Mr. Duncan wasn't deaf.
"A little stop ashore never harmed anybody," retorted Mr. Duncan—"it's the stopping ashore too long!"
The Sea-Birds
It was fine summer weather, and John asked me how about a swordfishing trip for a change. I said all right, and we got a chance in the Henriette, and went down that same morning to Duncan's Wharf to go aboard.
The Henriette lay ready to go to sea, and John and I stood on the string-piece and looked down on her deck and up at her mastheads. A lumper hanging around Duncan's was standing near us.
I never knew a dock lumper that couldn't tell you all about everything. "She is weak-built and pretty deep—I don't like to see them so deep," said this lumper. "And down by the head, too."
"Maybe you'd be deep if you were on'y thirteen tons net register an' thirty tons of ice in you," said John.
And a proper answer. A man should always have a good word—even if he don't more than half believe it himself—for the craft he's going to sea in. At the same time I was thinking that I was having an eye to a new, able fresh-halibuter—a big ninety-ton vessel—across the slip.
I like the big fellows to go to sea in. I said so to John.