Chapter 10

CHAPTER X

But it was otherwise with the "We're Here's" silent cook, for he
came up, his kit in a handkerchief, and boarded the "Constance."
Pay was no particular object, and he did not in the least care
where he slept. His business, as revealed to him in dreams, was to
follow Harvey for the rest of his days. They tried argument and,
at last, persuasion; but there is a difference between one Cape
Breton and two Alabama negroes, and the matter was referred to
Cheyne by the cook and porter. The millionaire only laughed. He
presumed Harvey might need a body-servant some day or other, and
was sure that one volunteer was worth five hirelings. Let the man
stay, therefore; even though he called himself MacDonald and swore
in Gaelic. The car could go back to Boston, where, if he were
still of the same mind, they would take him West.

With the "Constance," which in his heart of hearts he loathed,
departed the last remnant of Cheyne's millionairedom, and he gave
himself up to an energetic idleness. This Gloucester was a new
town in a new land, and he purposed to "take it in," as of old he
had taken in all the cities from Snohomish to San Diego of that
world whence he hailed. They made money along the crooked street
which was half wharf and half ship's store: as a leading
professional he wished to learn how the noble game was played. Men
said that four out of every five fish-balls served at New
England's Sunday breakfast came from Gloucester, and overwhelmed
him with figures in proof- statistics of boats, gear, wharf-
frontage, capital invested, salting, packing, factories,
insurance, wages, repairs, and profits. He talked with the owners
of the large fleets whose skippers were little more than hired
men, and whose crews were almost all Swedes or Portuguese. Then he
conferred with Disko, one of the few who owned their craft, and
compared notes in his vast head. He coiled himself away on chain-
cables in marine junk-shops, asking questions with cheerful, un-
slaked Western curiosity, till all the water-front wanted to know
"what in thunder that man was after, anyhow." He prowled into the
Mutual Insurance rooms, and demanded explanations of the
mysterious remarks chalked up on the blackboard day by day; and
that brought down upon him secretaries of every Fisherman's Widow
and Orphan Aid Society within the city limits. They begged
shamelessly, each man anxious to beat the other institution's
record, and Cheyne tugged at his beard and handed them all over to
Mrs. Cheyne.

She was resting in a boarding-house near Eastern Point - a strange
establishment, managed. apparently, by the boarders, where the
table-cloths were red-and-white-checkered, and the population, who
seemed to have known one