wharves and ships of East River, and didn't expect it would take me
long to get rich.

There were fine ships and many in those days in the East River
slips. South Street was full of folk from all over the world, but I
walked there as cocky as if I owned it, looking for a ship that
pleased me, and I came to one lying at dock with the name _Hebe
Maitland_ in gilt letters on a board that was screwed to her, and
I says, "Now, there's a ship!" Then I heard a man speak up beside me
saying, "Just so," and I turned to look at him.

He didn't seem like a seaman, but was an old man, and grave-looking,
and small, and precise in manner, and not like one trained to the
sea, and wore a long, rusty black coat; and his upper lip was shaven.

"You like her, do ye?" he said. "Now I'm thinking you know a good
one when you see her."

I said I thought I did, speaking rather knowing. But when he asked
if I'd been to sea, I had to say I hadn't; not on the high seas, nor
in any such vessel as the _Hebe Maitland_. She was painted dingy
black, like most of the others, and I judged from her lines that she
was a fleet sailer and built for that purpose, rather than for the
amount of cargo she might carry.

"Why, come aboard," he said, and soon we were seated in a cabin with
shiny panels, and a hinge table that swung down from the wall between
us. He looked at me through half-shut eyes, pursing his dry lips, and
he asked me where I came from.