one way; while men hailed and whistled and cat-called and
sang, and the water was speckled with rubbish thrown overboard.

"It's a town," said Harvey. "Disko was right. It IS a town!"

"I've seen smaller," said Disko. "There's about a thousand men here;
an' yonder's the Virgin." He pointed to a vacant space of greenish sea,
where there were no dories.

The _We're Here_ skirted round the northern squadron, Disko waving his
hand to friend after friend, and anchored as nearly as a racing yacht
at the end of the season. The Bank fleet pass good seamanship in
silence; but a bungler is jeered all along the line.

"Jest in time fer the caplin," cried the Mary Chilton.

"'Salt 'most wet?" asked the King Philip.

"Hey, Tom Platt! Come t' supper to-night?" said the Henry Clay; and so
questions and answers flew back and forth. Men had met one another
before, dory-fishing in the fog, and there is no place for gossip like
the Bank fleet. They all seemed to know about Harvey's rescue, and
asked if he were worth his salt yet. The young bloods jested with Dan,
who had a lively tongue of his own, and inquired after their health by
the town-nicknames they least liked. Manuel's countrymen jabbered at
him in their own language; and even the silent cook was seen riding the
jib-boom and shouting Gaelic to a friend as black as himself. After
they had buoyed the cable--all around the Virgin is rocky bottom, and
carelessness means chafed ground-tackle and danger from drifting--after
they had buoyed the cable, their dories went forth to join the mob of
boats anchored about a mile away. The schooners rocked and dipped at a
safe distance, like mother ducks watching their brood, while the dories
behaved like mannerless ducklings.

As they drove into the confusion, boat banging boat, Harvey's ears
tingled at the comments on his rowing. Every dialect from Labrador to
Long Island, with Portuguese, Neapolitan, Lingua Franca, French, and
Gaelic, with songs and shoutings and new oaths, rattled round him, and
he seemed to be the butt of it all. For the first time in his life he
felt shy--perhaps that came from living so long with only the _We're
Heres_--among the scores of wild faces that rose and fell with the
reeling small craft. A gentle, breathing swell, three furlongs from
trough to barrel, would quietly shoulder up a string of variously
painted dories. They hung for an instant, a wonderful frieze against
the sky-line, and their men pointed an