“Yes,” he said, “you seem to. But never mind, Timmie, I know how you feel. Perhaps it ’s just as well. We shan’t have the month of dreading it, and it ’ll be over before we know it. I ’ll do the best I can for you, but I can’t promise. Nelson may be having trouble of some {16} kind. I ’ll just drop in at the Custom House on the chance of finding him there, and if he is n’t we ’ll run over to Wing’s to see what they can tell us. But you must n’t fret if it can’t be done.” I almost danced with joy, and I promised not to fret. I knew that I should not fret at a thing that could not be done. I have never done that. I do the most and the best that I can, and am quite cheerful over the outcome. I was always the same; and what better can a man do than his best, and accept the result with a cheerful heart? But if we had made no attempt to find the captain I should have fretted at having left something undone and possibly lost a chance that I might have had. We had been walking slowly up William Street as we talked, and it was abreast of Eggers’s little gunshop—where I had been used to go for my supply of fishlines and hooks—that my father virtually gave his consent and told me not to fret. The steep, short slope of Johnnycake Hill was just at our left—the Bourne Whaling Museum is now at the top of it—and the Custom House was but a few steps away, on the upper corner of the next street. I broke away and ran, looking back at my father with an ecstatic smile. My father laughed again. “Hold on, Timmie,” he called. “Where ’you going?” “Custom House,” I called back. “Cap’n Nelson might get away.” So I ran, leaving my father laughing, and I waited impatiently for a few seconds beside one of the huge Doric columns supporting the roof of the portico of that ancient pile of granite. It always seemed to me as old as the Pyramids. The Post-office then occupied the first floor, but there was nobody passing either in or out at that time, and my father joined me beside the Doric column. I remember that the broad stone steps seemed not a whit too solid and strong for his massive frame as he came up. {17} He said nothing, but chuckled as he and I entered together that empty, echoing room, and made for the stairs. It was—and is yet, I suppose—a curved staircase of stone, and never failed to excite my wonder that it stood and performed its function, for the granite steps were without visible means of support at their outer ends. I always mounted it with trepidation, half expecting that it would give way beneath me and precipitate me into the echoing abyss below. The stone steps were somewhat worn by the feet of many captains, and my own feet had contributed. We entered, and saw a long mahogany counter surmounted by a glass fence, behind which a man was writing, standing at the counter. He had a long, pointed beard, sprinkled with gray. He seemed to be alone in that spacious room. He was the Deputy Collector.