100
nt. It was Dan who sighted the Hope Of Prague just coming up, and as her boats joined the company they were greeted with the question: "Who's the meanest man in the Fleet?"
Three hundred voices answered cheerily: "Nick Bra-ady." It sounded like an organ chant.
"Who stole the lampwicks?" That was Dan's contribution.
"Nick Bra-ady," sang the boats.
"Who biled the salt bait fer soup?" This was an unknown backbiter a quarter of a mile away.
Again the joyful chorus. Now, Brady was not especially mean, but he had that reputation, and the Fleet made the most of it. Then they discovered a man from a Truro boat who, six years before, had been convicted of using a tackle with five or six hooks--a "scrowger," they call it--in the Shoals. Naturally, he had been christened "Scrowger Jim"; and though he had hidden himself on the Georges ever since, he found his honours waiting for him full blown. They took it up in a sort of firecracker chorus: "Jim! 0 Jim! Jim! 0 Jim! Sssscrowger Jim!" That pleased everybody. And when a poetical Beverly man--he had been making it up all day, and talked about it for weeks--sang, "The Carrie Pitman's anchor doesn't hold her for a cent" the dories felt that they were indeed fortunate. Then they had to ask that Beverly man how he was off for beans, because even poets must not have things all their own way. Every schooner and nearly every man got it in turn. Was there a careless or dirty cook anywhere? The dories sang about him and his food. Was a schooner badly found? The Fleet was told at full length. Had a man hooked tobacco from a mess-mate? He was named in meeting; the name tossed from roller to roller. Disko's infallible judgments, Long Jack's market-boat that he had sold years ago, Dan's sweetheart (oh, but Dan was an angry boy!), Penn's bad luck with dory-anchors, Salter's views on manure, Manuel's little slips from virtue ashore, and Harvey's ladylike handling of the oar--all were laid before the public; and as the fog fell around them in silvery sheets