in the
leather loop at the head of the ladder, hung shouting to the cook.

"Big fish and lousy--heaps and heaps," Harvey replied, quoting Long
Jack. "How's the game?"

Little Penn's jaw dropped. "'Tweren't none o' his fault," snapped Uncle
Salters. "Penn's deef."

"Checkers, weren't it?" said Dan, as Harvey staggered aft with the
steaming coffee in a tin pail. "That lets us out o' cleanin' up
to-night. Dad's a jest man. They'll have to do it."

"An' two young fellers I know'll bait up a tub or so o' trawl, while
they're cleanin'," said Disko, lashing the wheel to his taste.

"Um! Guess I'd ruther clean up, Dad."

"Don't doubt it. Ye wun't, though. Dress daown! Dress daown! Penn'll
pitch while you two bait up."

"Why in thunder didn't them blame boys tell us you'd struck on?" said
Uncle Salters, shuffling to his place at the table. "This knife's
gum-blunt, Dan."

"Ef stickin' out cable don't wake ye, guess you'd better hire a boy o'
your own," said Dan, muddling about in the dusk over the tubs full of
trawl-line lashed to windward of the house. "Oh, Harve, don't ye want
to slip down an' git 's bait?"

"Bait ez we are," said Disko. "I mistrust shag-fishin' will pay better,
ez things go."

That meant the boys would bait with selected offal of the cod as the
fish were cleaned--an improvement on paddling bare-handed in the little
bait-barrels below. The tubs were full of neatly coiled line carrying a
big hook each few feet; and the testing and baiting of every single
hook, with the stowage of the baited line so that it should run clear
when shot from the dory, was a scientific business. Dan managed it in
the dark, without looking, while Harvey caught his fingers on the barbs
and bewailed his fate. But the hooks flew through Dan's fingers like
tatting on an old maid's lap. "I helped bait up trawl ashore 'fore I
could well walk," he said. "But it's a putterin' job all the same. Oh,
Dad!" This shouted towards the hatch, where Disko and Tom Platt were
salting. "How many skates you reckon we'll need?"

"'Baout three. Hurry!"

"There's three hundred fathom to each tub," Dan explained; "more'n
enough to lay out to-night. Ouch! 'Slipped up there, I did." He stuck
his finger in his mouth. "I tell you, Harve, there ain't money in
Gloucester 'u'd hire me to ship on a reg'lar trawler. It may be
progressive, but, barrin' that, it's the putterin'est, slimjammest
business top of earth."

"I don't know what this is, if 'ti