She was again shoved off. Again she grounded on the
sand, and there she stuck. A roar of laughter broke forth all along the
beach. The Little Russian and his crew stood up in the heeled-over
boat, and by using their oars like punt poles, they tried to prevent
the seas from slewing them round broadside on. Very helpless they
looked, very comic, very futile.

A swarm of small boys buzzed around and jeered. The Little Russian
jumped up and down with vexation. Augustus Theodore, rowing frantically
in a foot or so of water, splashed and 'caught crabs.' Joe Barker,
tall, patriarchal, thin and thinly clad, stood up to his oar, looked
savage curses from his sunken old eyes and muttered them into his
beard.

[Sidenote: _AND GETS OFF_]

"That _be_ a purty crew!" repeated Uncle Jake. "I 'ouldn' go to say wi'
'em, not if.... A purty fellow, thic 'Gustus Theodore! They calls
chil'ern by names nowadays, but they called he 'Gustus Theodore, an' us
can't get over thic, so us al'ays calls 'en 'Gustus Theodore in long.
Bain't no gude tu hisself nor nobody else. I've a-took 'en to say....
Never again! 'Er ain't no fisherman nuther. An' thic Joe Barker's past
it. He've had his day. Been in the Army an' been in the Navy, an' an't
brought no pension out o' the one n'eet out o' t'other. Helped throw a
'Merican midshipman overboard once, so they say, drough a porthole.
Thought they was going to be hanged for it, but they wasn't. He've
a-lived wildish in his time, I can tell 'ee; an' now he's the man for
sleep. Take 'en out shrimping or lifting crab-pots, stop rowing a
minute an' he's fast asleep. The Li'l Roosian hisself an't been to say
thees dozen years. 'Tis a crew o'it! Luke! _they_ can't shove off. I
can see they wants Uncle Jake there."

The _Shooting Star_ was still being shoved. The Little Russian was
still jumping up and down in the stern-sheets; Augustus Theodore was
still rowing fast and fruitlessly; and Joe Barker stood impassively
tall--a mummy of a man, wrapped up in aged clothes and a great dirty
white beard. Life was contracted within him. No more than his eyes
seemed alive, and hardly those until you looked closely; for the yellow
rims and whites appeared to be dead, and the old cursing flame of life
burnt only in the pupils.

"Do 'ee really mean to go?" asked Uncle Jake, taking up a long oar to
shove with. "'Tisn't nowise fit for a crazy craft like thees yer."

"When a man," said the Little Russian solemnly, "when a m