' AT ALL_]

John was leaning out over the bows. He rose up; stretched himself.
"Shute again!" he said with scorn. "Us an't got nort to eat, nort to
drink, nort to smoke, nor nort to talk about, an' us an't catched nort.
Gimme thic sweep there, an' let's get in out o' it, I say."

It was foggy. I steered the boat by compass over a sea that, under the
smudged moon, was in colour and curve like pale violently shaken liquid
mud. In time we glimpsed the cliffs with the mist creeping up over
them. Day was beginning to break, and with a breath of wind that had
sprung up from the SE., we glided like a phantom ship on a phantom sea
towards a phantom town between whose blind houses the wisps of the fog
writhed tortuously.

Sixteen hours to sea in an open boat--for three hundred herrings--and
the price three shillings a hundred!

It is nothing to fishermen, that; but we were all glad of our
breakfast, a smoke and our beds.

4

Tony was gone to sea on Christmas Eve. (They caught three thousand).
Mrs Widger had cricked her back, or had caught cold in it standing at
the back door with the steaming wash-tub in front of her and a
northerly wind behind. We wanted some supper beer....

I felt more than a little shy on entering the jug and bottle department
with a jug. It is such a secret place. To face a bar full of people and
plump a jug down on the counter, is one thing; but it is quite another
to slink up the stairs and into the wooden box--about seven feet high
and four by four--that does duty for the jug and bottle department, and
the privy tippling place, of the Alexandra Hotel. There is no gas
there. Light filters in from elsewhere. It holds about five people,
jammed close together. Round it runs a shelf for glasses, and at one
end is a tiny door through which jugs are passed to the barman. Once
there was a curtain across the entrance, but it was put to such good
and frequent use that they removed it. Talk in the jug and bottle box
is usually carried on in soft whispers punctuated by laughter.

Three cloaked old women were there and one young one. Their jugs stood
on the shelf, ready to take home, but meanwhile they were having a
round of drinks on their own account. They looked surprised at my
arrival (it was an intrusion); and more surprised still when, on
hearing that the barman was merely having a chat the other side, I
rattled the jug on the shelf and bumped the little door. They gasped
when I slipped the bolt of