he said. "I know the place first-rate, now. But what I can't make out
is, What's got the Aroostook?"

A man turned the corner of the warehouse from the street above, and
came briskly down towards them, with his hat off, and rubbing his
head and face with a circular application of a red silk handkerchief.
He was dressed in a suit of blue flannel, very neat and shapely, and
across his ample waistcoat stretched a gold watch chain; in his left
hand he carried a white Panama hat. He was short and stout; his round
florid face was full of a sort of prompt kindness; his small blue eyes
twinkled under shaggy brows whose sandy color had not yet taken the
grizzled tone of his close-clipped hair and beard. From his clean
wristbands his hands came out, plump and large; stiff, wiry hairs
stood up on their backs, and under these various designs in tattooing
showed their purple.

Lydia's grandfather stepped out to meet and halt this stranger, as
he drew near, glancing quickly from the girl to the old man, and then
at their bundles. "Can you tell me where a ship named the Aroostook
is, that was layin' at this wharf--Lucas Wharf--a fortnight ago,
and better?"

"Well, I guess I can, Mr. Latham," answered the stranger, with
a quizzical smile, offering one of his stout hands to Lydia's
grandfather. "You don't seem to remember your friends very well,
do you?"

The old man gave a kind of crow expressive of an otherwise unutterable
relief and comfort. "Well, if it ain't Captain Jenness! I be'n so
turned about, I declare for't, I don't believe I'd ever known you if