I'd been gone so long they didn't know me, and somehow I
thought the people they were with weren't over-glad I'd turned up.
Finally the oldest child told me that Julia was living with a Mr.
Hapford on this street, and I started out here to-night to look her up.
If I can find her, I'm all right. I can get the family together, then,
and start new."
"It seems rather odd," mused the listener aloud, "that the neighbors let
them break up so, and that they should all scatter as they did."
"Well, it ain't so curious as it seems, Cap'n. There was money for them
at the owners', all the time; I'd left part of my wages when I sailed;
but they didn't know how to get at it, and what could a parcel of
children do? Julia's a good girl, and when I find her I'm all right."
The writer could only repeat that there was no Mr. Hapford living on
that street, and never had been, so far as he knew. Yet there might be
such a person in the neighborhood: and they would go out together and
ask at some of the houses about. But the stranger must first take a
glass of wine; for he looked used up.
The sailor awkwardly but civilly enough protested that he did not want
to give so much trouble, but took the glass, and, as he put it to his
lips, said formally, as if it were a toast or a kind of grace, "I hope I
may have the opportunity of returning the compliment." The contributor
thanked him; though, as he thought of all the circumstances of the case,
and considered the cost at which the stranger had come to enjoy his
politeness, he felt little eagerness to secure the return of the
compliment at the same price, and added, with the consequence of another
set phrase, "Not at all.
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