his own imagination, to make an interesting story for publication, Poe
began and continued to write. Then, as he progressed, he found that his
imagination was embarrassed--frustrated by the known facts already
employed--whilst it was not assisted by new facts which he was positive
existed, but which he could not procure. As he attempted to close the
narrative, the cold, written page was a very different thing from what
he had conceived it would be as he sat in the tap-room of some New
England old 'Sailor's Home,' with a couple of glasses of Burton ale on
the table, listening through the drowsy afternoon to the fact and
fiction of some old 'tar,' as the two looked across the white-sanded
floor at the old moss-grown dock without, and listened to the salt
wavelets splashing against its rotting timbers, and watched the far-
distant sails on the outer sea. It is not very difficult to picture to
one's self Poe searching among these sailors' lodging-houses for Dirk
Peters; nor is it unreasonable to assume that he did so search for him.
If Dirk Peters was twenty-seven years old in 1827, when the mutiny
occurred, he was only forty-nine at the time of Poe's death--in fact,
would be only seventy-seven if now alive. Poe says in his 'Note,' that
'Peters, from whom some information might be expected, is still alive,
and a resident of Illinois, but cannot be met with at present. He may
hereafter be found, and will, no doubt, afford material for a conclusion
of Mr. Pym's account.' I have no doubt that Poe eventually learned
exactly where Peters resided; but no matter how much Poe may have
desired to meet with Peters, he could not have done so. In the '40s it
was a long, tedious, expensive journey from New York to Illinois. Still,
Poe hoped some day to meet Peters, and did not care to say to the public
exactly where he could be met with. Then came Poe's unutterably sad
death, leaving the narrative incomplete."

As Bainbridge neared the close of his remarks, we heard a heavy and