The Log of the Jolly Polly | Page 8

can carry away--fish right out of the water. I guess I've smashed the high cost of living problem all right. I wouldn't go back to living in New York now--not if they gave me the PILGRIM.
As though trying to prod my memory, I frowned. It was my conception of the part of a detective. "Hasn't Fletcher Farrell," I asked, "a house in Fairharbor?"
"Harbor Castle," said the mate promptly. "It's on the other side of the point I'd as soon live in a jail!"
"Why?" I exclaimed.
But he was no longer listening. He pointed at the shore opposite.
"See that flag running up the staff in that garden?" he cried. "'That's my boy signalling. I got to get to the boat deck and wave back!"
I felt as a detective. I had acquired important information. The mate, a man of judgment, preferred Fairharbor to New York. Also, to living in Harbor Castle, he preferred going to jail.
The boat on which I had arrived was listed to start back at six the same evening on her return trip to New York. So, at the office of the line I checked my valise, and set forth to explore New Bedford.
The whaling vessels moored to a nearby wharf, I inspected from hatches to keels, and by those on board was directed to a warehouse where were stored harpoons, whalebone, and wooden figure-heads. My pleasure in these led to my being passed on to a row of "antique" shops filled with relics of the days of whaling and also with genuine pie-crust tables, genuine flint-lock muskets, genuine Liverpool pitchers. I coveted especially old-time engravings of the whalers, and was told at Hatchardson's book-store on the main street others could be found in profusion.
Hatchardson's proved to be a place of great delight. As you entered there were counters for magazines and post-cards, popular music, and best-selling novels, while in the rear of the shop tables and shelves were stocked with ancient volumes, and on the wall surrounding them hung engravings, prints and woodcuts of even the eighteenth century. Just as the drugstore on the corner seemed to be a waiting station for those of New Bedford who used the trolley-cars, so for those who moved in automobiles, or still clung to the family carriage, Hatchardson's appeared to be less a shop than a public meeting-place. I noticed that the clerks, most of whom were women, were with the customers on a most friendly footing, addressing them, and by them being addressed by name. Finding I was free to wander where I pleased, I walked to the rear of the shop and from one of the tables picked up a much-worn volume. It was entitled "The Log of the JOLLY POLLY, and was illustrated with wood cuts showing square- rigged ships and whales Spouting. For five minutes, lost to my Surroundings, I turned the pages; and then became conscious that across the table some one was watching me. I raised my eyes and beheld a face of most surprising charm, intelligence and beauty. It was so lovely that it made me wince. The face was the fortune, and judging from the fact that in her hand she held a salesbook, the sole fortune, of a tall young girl who apparently had approached to wait on me. She was looking toward the street, so that, with the book- shelves for a back-ground, her face was in profile, and I determined swiftly that if she were to wait on me she would be kept waiting as long as my money lasted. I did not want "The Log of the JOLLY POLLY," but I did want to hear the lovely lady speak, and especially I desired that the one to whom she spoke should be myself.
"What is the price of this?" I asked. With magnificent self- control I kept my eyes on the book, but the lovely lady was so long silent that I raised them. To my surprise, I found on her face an expression of alarm and distress. With reluctance, and yet within her voice a certain hopefulness, she said, "Fifty dollars."
Fifty dollars was a death blow. I had planned to keep the young lady selling books throughout the entire morning, but at fifty dollars a book, I would soon be owing her money. I attempted to gain time.
"It must be very rare!" I said. I was afraid to look at her lest my admiration should give offense, so I pretended to admire the book.
"It is the only one in existence," said the young lady. "At least, it is the only one for sale! "
We were interrupted by the approach of a tall man who, from his playing the polite host and from his not wearing a hat, I guessed was Mr. Hatchardson himself. He looked from the book in my