“You’re jest as good as some as makes a frap about bein’ good.  I think, sir, you put’s on some of that light-come-go-away kind of a game.”

“Never mind; we’ll only hope we’ll have no more cases like that exactly.  I don’t know how we should have managed if there had been such another last week.”

“That was a strongish sea, and we’re sure of more.”

You never can get a North Sea man to own that any weather is very bad.  Years after a really bad gale he may give the wind credit for being in earnest, but usually he talks in a patronizing way of the elements, using diminutives, and trying to make light of the trouble so long as it lasts.  There had been hard weather since Lewis came out, and, though he had ample stores and appliances now, he found that he was hampered by the limitations of space as he was on board the schooner.  Life had been very rough for the young fellow and his burly worshipper since they came out, and they only kept each other up by a mutual sham of the most elaborate character.  After breakfast, Lewis gave orders to run as close as might be safe to the thick of the fleet; the smack was practically under his command, and he took her where he thought he might be most needed.  One of his patients in the after-cabin was muttering uneasily, for there was some feverishness; the other man had come down with a crash on the icy deck, and the shock had apparently caused concussion of the spine, for he could not move, and he was fed as if he were a child.  Lewis bent over the helpless seaman, and spoke kindly.  The man sighed, “Thank God I am where I am, sir.  That long plaister begins to burn a bit, but I a’most like it.  There’s little funny feelings runs down my arms and legs.”

“All right!  You’ll soon be better.  Did you work all through the gale?”

“We was about for two nights and a day, sir, and every one of us with the ulcers right up the arms.  It was warm business, I can tell you, sir.  My ulcers are all going away now, with this warm cabin, but they were throbbing all night before.  When I come down such a crack I was makin’ a run for the taickle, for fear we might let the gear drop, and I saw a flash in my eyes, and nothing more till I was aboard here.”

“You were trawling when that breeze started?”

“Yes.  We mustn’t mind weather when the market’s to be considered.  Tell me now, sir—­you’ve got time, haven’t you, sir?  Talkin’ of the market, and I’ve been nearly dead, and not out o’ the muck yet—­does the people know what us chaps gets for fish?”

“They never think.  The fish comes, and the milk comes, and they pay the fishmonger’s bill and the milkman’s, and they think one’s the same as the other, my man.”