'Give a hand there, cook!' the skipper shouted, and Charlie stepped into the pound. He had not the heart to tread on the still living fish as the others were doing, and in his anxiety to avoid hurting them, he slipped and fell against the gunwale, his sou'-wester falling overboard. The other men stopped work at once, and looked at him in a by no means friendly way. The skipper abused him loudly and fiercely.
'It was my own sou'-wester,' Charlie declared, unable to understand why the skipper should be so excited over the loss.
'Then why don't you jump overboard and save it? We will fish you up next time we haul.'
The men laughed heartily at this grim joke.
'Take the skipper's advice, mate,' one of them said. 'I want some new boots badly.'
'It is thought a bad omen if a fisherman's sou'-wester is blown overboard,' Ping Wang explained in a whisper, whereupon Charlie laughed loudly at the superstitious idea.
'Stop that row,' the skipper shouted, 'and start cleaning the fish.'
Charlie took out his clasp-knife, and seized a plaice.
'Don't cut that,' Ping Wang warned him. 'Put the plaice in the box just as they are.'
Charlie hesitated, for the fish was not yet dead, and he did not like the idea of packing it away while it was alive.