"Purse in," it was then, and lively. And so we pursed in, hauling on the running line in the lower edge of the seine, something as the string around the neck of a tobacco bag is drawn tight. It was heavy work of course, but everybody made light of it. We could not tell if the fish were in it or not. The leaders might have dove when they felt the twine against their noses and so escaped with the whole school following after, or they might have taken no alarm and stayed in.
So we pursed in, not knowing whether we were to have a good haul with a hundred or a hundred and fifty dollars apiece at the end of it, or whether we would have our work for nothing. All hands kept up the pretence of joking, of course, but everybody was anxious enough. It was more than the money--it was fisherman's pride
