explanation with interest and eventual sympathy; and in truth,--briefly
told, with a word now and then thrown in by Jonathan Tinker, who kept at
the bottom of the steps, showing like a gloomy spectre in the night, or,
in his grotesque length and gauntness, like the other's shadow cast
there by the lamplight,--it was a story which could hardly fail to
awaken pity.

At last, after ringing several bells where there were no lights, in the
mere wantonness of good-will, and going away before they could be
answered (it would be entertaining to know what dreams they caused the
sleepers within), there seemed to be nothing for it but to give up the
search till morning, and go to the main street and wait for the last
horse-car to the city.

There, seated upon the curbstone, Jonathan Tinker, being plied with a
few leading questions, told in hints and scraps the story of his hard
life, which was at present that of a second mate, and had been that of
a cabin-boy and of a seaman before the mast. The second mate's place he
held to be the hardest aboard ship. You got only a few dollars more than
the men, and you did not rank with the officers; you took your meals
alone, and in everything you belonged by yourself. The men did not
respect you, and sometimes the captain abused you awfully before the
passengers. The hardest captain that Jonathan Tinker ever sailed with
was Captain Gooding of the Cape. It had got to be so that no man could
ship second mate under Captain Gooding; and Jonathan Tinker was with him
only one voyage. When he had been home awhile, he saw an advertisement
for a second mate, and he went round to the owners'. They had kept it
secret who the captain was; but there was Captain Gooding in the owners'
office. "Why, here's the man, now, that I want for a second mate," said
he, when Jonathan Tinker entered; "he knows me."--"Captain Gooding, I