"Maurice--hi, Maurice! Oh, 'tis you, isn't it. Well, Maurice-boy, all the night I waited for a chance to have a word with you, but ne'er a chance could I get. Early in the evening--when I was fit for ladies' company--Miss Foster said how proud she was to know me--me, who had saved her cousin Johnnie's life. And then she asked me about the vessel, and I told her, Maurice, that nothing like the Duncan ever pushed salt water from out of her way before. 'Nothing with two sticks in her,' says I, and I laid it on thick; 'and Maurice Blake,' says I--and there, Maurice, I only spoke true catechism. 'Maurice Blake,' says I, 'is the man to sail her.' She was glad, she said, to know that, because her chum, Miss Buckley--Joe's cousin there--wanted that particular vessel to be a success. And she herself was interested in it. Never mind the reasons, she said. And she always did believe--and, Maurice, listen now--she knew that Captain Blake would do the Johnnie Duncan justice. And I said to her--well, Maurice, what I said you can guess well enough. No, come to think, you can't guess, but I won't tell you to your face. But thinking of it now, I mind, Maurice, the time when we were dory-mates--you and me, Maurice--and the cold winter's day our dory was capsized. And dark coming on and nothing in sight, and I could see you beginning to get tired. But tired as you were, Maurice, tired as you were and the gray look beginning to creep over you, you says, 'Tommie, take the plug strap for a while, you.'" "But you didn't take it, Tommie." "No, I didn't take it--and why? I didn't take it--and why? Because, though the mothers that bore us both were great women--all fire and iron--'twas in me to last longer--you a boy and your first winter fishing, and me a tough, hard old trawler. And you had all of life before you, and I'd run through some hard years of mine. If I'd gone 'twould have been no great loss, but you, Maurice, innocent as a child--how could I? I'd known men and women, good and bad--I'd lived life and I'd had my chance and thrown it away--but at your age the things you had to learn! Maybe I didn't think it all out like that, but that was why I didn't take the plug strap. But, Maurice-boy, I never forgot it. 'Take the plug strap, you, Tommie,' you says. We were dory-mates, of course, but, Maurice-boy, I'll never forget it." Clancy took off his hat and drew his hand across his forehead. "And where were you bound when we stopped you, Maurice?" "Oh, I don't know. To take a walk maybe." "Sure, and why not? Let's all take a walk. Let's take a walk down to the dock and have a look at the vessel. Too dark? So it is, but we can see the shadow of her masts rising up to the clouds and we can open up the cabin and go below and have a smoke. Come, Maurice. Come on, Joe."