But I believe I have committed a breach of etiquette in giving precedence to Scuppaug over the skipper, a very large and thoroughly pickled old man, who now bustled deliberately about the decks, with as few clothes on his broad back and stern-post legs as were consistent with decorum and with the requirements of those by-laws of society which extend even to Sandy Hook and the rest of the Jerseys, as well as to the fishing-banks that shoal out from the same.  Strictly speaking, this old man of our part of the sea was not the captain of the boat, but the pilot, who takes command of her when she abandons her proper line on the rivers, and ventures to that “far Cathay” of city-navigators indefinitely spoken of as “outside the Hook.”  The smooth-water captain of the steamer, who was nobody to talk of now, was a slim, pale young man, in a black dresscoat, tall, silky hat, and shoes of a material which has long years ago been patented, on account of its matchless ability to shine.  This commander remained permanently within the “office,” where he was probably very poorly by himself during all this “high old time.”  The stout old pilot was the real skipper; and now that the vessel had come to anchor, he turned from his lighter duties to the grave pastime of the day, and fished earnestly through a large hole in the paddlebox,—­the porgies that came to his allurements arriving at their destination by a series of flapping manoeuvres from blade to blade of the wheel.  For so burly a man, and one with such a chest for the stowage of sea-breezes and monsoons, the skipper was provided with a wonderfully small voice, suggesting, as he lectured upon sea-fishing to the novices who were getting into “snarls” with their tackle hard by where he sat, the circumstance of a tree-toad discoursing from the hollow of a brave old oak.

“If you want to ketch good fish,” said he, sententiously, to Young New York, whose hook persisted in baiting itself with his thumb,—­“if you want to ketch reel snorters, you must have a heavy line, heavy lead, and gimp tackle.  Then take your own time, haul in, hand over hand, and no matter what the heft, you’ll be sure to fetch him.”

Young New York produced from his breast-pocket the blue enamelled case in which reposed his ivory tablets, and, seating himself upon the chain-box, wrote down with golden pencil the dictum of the sage.

Notwithstanding the storm of yesterday, from which the discontented foreboded a stampede of the fish to deeper waters, porgies to an extraordinary amount were soon heaped on the decks, at the feet of each fisherman, the more careful of whom put them into baskets or barrels.  But in general they were thrown carelessly on the deck, with a string passed through their gills to keep them from straying out of their proper lots.  When these bright fishes are lying the deck, it is curious to watch them flushing and gasping there, with that singular, dubious expression of mouth peculiar