is
gossip, which was explicit with exuberant detail, was engaging us, I
summoned my scientific mind, which is not connected with my soul, to
listen to what was being said, and the rest of me was deaf. They went on
to tell each other about other trawlers and other crews. Other ships and
men, I heard, had most of the luck. "The fish follow some of 'em about,"
complained the skipper. "I should like to know how it's done."

"They ought to follow us," replied the second engineer. "When I went
down to take over this morning, Mac was singing Scotch songs. What more
could we do below?"

"It's a grand life," nodded his superior's polished bald head. "Aye,
there's guid reason for singing. Sing to yon codfish, y'ken."

The skipper looked at the engineer in doubtful innocence. "Well, I wish
singing would do it," he said gravely. "I don't know. How do you
account for some fellows getting most of the luck? Their ships are the
same, and they don't know any more."

Mac shook his head. "The owners think they do. There's their big
catches, y'ken. Ye'll no convince owners that the sea bottom isna' wet
and onsairten."

The rosy face of the skipper became darker, and there was a spark in his
eyes. This was unfair. "But dammit, man, you don't mean to say the
owners are right? Do these chaps know any more? Look at old Rumface,
old Billy Higgs. Got enough women to make him hate going into any port.
Can't be happy ashore unless he's too drunk to know one woman from
another. What does he do? Can't go to sea without taking his trawler
right over all the fish there is. Is that his sense? Ain't God good to
him? Shows him the fish every time."

The engineer stood up, bending his head beneath a beam, crooking an elbow
to consider one hairy arm. "Ah weel, I wouldna call it God. Ye canna
tell. Man Billy has his last trip to make. Likely he'll catch fish
that'd frighten Hull. Aye."

The skipper moved impatiently, made noises in his throat, rose, and both
went out. The mate, who had been chewing and looking at nothing all the
time, chuckled.

The mate pulled off his big boots, and climbed into his bunk. The
steward cleared the table. I had the saloon to myself, and tried to read
from a magazine I extracted from my pillow. The first story was
rollicking of the sea, and I have never seen more silly or such dreary
lies in print. And the others were about women, magazine women, and the
land, that magazine land whic