e slept. His
business, as revealed to him in dreams, was to follow Harvey for the
rest of his days. They tried argument and, at last, persuasion; but
there is a difference between one Cape Breton and two Alabama negroes,
and the matter was referred to Cheyne by the cook and porter. The
millionaire only laughed. He presumed Harvey might need a body-servant
some day or other, and was sure that one volunteer was worth five
hirelings. Let the man stay, therefore; even though he called himself
MacDonald and swore in Gaelic. The car could go back to Boston, where,
if he were still of the same mind, they would take him West.

With the "Constance," which in his heart of hearts he loathed, departed
the last remnant of Cheyne's millionairedom, and he gave himself up to
an energetic idleness. This Gloucester was a new town in a new land,
and he purposed to "take it in," as of old he had taken in all the
cities from Snohomish to San Diego of that world whence he hailed. They
made money along the crooked street which was half wharf and half
ship's store: as a leading professional he wished to learn how the
noble game was played. Men said that four out of every five fish-balls
served at New England's Sunday breakfast came from Gloucester, and
overwhelmed him with figures in proof--statistics of boats, gear,
wharf-frontage, capital invested, salting, packing, factories,
insurance, wages, repairs, and profits. He talked with the owners of
the large fleets whose skippers were little more than hired men, and
whose crews were almost all Swedes or Portuguese. Then he conferred
with Disko, one of the few who owned their craft, and compared notes in
his vast head. He coiled himself away on chain-cables in marine
junk-shops, asking questions with cheerful, unslaked Western curiosity,
till all the water-front wanted to know "what in thunder that man was
after, anyhow." He prowled into the Mutual Insurance rooms, and
demanded explanations of the mysterious remarks chalked up on the
blackboard day by day; and that brought down upon him secretaries of
every Fisherman's Widow and Orphan Aid Society within the city limits.
They begged shamelessly, each man anxious to beat the other
institution's record, and Cheyne tugged at his beard and handed them
all over to Mrs. Cheyne.

She was resting in a boarding-house near Eastern Point--a strange
establishment, managed, apparently, by the boarders, where the
table-cloths were red-and-white-checkered and