I have given these details of the arrangements because I know that there are now comparatively few people who are familiar with them; in fact, there are none except whalemen and outfitters, and men and boys who have been in the habit of running over the ships at will. Even the boys of that last class, if there are still any such, are probably not as familiar with the arrangements as they ought to be, although they may think they are. I had seen whalers since I could remember, and had rambled over them, and played on them and beside them throughout my boyhood, but I had never given a thought to the question whether the fire was fed from aft or from forward of the try-works. I suppose I should have said that the doors opened aft. Somehow, that seemed the natural way—for {94} the men to face the bows as they work. It is not, as it happens. Just aft of the try-works was the bench, with a vise and other “fixins,” where repairs were made on the harpoons and lances and pretty nearly everything else. Remembering my mistakes—some of them—I am not inclined to be so severe upon the men of Atlantic City as some whalemen are. A whaleship went ashore upon those hospitable sands, and they took her as she was, high and dry on the beach, and they repaired her, and fitted her completely, as they supposed, and used her as one more exhibition—one more attraction for the crowds which throng the Boardwalk. I can imagine them; I can even see them coming in crowds, at ten or fifteen cents a head, to go over the whaler—the “spouter,” as I have no doubt they called her, although I rarely heard the term used among whalemen. But, on one day of ill-fortune, there chanced to be a whaleman in that crowd. He looked critically over the old ship, saying nothing; and he found that they had made the try-works face the wrong way, putting the fire-doors aft instead of in the forward side. He smiled, I do not doubt, but still he said nothing—in Atlantic City. When he got home, however, it was a different thing, and the matter was spread abroad in New Bedford, and it got into the papers, which had no end of fun with the poor, ignorant Atlantic Citizens. Occasionally it crops out yet in the “Mercury” or the “Standard.” They simply cannot resist giving the natives of New Jersey a poke now and then. I can hardly expect readers of this rambling narrative to be better versed in such matters than those men of Atlantic City. In order that they may not be in a state of chaotic ignorance in regard to them, I have dwelt on the details to a degree which most whalemen would think unnecessary and an insult to their intelligence. They would take all these things for granted.