he stuff, and stowed safe in
the lazaret. Counting what we picked up before, we have 1,500 pounds.
A great fortune for the owners, and a fine bonus for us. When I get
home, I will buy a farm, and settle down ashore.

"So--1,500 pounds, and worth more than half a million dollars,
according to prices paid in those days--today, worth a million. John
Winters might well indulge in dreams of bucolic bliss; the whalemen,
you know, received a substantial bonus on ambergris finds, over and
above their regular lay.

"The log for the next few days is filled with the various speculations
rife as to the origin of the treasure, of visions of quiet farm life in
New England, and of hopes concerning a girl named Alice. Then, on
April 25th, 144 deg., 48' E. Longitude, 20 deg. 33' N. Latitude--that shows
they were at the northern limits of the Ladrones--he writes:

We are to have another season up north, in Okhotsk and Bering seas.
The Old Man and Mr. Garboy have had a fine argument about it. Garboy
says we have enough to make the owners happy, and give us all a fine
lay, and that we can't trust the foremast hands with all the grease
aboard.

Captain Peabody says he is going home with a full ship, grease or no
grease, that the hands may be ----, that they haven't the guts to get
at the grease anyway, and that it isn't the mate's place to give him
advice. So Garboy shut up, and we are bound north after the baleen.
Well, I think Garboy is right, though he hasn't any business offering
advice to the Old Man. I am glad the Old Man shut him up. Anyway, a
full ship means more dollars, and I will need plenty of dollars to
start life ashore with. I will have enough to buy the old Wentworth
place. I think Alice will take me, and if she don't, there are plenty
of other girls in the world.

"You see, friend Winters is indulging in the time-honored pastime of
spending his payday before he has it; and of vowing the usual sailor
vow to leave the sea and buy a farm. Well, perhaps the poor devil was
in earnest; but he didn't have a chance to achieve his ambition.

"Now we will skip to the last regular entries in the book. They are
dated several months later, August of 1890, and the _Good Luck_ has
been on the northern grounds for some time. No position is given, for
reasons you will appreciate. First is dated August 15th:

Still in the fog. We have been three weeks without a sight, fogbound,
and blundering God knows where.