“I thought, Master Torrey, you might have liked to call her the Anna Jane,” said Ichabod, with a little cracked laugh like an amused crow. Master Torrey colored high, but not with displeasure. “I wouldn’t venture, Ichabod, I wouldn’t dare. She’s too shy, too modest, to be pleased with such an open compliment.” “Umph!” said the clerk again. It seemed to be a way he had. “But you are determined to call her The Sea-nymph, Master Torrey?” “Ah, am I!” replied Torrey, who seemed by no means disposed to pursue the subject of the “inexpressive she,” whoever it might be. “And she shall have the handsomest figure-head that Job Chippit can carve; and it sha’n’t be a mere head and shoulders either, it shall be a full-length figure.” “It will cost a good penny, master. Job’s prices are high.” “There’s another objection! Who cares what it costs? Am I a destitute person? Am I an absolute pauper? Am I like to apply to the selectmen to be supported by the town?” “Not yet, master,” said Ichabod, gathering his papers together. “But if we go to following our _fancies_”—scornful emphasis—“there is no telling where we may end;” and without giving his master time to reply, Ichabod sped out of the counting-room. Now I am not going to tell you a long story about Master Torrey, though I might do so if I had not a tale to tell you about something else—namely, this sea-nymph and the merman who figure at the head of this story. I was once told by a schoolmaster that in writing there was “nothing so important as a strict adherence to facts;” “fax” he called them. I treasured up this valuable precept in the inmost recesses of my mind, and I mean to adhere to facts if I possibly can. But I can’t adhere to facts till I get them, and to do that I don’t see but I shall have to tell you a little about Master Isaac Torrey, merchant of Salem, who was the means of putting this wonderful figure-head in the merman’s way. He was a merchant of Salem when Salem was a centre of trade, and sent many a brave ship to the Indies and the Mediterranean. He was thirty-four years old, and looked ten years younger. He was a man inclined to extravagance and luxury. He wore the handsomest waistcoats and the finest lace of any one in town. He had been educated in the gravest, strictest fashion of those grave days. His parents would have been horrified if they had found him reading a novel or a play, but they urged him on to study Virgil and Homer.