“Ver’ good. Ver’ good don,” said Manuel. “After supper I show you a little schooner I make, with all her ropes. So we shall learn.”
“Fust-class fer—a passenger,” said Dan. “Dad he’s jest allowed you’ll be wuth your salt maybe ’fore you’re draownded. Thet’s a heap fer Dad. I’ll learn you more our next watch together.”
“Taller!” grunted Disko, peering through the fog as it smoked over the bows. There was nothing to be seen ten feet beyond the surging jib-boom, while alongside rolled the endless procession of solemn, pale waves whispering and lipping one to the other.
“Now I’ll learn you something Long Jack can’t,” shouted Tom Platt, as from a locker by the stern he produced a battered deep-sea lead hollowed at one end, smeared the hollow from a saucer full of mutton tallow, and went forward. “I’ll learn you how to fly the Blue Pigeon. Shooo!”
Disko did something to the wheel that checked the schooner’s way, while Manuel, with Harvey to help (and a proud boy was Harvey), let down the jib in a lump on the boom. The lead sung a deep droning song as Tom Platt whirled it round and round.
“Go ahead, man,” said Long Jack, impatiently. “We’re not drawin’ twenty-five fut off Fire Island in a fog. There’s no trick to ut.”
“Don’t be jealous, Galway.” The released lead plopped into the sea far ahead as the schooner surged slowly forward.
“Soundin’ is a trick, though,” said Dan, “when your dipsey lead’s all the eye you’re like to hev for a week. What d’you make it, Dad?”
Disko’s face relaxed. His skill and honour were involved in the march he had stolen on the rest of the Fleet, and he had his reputation as a master artist who knew the Banks blindfold. “Sixty, mebbe—ef I’m any judge,” he replied, with a glance at the tiny compass in the window of the house.