Chapter 2 - Page 2

an' I ha'af looked you'd be swallered up, same's
Jonah."

Harvey protested himself red in the face. Dan was a shrewd young
person along his own lines, and ten minutes' questioning convinced
him that Harvey was not lying - much. Besides, he had bound
himself by the most terrible oath known to boyhood, and yet he
sat, alive, with a red-ended nose, in the scuppers, recounting
marvels upon marvels.

"Gosh!" said Dan at last, from the very bottom of his soul, when
Harvey had completed an inventory of the car named in his honour.
Then a grin of mischievous delight overspread his broad face. "I
believe you, Harvey. Dad's made a mistake fer once in his life."

"He has, sure," said Harvey, who was meditating an early revenge.

"He'll be mad clear through. Dad jest hates to be mistook in his
jedgments." Dan lay back and slapped his thigh. "Oh, Harvey, don't
you spile the catch by lettin' on."

"I don't want to be knocked down again. I'll get even with him,
though."

"Never heard any man ever got even with dad. But he'd knock ye
down again sure. The more he was mistook the more he'd do it. But
gold-mines and pistols -"

"I never said a word about pistols," Harvey cut in, for he was on
his oath.

"Thet's so; no more you did. Two private cars, then, one named fer
you an' one fer her; an' two hundred dollars a month pocket-money,
all knocked into the scuppers fer not workin' fer ten an' a ha'af
a month! It's the top haul o' the season." He exploded with
noiseless chuckles.

"Then I was right? "said Harvey, who thought he had found a
sympathiser.

"You was wrong; the wrongest kind o' wrong! You take right hold
an' pitch in 'longside o' me, or you'll catch it, an' I'll catch
it fer backin' you up. Dad always gives me double helps 'cause I'm
his son, an' he hates favourin' folk. 'Guess you're kinder mad at
dad. I've been that way time an' again. But dad's a mighty jest
man; all the fleet says so."

• "Looks like justice, this, don't it?" Harvey pointed to his
outraged nose.

"Thet's nothin'. Lets the shore blood outer you. Dad did it for
yer health. Say, though, I can't have dealin's with a man that
thinks me or dad or any one on the "We're Here's" a thief. We
ain't any common wharf-end crowd by any manner o' means. We're
fishermen, an' we've shipped together for six years an' more.
Don't you make any mistake on that! I told ye dad don't let me
swear. He calls 'em vain oaths, and pounds me; but ef I could say
what you said 'baout your pap an' his fixin's, I'd say that 'baout
your dollars. I dunno what was in your pockets when I dried your
kit, fer I didn't look to see; but I'd say, using the very same
words ez you used jest