shippin'
list as the 'Golconda House.' Jonadab said the neighborhood had changed
some sence he was there, but he guessed we'd better chance it, 'cause
the board was cheap.

"We had a nine-by-ten room up aloft somewheres, and there we set down on
the edge of the bed and a chair to take account of stock, as you might
say.

"'Now, I tell you, Jonadab,' says I; 'we don't want to waste no time,
and we've got the day afore us. What do you say if we cruise along
the water front for a spell? There's ha'f a dozen Orham folks aboard
diff'rent steamers that hail from this port, and 'twouldn't be no more'n
neighborly to call on 'em. There's Silas Baker's boy, Asa--he's with the
Savannah Line and he'd be mighty glad to see us. And there's--'

"But Jonadab held up his hand. He'd been mysterious as a baker's mince
pie ever sence we started, hintin' at somethin' he'd got to do when we'd
got to New York. And now he out with it.

"'Barzilla,' he says, 'I ain't sayin' but what I'd like to go to the
wharves with you, first rate. And we will go, too. But afore we do
anything else I've got an errand that must be attended to. 'Twas give
to me by a dyin' man,' he says, 'and I promised him I'd do it. So that
comes first of all.'

"He got his wallet out of his inside vest pocket, where it had been
pinned in tight to keep it safe from robbers, unwound a foot or so of
leather strap, and dug up a yeller piece of paper that looked old enough
to be Methusalem's will, pretty nigh.

"'Do you remember Patrick Kelly in Orham?' he asks.

"'Who?' says I. 'Pat Kelly, the Irishman, that lived in the little old
shack back of your barn? Course I do. But he's been dead for I don't
know how long.'

"'I know he has. Do you remember his boy Jim that run away from home?'

"'Let's see,' I says. 'Seems to me I do. Freckled, red-headed rooster,
wa'n't he? And of all the imps of darkness that ever--'

"'S-sh-sh!' he interrupted solemn. 'Don't say that now, Barzilla. Sounds
kind of irreverent. Well, me and old Pat was pretty friendly, in a way,
though he did owe me rent. When he was sick with the pleurisy he sends
for me and he says, "Cap'n 'Wixon," says he, "you're pretty close with
the money," he says--he was kind of out of his head at the time and
liable to say foolish things--"you're pretty close," he says, "but
you're a man of your word. My boy Jimmie, that run away, was the apple
of my eye."'

"'That's what he said about his girl Maggie that was too