"Harbor Castle," said the mate promptly. "It's on the other side of
the point I'd as soon live in a jail!"

"Why?" I exclaimed.

But he was no longer listening. He pointed at the shore opposite.

"See that flag running up the staff in that garden?" he cried.
"'That's my boy signalling. I got to get to the boat deck and wave
back!"

I felt as a detective. I had acquired important information. The
mate, a man of judgment, preferred Fairharbor to New York. Also, to
living in Harbor Castle, he preferred going to jail.

The boat on which I had arrived was listed to start back at six the
same evening on her return trip to New York. So, at the office of
the line I checked my valise, and set forth to explore New Bedford.

The whaling vessels moored to a nearby wharf, I inspected from
hatches to keels, and by those on board was directed to a warehouse
where were stored harpoons, whalebone, and wooden figure-heads. My
pleasure in these led to my being passed on to a row of "antique"
shops filled with relics of the days of whaling and also with
genuine pie-crust tables, genuine flint-lock muskets, genuine
Liverpool pitchers. I coveted especially old-time engravings of the
whalers, and was told at Hatchardson's book-store on the main
street others could be found in profusion.

Hatchardson's proved to be a place of great delight. As you entered