"Pretty little harbor. I hear they never let anybody piss off the docks--afraid of flooding it, you know. Now New York might come to something one day, if they ever find the wit to use what nature gave 'em. Like you to see New York some time, maybe after the war, the way the river comes down wide and grand past miles of cliffs on the west. Nothing like it in New England nor Old England neither. Clean, wondrous blue--Jenks told me once 'tis good as well water above the tides. He took a sloop of mine up to Albany once, years ago. Well, poor Jenks! He'll be into the second or third tankard by now, scarce giving that slave wench time to lift off his boots. Yes, the troubled men--seekers and dreamers and friends of the moon, a little mad, and minds grown wise before their time like your sweet brother's--I don't pretend to understand 'em, Ben, the way I think you and I understand each other. I suppose they engender a great share of the sorrow in the world. What a place it might be without 'em! In a world without 'em I swear I'd die of boredom before I was hanged." * * * * * "She is fair. When we saw her a-building up the river and climbed about on her naked ribs, that was different, Ru. Now she's alive, even at the wharf you feel it. She's only waiting to meet the winds again." "You'd marry the sea if you could. Come here to the window and look down. Something else is fair. Still light enough if you look sharp. The apple--nay, I mean the little new one, that Rob set out the first year we came here. It's budded, for the first time." "So it is. Will Rob let 'em ripen this year, I wonder?" "I dare say not.... So you've met the great Jenks at last." "Never shake hands with him. Remember the bosun Joe Day? Died at the Indies--smallpox, Mr. Dyckman said. I was fond of Joe Day--made me think of Jesse Plum, the tales he could tell.... What's Kate contriving that smells so good all over the house?" "Roast goose, O wanderer." "And what's up with Hibbs? Ha'n't seen him since I got home." "Sulking. Benjamin, stand forth! You ask me, what of Gideon Hibbs; you ask, oh, where is he? Hibbs Pontifex hath gone to roost, with a book upon his knee." "Upstairs?" "Next door." "All lank and lean?" "Ay--dreaming of roast goose." "What planneth he for the morrow's morn, the evil old--uh--papoose?" "Ovid, my lord." "Not Ovid still!" "Ovid, my lord." "Oh, no!" "_Multum in parvo, fiat lux, pro bono publico._ Balls, we've done better, but for a Monday evening it'll pass. Throw me a clean pair of drawers, will you, like a fair angel, Ben? Was Jenks' daughter there?" "Yes. Both, I mean. The younger's a child. And a stranger introduced himself, a Mr. Daniel Shawn. Excited by _Artemis_ and won Uncle John's heart praising her. A seaman, silver-tongued--honest, I thought." "What was he after?" "I don't know that he was after anything, Ru. From his talk he must have been everywhere and seen everything." "Maybe not everything."