“I’ve forgotten, Mr. Salters.  Let’s count.”

“Don’t see as it could be forty-five.  I’m forty-five,” said Uncle Salters.  “You count keerful, Penn.”

Disko Troop came out of the cabin.  “Salters, you pitch your fish in naow at once,” he said in the tone of authority.

“Don’t spile the catch, Dad,” Dan murmured.  “Them two are on’y jest beginnin’.”

“Mother av delight!  He’s forkin’ them wan by wan,” howled Long Jack, as Uncle Salters got to work laboriously; the little man in the other dory counting a line of notches on the gunwale.

“That was last week’s catch,” he said, looking up plaintively, his forefinger where he had left off.

Manuel nudged Dan, who darted to the after-tackle, and, leaning far overside, slipped the hook into the stern-rope as Manuel made her fast forward.  The others pulled gallantly and swung the boat in—­man, fish, and all.

“One, two, four-nine,” said Tom Platt, counting with a practised eye.  “Forty-seven.  Penn, you’re it!” Dan let the after-tackle run, and slid him out of the stern on to the deck amid a torrent of his own fish.

“Hold on!” roared Uncle Salters, bobbing by the waist.  “Hold on, I’m a bit mixed in my caount.”

He had no time to protest, but was hove inboard and treated like “Pennsylvania.”

“Forty-one,” said Tom Platt.  “Beat by a farmer, Salters.  An’ you sech a sailor, too!”

“‘Tweren’t fair caount,” said he, stumbling out of the pen; “an’ I’m stung up all to pieces.”

His thick hands were puffy and mottled purply white.

“Some folks will find strawberry-bottom,” said Dan, addressing the newly risen moon, “ef they hev to dive fer it, seems to me.”

“An’ others,” said Uncle Salters, “eats the fat o’ the land in sloth, an’ mocks their own blood-kin.”

“Seat ye!  Seat ye!” a voice Harvey had not heard called from the foc’sle.  Disko Troop, Tom Platt, Long Jack, and Salters went forward on the word.  Little Penn bent above his square deep-sea reel and the tangled cod-lines; Manuel lay down full length on the deck, and Dan dropped into the hold, where Harvey heard him banging casks with a hammer.

“Salt,” he said, returning.  “Soon as we’re through supper we git to dressing-down.  You’ll pitch to Dad.  Tom Platt an’ Dad they stow together, an’ you’ll hear ’em arguin’.  We’re second ha’af, you an’ me an’ Manuel an’ Penn—­the youth an’ beauty o’ the boat.”

“What’s the good of that?” said Harvey.  “I’m hungry.”

“They’ll be through in a minute.  Suff!  She smells good to-night.  Dad ships a good cook ef he do suffer with his brother.  It’s a full catch today, Aeneid it?” He pointed at the pens piled high with cod.  “What water did ye hev, Manuel?”

“Twenty-fife father,” said the Portuguese, sleepily.  “They strike on good an’ queek.  Some day I show you, Harvey.”