"You c'n cut all the others out--here comes the real thing. Here's the old dog himself. Did he ever miss a blow? And look at him. Every man comes in here to-day under four lowers, no more, and some under reefed mains'l, or trys'l, but four whole lowers ain't enough for this gentleman--not for Wesley. He must carry that gaff-tops'l if he pulls the planks out of her. He always brings her home, but if some of the underwriters'd see him out here they'd soon blacklist him till he mended his ways. It's a blessed wonder he ain't found bottom before this. Look at her now skating on her ear. There she goes--if they'd just lower a man over the weather rail with a line on him he could write his name on her keel!" And she certainly was something to make a man's eyes stick out. There had been a vessel or two that staggered before, but the Lucy fairly rolled down into it, and there was no earthly reason why she should do it except that it pleased her skipper to sport that extra kite. She boiled up from the end of the jetty, and her wake was the wake of a screw steamer. She had come from home, we knew, and so it happened she was one of the last to get in. The harbor was crowded as she straightened out. We knew she would not have too much leeway coming on, and what berth she was after kept everybody guessing. "If she goes where's she pointing--and most vessels do--she'll find a berth down on the beach on that course, down about where the wreck is. It'll be dry enough walking when she gets there. If she keeps on the gait she's going now, she ought to be able to fetch good and high and dry up on the mud. They'd cert'nly be able to step ashore--when they get there. Ah-h-h, but that's more like it." She was taking it over the quarter then. She cleared the stern of the most leeward of the fleet and then kicked off, heading over to where the Johnnie Duncan and the Victory lay. The betting was that she would round to and drop in between us two. There was room there, but only just room. It would be a close fit, but there was room. But she didn't round to. She held straight on without the sign of a swerve. On the Johnnie, the gang being almost in her path picked out a course for her. Between the outer end of our seine-boat and the end of the bowsprit of the Mary Grace Adams was a passage that may have been the width of a vessel. But the space seemed too narrow. Our crew were wondering if he would try it. Even the skipper, standing in the companionway, stepped up on deck to have a better look. "He's got to take it quarterin', and it ain't wide enough," said Eddie Parsons. "Quartering--yes, but with everything hauled inboard," said the skipper. "He'll try it, I guess. I was with him for two years, and if he feels like trying it he'll try it." "And s'pose he does try it, Skipper?"