The women, who speculated, carried them in baskets up to all the most out-of-the-way parts of the town.
It found its way now everywhere, where there was only a hole for it to slip into, a kettle or a pan for it to be boiled or fried in--into all the galleys in the harbour, from the large, superior steamship or full-rigged vessel, down to the cooking-stoves on the timber sloops and the little decked barges, where people were resting, and broiling it in the summer evening, into all the back blocks and small streets from the cellars to the garrets.

Workmen and small tradesmen, husbands and wives were going that sultry evening with one, two, or three in their hand, according to the number of mouths there were at home.

There was a smell of fried and broiled mackerel over whole quarters of the town.
It _must_ be sold, it was so confoundedly hot! "Yes, indeed, it is a blessed warmth," answered deaf Mother Andersen, "that sends all this mackerel over the town." This fish has had a prejudice to overcome, although in all modesty it has solicited nothing but the favour of being allowed to escape being eaten.

It has the reputation of being the cannibal of the North Sea--in plain words, a man-eater, and that the dark part of its flesh comes from drowned sailors.
Nikolai and Silla were also down at the boats to seize their share of the glory of the evening.

Silla had not lived near the wharves in her childhood for nothing, and to pick out the best fish from under the very nose of the old women, was an easy matter for her.