"Satisfied! Jumping Cicero!" exploded Captain Can-dage. He took the dory
and rowed ashore. He found his daughter gazing into the fog from the
porch of the widow's cottage. "He is going to stay a while longer," he
informed her, rapturously. "Something has happened. Do you suppose that
girl has throwed him over?"
"Father, do you dare to chuckle because a friend is in trouble?"
"I'll laugh and slap my leg if he ever gets shet of that hity-tity
girl," he rejoined, stoutly.
"I am astonished--I am ashamed of you, father!"
"Polly dear, be honest with your dad!" he pleaded. "Do you want to see
him married off to her?"
"I certainly do. I only wish I might help him." Her lips were white, her
voice trembled. She got up and hurried into the house.
"I'll be cussed if I understand wimmen," declared Captain Candage,
fiddling his finger under his nose. "That feller she has picked out for
herself must be the Emp'ror of Peeroo."
Captain Mayo did not come ashore again before the Ethel and May
sailed.
The fog cleared that night and they smashed out to the fishing-grounds
ahead of a cracking breeze, and had their trawls down in the early dawn.
At sundown, trailed by a wavering banner of screaming gulls who gobbled
the "orts" tossed over by the busy crew cleaning their catch, they were
docking at the city fish-house.
"Lucky again," commented Captain Candage, returning from his sharp
dicker with the buyer. "The city critters are all hungry for haddock,
and that's just what we hit to-day." He surveyed his gloomy partner with
sympathetic concern. "Why don't you take a run uptown?" he suggested.
"You're sticking too close to this packet for a young man. Furthermore,
if you see a store open buy me a box of paper collars. Rowley hain't got
my size!"
Mayo, unreconciled and uneasy, hating that day the sound of the
flapping, sliding fish as they were pitchforked into the tubs for
hoisting, annoyed by the yawling of pulleys and realizing that his
nerves were not right at all, obeyed the suggestion. He had a
secret errand of his own, yielding to a half-hope; he went to the
general-delivery window of the post-office and asked for mail. He knew
that love makes keen guesses. The Olenia had visited that harbor
frequently for mail. But there was nothing for him. He strolled about
the streets, nursing his melancholy, forgetting Captain Candage's
commission, envying the contentment shown by others.