But they’ll find it of no use.”
I didn’t wait any longer than that for Clancy, but ran ahead to the Duncan. I found her with jibs up and paying off. I was in time to get aboard without trouble, but Clancy and Howe coming later had to make a pier-head jump of it. Clancy, who could leap like a hound––drunk or sober––made it all right with his feet on the end of the bowsprit and his fingers on the balloon stay when he landed, but Howe fell short, and we had the liveliest kind of a time gaffing him in over the bow, he not being able 64 to swim. They must have heard us yelling clear to Eastern Point, I guess. Andie didn’t mind. “I must be with a lot of dogs––have to jump overboard to get aboard.” He spat out what water he had to, and started right in to winch up the mainsail with the gang. He had on a brand-new suit, good cloth and a fine fit.
“You’ll soon dry out in the sun, Andie-boy,” they all said to him.
“I s’pose so. But will my clothes ever fit me again like they did?––and my fine new patent-leather shoes!”
Drifting down by the dock next to Duncan’s our long bowsprit almost swept off a row of old fellows from the cap-log. They had to scramble, but didn’t mind. “Good luck, and I hope you fill her up,” they called out.
“Oh, we’ll try and get our share of ’em,” our fellows called back.
There was a young woman on the next dock––one of the kind that quite often come down to take snap-shots. A stranger to Gloucester she must have been, for not only that Gloucester girls don’t generally come down to the docks to see the fishermen off, but she said good-by to us. She meant all right, but she should never have said good-by to a fisherman. It’s unlucky. Too many of them don’t come back, and then the good-by comes true.
Andie Howe looked a funny sight when we were making sail. Clancy, who, once he got started, took a lot of stopping, was still going:
“Oh, the Johnnie Duncan, fast and able––