and the
skipper, such fine level shoulders and flat broad backs they had. Now
the skipper, as I say, when he warmed up began to look something like
what he ought--like he did when walking the quarter and the vessel
going out to sea. Only then it would be in a blue flannel shirt open
at the throat and in jack-boots. But now, in the cabin of that yacht,
dressed as he was in black clothes like anybody else and in
good-fitting shoes, you had to take a second look at him to get his
measure. The yachtsman thought that he and the skipper were of about
the same size, and barring that the skipper's shoulders were a shade
wider there wasn't so much difference to look at. But there was a
difference, just the same. The yachtsman weighed a hundred and
seventy-five pounds. He asked what Maurice weighed. "Oh, about the
same," said Maurice. But I and Clancy knew that he weighed a hundred
and ninety-five, and Minnie Arkell, who knew too, finally had to tell
it, and then they all took another look at the two men and could see
where the difference lay. There was no padding to Maurice, and when
you put your hand where his shoulders and back muscles ought to be you
found something there.

When we were leaving that night, Mrs. Miner stopped Maurice on the
gangway to say, "And when they have the fishermen's race this fall,
you must sail the Johnnie Duncan, Maurice, as you've never sailed a
vessel yet. With you on the quarter and Clancy to the wheel she ought
to do great things."

"Oh, we'll race her as well as we know how if we're around, but Tom
O'Donnell and Wesley Marrs and Tommie Ohlsen and Sam Hollis and the
rest--they'll have something to say about it, I'm afraid."

"What of it? You've got the vessel and you must win--I'll bet all the
loose money I have in the world on her. Remember I own a third of
her. Mr. Duncan sold me a third just before I left Gloucester."

That was a surprise to us--that Mrs. Miner owned a part of the Johnnie
Duncan. It set Clancy to figuring, and turning in that night, he
said--he was full of fizzy wine, but clear-headed enough--"Well, what
do you make of that? The Foster girl a third and Minnie Arkell a third
of this one. I'm just wise to it that it wasn't old Duncan alone that
wanted Maurice for skipper. Lord, Lord, down at the Delaware
Breakwater do you remember that when we heard that the Foster girl
owned a part of this one, I said, like the wise guy I thought I was,
'Ha, ha,' I said, 'so Miss Foster