After dropping the crown piece into his pocket, the man turned up the wharf, and walked on side by side with the stranger. "Seems to me you're a stranger in these parts; never was to Boston afore, I reckon?" he said, dropping into an old habit of asking questions with unconscious impertinence. "You are mistaken. I have been here before," answered the stranger, and a wild fire lighted up his face. "Years ago I left that wharf a--a--but I have come back. The world shall know that I have come back." The sailor looked at him with open astonishment. "Why what on earth are you so mad about I should like to know?" he said. "I hain't done nothing to set you off in a tantrum, have I now?" The stranger smiled. "You have done nothing," he said, in a voice so gentle that the man stared again, bewildered by the sudden change. "I was talking to myself rather than you." "That's a queer idea, but I've hearn people do sich things afore; it was in foreign parts, though. We talk like folks in Boston now I tell you, straight out and up to the mark. But forriners will be forriners, there's no helping it. Now what is it you want up to Goody Brown's, if I may be so bold? Is the lady up there any relation of yourn?" Again the stranger smiled. "My friend, you are rather bold." "Ain't I," answered the man with great self-complacency. "That's the way we Bosting folks come to know more than other people. Ain't afeared to ask questions. Every man comes right up to his duty on that pint without flinching. But you hain't told me yet if the lady is a relation or not?" "No, she is not related to me." "Only come over in the same ship? I reckoned so, seeing as she was a cabin passenger and you al'es kept so snug in the steerage. Never saw you on deck in my life till long after dark. Don't think she ever sot eyes on you the hull vi'age?" "No, she never did." "Now that's something like; can answer a fair question when you want to, can't you? But what do you go and see her now for? Couldn't you a got acquainted on ship board if you had wanted ter?" "Who told you that I did wish to see her?" answered the stranger, a little impatiently. "Not I, that is certain." "Then it ain't her you're going to see?" answered the man, in an injured tone, as if his time had been cruelly trifled with. "Well, maybe it's Goody Brown you're related to, arter all. Don't look like it, though, but stranger things than that has happened. She has a sight of cousins in the old country." The stranger grew impatient. He turned upon the man almost fiercely, his eyes flashing fire, his teeth gleaming through the lips lifted from them in a haughty curve. "Be quiet, man, you offend me." "Wheu!" ejaculated the sailor, picking up a bit of shingle from the ground, and searching for a jackknife which jingled against the silver crown in his pocket, "getting riley, now, ain't you?"