They were making a short berth, towing the anchor under their foot to save trouble.
“Square-rigger bellowin’ fer his latitude,” said Long Jack.
The dripping red headsails of a bark glided out of the fog, and the We’re Here rang her bell thrice, using sea shorthand.
The larger boat backed her topsail with shrieks and shoutings.
“Frenchman,” said Uncle Salters, scornfully. “Miquelon boat from St. Malo.” The farmer had a weatherly sea-eye. “I’m ’most outer ’baccy, too, Disko.”
“Same here,” said Tom Platt. “Hi! Backez vous—backez vous! Standez awayez , you butt-ended mucho-bono! Where you from— St. Malo, eh?”
“Ah, ha! Mucho bono! Oui! oui! Clos Poulet— St. Malo! St. Pierre et Miquelon ,” cried the other crowd, waving woollen caps and laughing. Then all together, “ Bord! Bord! ”
“Bring up the board, Danny. Beats me how them Frenchmen fetch anywheres, exceptin’ America’s fairish broadly. Forty-six forty-nine’s good enough fer them; an’ I guess it’s abaout right, too.”
Dan chalked the figures on the board, and they hung it in the main-rigging to a chorus of mercis from the bark.
“Seems kinder uneighbourly to let ’em swedge off like this,” Salters suggested, feeling in his pockets.
“Hev ye learned French then sence last trip?” said Disko. “I don’t want no more stone-ballast hove at us ’long o’ your callin’ Miquelon boats ‘footy cochins,’ same’s you did off Le Have.”