oke she remembered. Her expression changed.

"Do you mean--" she cried, eagerly. "Why, Isaiah, do you mean the man in
that old photograph I found in the garret ever and ever so long ago? The
one you told me was a--a blackguard?"

Isaiah, still staring at Mr. Smith's likeness, answered emphatically.

"That's the one," he said. "That's the one I meant. My, this feller does
look like him, or the way I cal'late he would look if he lived as long
as this!"

"Is he dead, then?"

"I don't know. We don't any of us know around here. I ain't laid eyes on
him since the day afore it happened. I remember just as well as if 'twas
yesterday. He come out of the office onto the wharf where I was workin'
and he says to me, 'Isaiah,' he says, knockin' on the head of a barrel
with his hand--the right hand 'twas, the one that had the bent finger;
he got it smashed under a hogshead of salt one time and it never came
straight again--'Isaiah,' says he, 'it's a nice day, ain't it.' And
I answered up prompt--I liked him fust-rate; everybody liked him them
days--'Yes, sir,' I says, 'this is a good enough day to go see your best
girl in.' I never meant nothin' by it, you understand, just a sayin'
'twas, but it seemed to give him a kind of start. He looked at me hard.
'Did anyone tell you where I was goin'?' says he, sharp. 'Why, no,' says
I. 'Why should they?' He didn't answer, just kept on starin' at me. Then
he laughed and walked away. I didn't know where he was goin' then, but I
know now, darn him! And the next day he went--for good."

He stopped speaking. Mary waited a moment and then asked, quietly: "Went
where, Isaiah? Where did he go?"

Isaiah, who was standing, the photograph still in his hand, started,
turned and looked at her.

"What's that?" he asked.

"I say, where did this Mr. Farmer go?"

"Eh? Oh, I don't know. He went away, that's all. Don't ask me any more
questions. I've been talkin' too much, anyhow, I cal'late. Cap'n
Shad would skin me alive if he knew I'd said as much as I have. Say,
Mary-'Gusta, don't you say nothin' to either him or Zoeth, will you?
You see--it's--it's a kind of little secret we have amongst us and--and
nobody else is in on it. 'Twas this plaguey tintype got me to talkin'.
No wonder neither! I never see such a look on two folks. I--there,
there! Good night, Mary-'Gusta, good night."

He tossed the photograph on the bureau and hurried out of the room. Mary
called after him, but he would neither sto