“For the _Colleen Bawn_? A man’d think’d be a new vessel and not new dories he’d be gettin’--the old one’s that wracked apart. Red bottoms, yeller sides, and green gunnels--m’m--but they’ll be swell-lookin’ dories when you get ’em done, won’t they?” “They’ll be the prettiest dories that was ever put aboard a trawler out of Gloucester,” said Dexter, appreciatively. “I’ll bet. And he’ll be pleased with ’em, I know--’specially the green gunnels--and he ought t’ be along soon.” “Who along soon?--not the _Colleen Bawn_?” “Sure. She was comin’ around the Point just as I left Crow’s Nest.” “No! Well, I’m glad,” breathed Dexter. “I’m glad he’s home again. And so’ll his wife be, too. There was that gale just after she left. His wife, I’ll bet, ain’t slept a wink since.” Peter straddled the sheer of a broken topmast. “Whose wife, Dexter?--not meanin’ to be inquisitive.” “Why, Jimmie Johnson’s. He’s on the _Colleen_ this trip.” “Him? The little fellow lumps around here sometimes? Why, we used to scare him ’most to death up in Crow’s Nest tellin’-- How came it he got it into his head to go fishin’?” “Oh, it was what the papers’d call a little matrimonial difference. I expect that him and his wife ain’t got real well acquainted with each other yet. He’s pretty young yet, and she don’t know too much about the world. I know, because she’s my first cousin. Young married couples, I s’pose, got to have ’bout so many arguments before they find each other out. I ain’t married myself, but ain’t it about that way, Peter?” “Well, gen’rally, Dexter, though not always.” Peter jabbed the point of his knife-blade into his spar. “You see, Dexter, it’s a good deal like vessels. You don’t always know how to take them at first. There’s some sails best down by the head, and some by the stern. There’s some’ll come about in the wildest gale under headsail alone, and others you have to drive around with the trys’l or a bit of the mains’l and that, too, when a minute too late means the vessel gone up on the rocks. Some you c’n find all about how they trim the first trip, and some you c’n never find out about; and some fine day they rolls over or goes under, and the whole gang’s lost. But about Jimmie, Dexter--how’d Tom O’Donnell ever come to ship him?” “Lord, I dunno. I only know I came down on the dock that mornin’, and he was standin’ right where I am now, just goin’ to begin on a new set of dories for the _Scarrabee_ that was fittin’ out to go halibutin’. When I came along I was wonderin’ where I could get about a week’s work. I didn’t want more’n a week, because I’d been promised a job in the glue factory the first of the month, and I never did see the use of wearin’ yourself out beforehand when you’re goin’ to start in soon on a steady job, would you, Peter?” “Well,”-- Peter made a few more thoughtful jabs into the topmast--“well, no, maybe not--more especially if ’t was a glue factory job.”