Wesley said nothing to that for a while. Then it was: “Well, Patsie, never mind. I didn’t think when I spoke first. I’ll say, though, that I don’t think much of the girl that wouldn’t stand watch with you if you asked her. If she wanted a man, Patsie, I’m sure I don’t know where she’d get a better one--that’s if it’s a _man_ she wanted. If she don’t want a man, but only a smooth kind of arrangement that plays a banjo or c’n stand up to a pianner and sing, ‘I loves yer, I loves yer,’ or some other damn mess--and the same to every girl that looks his way--one of the kind that’s hell ashore, but can’t take in sail in a gale without washin’ a couple of men over the lee-rail, one of the kind that gives this way and that to every tide that ebbs and flows, like a red-painted whistlin’ buoy--why, then, maybe somebody else’d look prettier swashin’ around for the people to look at and make use of. Maybe,” went on Wesley, “she’d take a notion to some bucko like Artie Orcutt that just lost the _Neptune_. Heard of it?” “’Twas in the papers this mornin’, so they tell me. I’m not much of a hand to read papers, you know.” “Well, he lost his vessel and ten of his men, and ought to lose his papers. With half a man’s courage and a quarter of the seamanship any master of a vessel oughter have, he’d’ve saved his vessel and all his men. He c’n thank the _Lucy Foster’s_ ableness and the courage of some of her crew that a soul of them got home at all. They came home with us--all but Orcutt--from Fortune Bay. He was goin’ to get a passage over to St. Pierre and wait a while there.” “My!” said Patsie, “that’ll be a bad bit o’ news to Delia.” “What!” “Yes, Orcutt is the man. I think ’tis him, anyways. I know he used to hang around there when I was to sea--and a word dropped this mornin’-- It must be somebody; and who but him?” Wesley looked at Patsie. “Well, if it is him, may the Lord forgive me for pickin’ him off. I wish I’d knowed it, though maybe, after all, I couldn’t ’a’ managed it to leave him and take the others. Oh, well, it’s all in the year’s fishin’. He’s lucky. Maybe he’ll live to teach this girl of his what a man oughtn’t be, though I don’t suppose you’ll care so much about it by the time she’s learned the lesson. Man, but I can’t believe Delia Corrigan’d throw you for Artie Orcutt. No, Patsie, I can’t. But here’s the Anchorage fair on our beam. What d’y’ say to a little touch, hah? A pretty cold morning, Patsie.” “I don’t mind, Wesley.” “What’ll it be to, Patsie?” Wesley raised his glass and waited for Patsie. They were leaning against the rail by that time. “What to? Oh, to the _Neptune’s_ gang--the whole ten of ’em.” “Sure enough--the whole ten. Here’s a shoot--but hold up. Which ten, Patsie--the ten lost or the ten saved?” “The ten saved? To hell with the ten saved!” said Patsie--“the Lord’s looked out for them that’s saved.” Patsie raised his glass: “Here’s to them that died.”