rd headpieces, with sides that you can turn down
over your ears and neck. Must have worn that some constant; for from the
bushy eyebrows up he's as white as a piece of chalk, and with the rest
of his face so coppery it gives him an odd, skewbald look.

I expected a place like Collins's, with all its pictures and rugs and
fancy silverware, would surprise him some; but he don't seem at all
fussed. He tucks his napkin under his chin natural and gazes around
int'rested. He glances suspicious at a wine cooler that's carted by, and
when the two gents at the next table are served with tall glasses of ale
he looks around as if he was locatin' an exit. Next he digs into an
inside pocket, hauls out a paper, spreads it on the table, and remarks:

"Let's see, Mister--jest about where are we now?"

I gives him the cross street and the Broadway number, and he begins
tracin' eager with his finger. Fin'lly he says:

"All correct. Right in the best of the water."

"Eh?" says I. "What's that you've got there?"

"Sailin' directions," says he, smilin' apologetic. "You mustn't mind;
but for a minute there, seein' all the liquor bein' passed around, I
didn't know but what I'd got among the rocks and shoals. But it's all
right. Full ten fathom, and plenty of sea room."

"Too tarry for me," says I. "Meanin' what, now?"

He chuckles easy. "Why, it's this way," says he: "You see, before I
starts from home I talks it over with Cap'n Bill Logan. 'Jim,' says he,
'if you're goin' to cruise around New York you need a chart.'--'Guess
you're right, Cap'n Bill,' says I. 'Fix me up one, won't ye?' And that's
what he done. You see, Cap'n Bill knows New York like a book. Used to
sail down here with ice from the Kennebec, and sometimes, while he was
dischargin' cargo, he'd lay in here for a week at a time. Great hand to
knock around too, Cap'n Bill is, and mighty observin'."

"So he made a map for you, did he?" says I.

"Not exactly," says Mr. Isham. "Found one in an old guide book and fixed
it up like a chart, markin' off the reefs and shoals in red ink, and the
main channels in black fathom figures. Now here's Front and South-sts.,
very shoal, dangerous passin' at any tide. There's a channel up the
Bowery; but it's crooked and full of buoys and beacons. I ain't tackled
that yet. I've stuck to Broadway and Fifth-ave. All clear sailin'
there."

"Think so?" says I. "Let's see that chart?"

He passes it over willin' enough. And, say, for a sailor