and propped the pillows up for a back-rest,
ready to quarrel with him if it might bring some little pleasure into
his morbid existence.

"No," he said, amiably, "I'm too worried to quarrel, but I'm much
obliged for your kindly offer. I want to tell you something."

"What?" I asked, suspiciously.

"I want to ask you if you ever saw a man with gills like a fish?"

"Gills?" I repeated.

"Yes, gills! Did you?"

"No," I replied, angrily, "and neither did you."

"No, I never did," he said, in a curiously placid voice, "but there's
a man with gills like a fish who lives in the ocean out there. Oh, you
needn't look that way--nobody ever thinks of doubting my word, and I
tell you that there's a man--or a thing that looks like a man--as big
as you are, too--all slate-colored--with nasty red gills like a
fish!--and I've a witness to prove what I say!"

"Who?" I asked, sarcastically.

"The witness? My nurse."

"Oh! She saw a slate-colored man with gills?"

"Yes, she did. So did Francis Lee, superintendent of the Mica Quarry
Company at Port-of-Waves. So have a dozen men who work in the quarry.
Oh, you needn't laugh, young man. It's an old story here, and anybody
can tell you about the harbor-master."

"The harbor-master!" I exclaimed.

"Yes, that slate-colored thing with gills, that looks like a
man--and--by Heaven! _is_ a man--that's the harbor-master. Ask any
quarryman at Port-of-Waves what it is that comes purring around their
boats at the wharf and unties painters and changes the mooring of
every cat-boat in the cove at night! Ask Francis Lee what it was he
saw running and leaping up and down the shoal at sunset last Friday!
Ask anybody along the coast what sort of a thing moves about the
cliffs like a man and slides over them into the sea like an otter--"

"I saw it do that!" I burst out.

"Oh, did you? Well, _what was it?_"

Something kept me silent, although a dozen explanations flew to my
lips.

After a pause, Halyard said: "You saw the harbor-master, that's what
you saw!"

I looked at him without a word.

"Don't mistake me," he said, pettishly; "I don't think that the
harbor-master is a spirit or a sprite or a hobgoblin, or any sort of
damned rot. Neither do I believe it to be an optical illusion."

"What do you think it is?" I asked.

"I think it's a man--I think it's a branch of the human race--that's
what I think. Let me tell you something: the deepest spot in the
Atlantic Ocean is a trifle