. He looked tired when I left him. But he was
chuckling, too. I asked him what it was that made him smile so.

"I'll give you three guesses," he said, but I didn't guess.

VIII

THE SEINING FLEET PUTS OUT TO SEA

The rest of that morning, between leaving Clancy and getting back to
the dock again, I spent in cleaning up and overhauling my home outfit.
My mother couldn't be made to believe that store bedding was of much
use--and she was right, I guess--and so a warranted mattress and
blankets and comforters and a pillow were made into a bundle and
thrown onto a waiting wagon. Then it was good-by to all--good-by to my
cousin Nell, who had come over from her house, good-by and a kiss for
her little sister--late for school she was, but didn't care she
said--and then good-by to my mother. That took longer. Then it was
into the wagon with my bedding and off to the dock.

At Duncan's store I had charged up to me such other stuff as I needed:
Two suits of oilskins, yellow and black, two sou'westers, heavy and
light, two blue-gray flannel shirts, a black sweater, a pair of rubber
boots, two pairs of woollen mitts and four pairs of cotton mitts,
five pounds of smoking tobacco, a new pipe, and so on. When I had all
my stuff tied up, I swung up abreast of Clancy and together we headed
for the end of Duncan's dock, where the Johnnie Duncan lay.

Quite a fleet went out ahead of us that morning. Being a new vessel,
there was a lot o