The Log of the Jolly Polly | Page 8

that reached to the very edge of the harbor. The second officer
was passing my window and I asked what the promontory was called.
"Fairharbor," he said. He answered with such proprietary pride and
smiled upon Fairharbor with such approval that I ventured to guess it
was his home.
"That's right," he said; "I used to live at the New York end of the run-in
a flat. But never again! No place for the boy to play but in the street. I
found I could rent one of those old cottages over there for the same
money I paid for the flat. So I cut out New York. My boy lives in a
bathing suit now, and he can handle a catboat same as me. We have a
kitchen garden, and hens, and the fishermen here will give you all the
fish you 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