“Mitch?” Shawn asked querulously.

“No,” said Mitch.

“No, what?” demanded Shawn. “I didn’t say anything.”

“The big jenny,” Mitch muttered. “I’m not setting it.”

He sheered within inches of a danger-buoy, to give the membership something else to chew on. Shawn did not even notice it. Christ, if he left the old man to his own devices, he’d pile up his boat in a week.

“We’d move better under the jenny,” complained Shawn. “Shit, I’ll set it.”

“Help yourself,” Mitch offered, waving at the slippery foredeck. He was cold and his back hurt and he was in no mood for sail-drill twenty minutes from home. “Set it. Then we’ll be in the slip thirty seconds earlier.”

“What the hell’s biting you?” Shawn wanted to know. He made a move forward, changed his mind as a green wave bounded over the forecastle. He groped through the hatch behind him, feeling for the liquor rack. He pulled out a bottle of Johnny Walker. Two wisps of white hair, escaping the cap, made horns at his temples. He held out the bottle. “Here. Warm up. And smile.”

“No, thanks, not coming in, Pops.” With no one but Shawn to help him, getting a fifty-foot sloop into the slip required his best reactions. He reached down and started the engine.

“Hey!” protested Shawn. Shawn always tried to berth his boat under sail, sometimes quite successfully. His self-image was that of a purist in canvas, theoretically. In practice, the drill called for Mitch to sail Invincible through the tiny harbor and set up the approach. Then Mitch would turn over the helm at the last instant so that the owner could bring her in, to the plaudits of some imaginary crowd. Even if Shawn intended to cheat and use power, he never started his motor in full view of the spectators on the porch; he waited until he was hidden by the jetty. Already the gray heads in the bar must be wagging in disgust.

“I started the engine,” Mitch explained cruelly, “because you seem to be in such a goddamn hurry. Why spend half an hour beating up the harbor?”

“I’m not old enough for a powerboat,” Shawn sulked. “Not yet.”

Abruptly, Mitch cut the engine. He offered Shawn the wheel. “There you go, Captain Slocum.”

There was a heavy silence. The old man had not brought his twenty-ton craft unaided into the harbor under sail for years. Waves gurgled at the bow, a gull jeered, and a foghorn roared from the Bridge. Shawn looked forlorn, frightened, and suddenly shrunken. Mitch sighed, pulled the visor over the old man’s eyes, squeezed his arm, and took the wheel again.

Engine off, sails full, he jibed around the jetty and tacked through the jammed harbor. When the slip was dead ahead and he saw that Shawn could not miss, he gave him the helm and took a springline forward to leap ashore.