an instant, a wonderful frieze against the skyline, and their men pointed and hailed. Next moment the open mouths, waving arms, and bare chests disappeared, while on another swell came up an entirely new line of characters like paper figures in a toy theatre. So Harvey stared. “Watch out!” said Dan, flourishing a dip-net “When I tell you dip, you dip. The caplin’ll school any time from naow on. Where’ll we lay, Tom Platt?”
Pushing, shoving, and hauling, greeting old friends here and warning old enemies there, Commodore Tom Platt led his little fleet well to leeward of the general crowd, and immediately three or four men began to haul on their anchors with intent to lee-bow the We’re Here s. But a yell of laughter went up as a dory shot from her station with exceeding speed, its occupant pulling madly on the roding.
“Give her slack!” roared twenty voices. “Let him shake it out.”
“What’s the matter?” said Harvey, as the boat flashed away to the southward. “He’s anchored, isn’t he?”
“Anchored, sure enough, but his graound-tackle’s kinder shifty,” said Dan, laughing. “Whale’s fouled it. … Dip Harve! Here they come!”
The sea round them clouded and darkened, and then frizzed up in showers of tiny silver fish, and over a space of five or six acres the cod began to leap like trout in May; while behind the cod three or four broad graybacks broke the water into boils.
Then everybody shouted and tried to haul up his anchor to get among the school, and fouled his neighbour’s line and said what was in his heart, and dipped furiously with his dip-net, and shrieked cautions and advice to his companions, while the deep fizzed like freshly opened soda-water,