“And can I join the Master Mariners then?”
“That’s what you can, and walk down Main Street with a swing to your shoulders, too. And now you’re up on the Bank and twenty-five fathom of water and the right bottom––and you’re a hand-liner, say, after cod––what then?”
“Let go her chain and begin fishing.”
“And would you give her a short or a long string of cable?”
“M-m––I’m not sure. A long string you’d hang on better, but a short scope and you could get out faster in case you were dragging and going onto the shoals. What would you do, Captain Clancy? You never told me that, did you?”
“Well, it would depend, too, though handliners generally calculate on hanging on, blow how it 30 will. But never mind that; suppose your anchor dragged or parted and into the shoal water you went in a gale, an easterly, say––and the bank right under your lee––wind sixty or seventy or eighty mile an hour––what would you do?”
“Anchor not hold? M-m––Then I’d––give her the second one.”
“And if that dragged, too––or parted?”
“Both of ’em? M-m”––Johnnie was taking deep breaths now––“why, then I’d have to put sail to her–––”
“What sail?”