ng
but side-lights all 'round and----"

Just then came the skipper's voice from aloft. "Tell the boys they
might's well oil up and be ready." The watch did not have to repeat
it--we all heard it below, and fore and aft, in cabin and forec's'le,
the gang made ready. Cards, novels, and all the hot arguments went
by the board, and then after a mug-up for nearly all we slid into
oil-clothes, boots and sou'westers, and puffing at what was probably
to be the last pipeful of the evening, we lay around on lockers and
on the floor, backs to the butt of the mast and backs to the
stove--wherever there was space for a broad back and a pair of stout
legs our fellows dropped themselves, discussing all the while the
things that interested them--fish, fishing, fast vessels, big
shares, politics, Bob Fitzsimmons, John L. Sullivan, good stories,
and just then particularly, because two of the crew were thinking of
marrying, the awful price of real estate in Gloucester.

By and by, ringing as clear as if he himself stood at the companionway,
came the skipper's voice from the mast-head: "On deck everybody!" No
more discussion, no more loafing--pipes were smothered into bosoms,
and up the companionway crowded oilskins and jack-boots.

Then came: "It looks like fish ahead of us. Haul the boat alongside
and drop the dory over."

We jumped. Four laid hands on the dory in the waist and ten or a dozen
heaved away on the stiff painter of the seine-boat that was towing
astern. Into the air and over the starboard rail went the dory, while
ploughing up to the vessel's boom at the port fore-rigging came the
bow of the seine-boat.

Then followed: "Put the tops'ls to her--sharp now."

The halyards could be heard whirring up toward the sky, while two
bunches of us sagged and lifted on the deck below. Among us it was,
"Now then--o-ho--sway away--good," until topsails were flat as boards,
and the schooner, hauled up, had heeled to her scuppers.

"Slap the stays'l to her and up with the balloon. Half the fleet's
driving to the no'the'ard. Lively."

The Johnnie liked that rarely. With the seventy-five foot main-boom
sheeted in to her rail, with the thirty-seven-foot spike bowsprit
poking a lane in the sea when she dove and a path among the clouds
when she lifted, with her midship rail all but flush with the sea and
the night breeze to sing to her--of course she liked it, and she
showed her liking. She'd tear herself apart now before she'd let
anyt