Clancy took off his hat and drew his hand across his forehead. “And where were you bound when we stopped you, Maurice?”
“Oh, I don’t know. To take a walk maybe.”
“Sure, and why not? Let’s all take a walk. Let’s take a walk down to the dock and have a look at the vessel. Too dark? So it is, but we can see the shadow of her masts rising up to the clouds and we can open up the cabin and go below and have a smoke. Come, Maurice. Come on, Joe.”
And down to the cabin of the Johnnie Duncan we went, and Clancy never in such humor. For three hours––from a little after three o’clock until after six––we sat on the lockers, Clancy talking and we smoking and roaring at him. Only the sun coming up over Eastern Point, lighting up the harbor and striking into the cabin of the Johnnie Duncan, brought Clancy to a halt.
He moved then and we with him. We left Maurice at the door of old Mrs. Arkell’s, the old 60 lady herself in the doorway and asking us if we had a good time at the ball. Standing on the steps, before he went in, Maurice said to me: “Tell your cousin, Joe, that when I do race the Johnnie, I’ll take the spars out of her before anything gets by––take the spars out or send her under. I can’t do any more than that.”
The Johnnie Duncan was to leave at ten o’clock and so I left Clancy at his boarding-house. He looked tired when I left him. But he was chuckling, too. I asked him what it was that made him smile so.
“I’ll give you three guesses,” he said, but I didn’t guess.