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