y then did it flash on me what it all
might mean.

"Did you try?" asked Clancy.

"Try! Yes, and was made a fool of. Oh, what's the use--what in
hell's the use?" He stood silent a moment. "I guess not," he said
then--looked out the window again, and hove the whole string out
of the open window and into the slip.

Clancy and myself both jumped to stop him, but we weren't quick
enough. They were gone--the whole beautiful necklace. The skipper
fixed his eyes on where they had struck the water. Then he turned and
left the office. At the door he stopped and said: "I don't know--maybe
I won't take the Johnnie next trip, and if I don't, Tommie, I hope
you'll take her--Mr. Duncan will let you have her if you want. I hope
you'll take her anyway, for you know what a vessel she is. You'll take
care of her--" and went and left us.

Clancy swore to himself for a while. He hadn't quite done when the
door of the rear office opened and Miss Foster herself came out. She
greeted me sweetly--she always did--but was going out without paying
any attention to Clancy. She looked pale--although perhaps I would not
have noticed her paleness particularly only for what had just
happened.

I was surprised to see then what Clancy did. Before she had got to the
door he was beside her.

"Miss Foster, Miss Foster," he said, and his tone was so different
from what I had ever heard from him before that I could hardly believe
it. He was a big man, it must be remembered, and still on him were the
double-banked oilskins and heavy jack-boots he wore through the race.
Also his face was flushed from the excitement of the day--the salt
water was not yet dry on him and his eyes were shining, shining not
alone with the glow of a man who had been lashed to a wheel steering a
vessel in a gale--and, too, to victory--for hours, and not alone with
the light that comes from two or three quarts of champagne--it was
something more than that. Whatever it was it surprised me and held
Alice Foster's attention.

"Mister Clancy," she said, and turned to him.

"Yes, Mister Clancy--or Tommie Clancy--or Captain Clancy, as
it is at times--master of an odd vessel now and again--but
Clancy all the time--just Clancy, good-for-nothing Clancy--hard
drinker--reveller--night-owl--disturber of the peace--at best
only a fisherman who'll by and by go out and get lost like
thousands of the other fishermen before him--as a hundred every
year do now and have three lines in the pap