manufacturing unshrinkable flannels. Of course, the reader
understands that is not the article of commerce he manufactures;
but it is near enough, and it suggests the line of business to
which he gives his life's blood. It is not similar to my own line
of work, and in consequence, when he wrote me, on the unshrinkable
flannels official writing-paper, that he wished to see me in
reference to a matter of business of "mutual benefit," I was
considerably puzzled.

A few days later, at nine in the morning, an hour of his own
choosing, he came to my rooms in New York City.

Except that he had grown a beard, he was as I remembered him, thin
and tall, but with no chest, and stooping shoulders. He wore
eye-glasses, and as of old through these he regarded you
disapprovingly and warily as though he suspected you might try to
borrow money, or even joke with him. As with Edgar I had never felt
any temptation to do either, this was irritating.

But from force of former habit we greeted each other by our first
names, and he suspiciously accepted a cigar. Then, after fixing me
both with his eyes and with his eye-glasses and swearing me to
secrecy, he began abruptly.

"Our mills," he said, "are in New Bedford; and I own several small
cottages there and in Fairhaven. I rent them out at a moderate
rate. The other day one of my tenants, a Portuguese sailor, was
taken suddenly ill and sent for me. He had made many voyages in and
out of Bedford to the South Seas, whaling, and he told me on his
last voyage he had touched at his former home at Teneriffe. There