Jonathan Tinker, when they had reached the office, heard with
constitutional phlegm that the name of the Hapford for whom he inquired
was not in the "Directory." "Never mind," said the other; "come round to
my house in the morning. We'll find him yet." So they parted with a
shake of the hand, the second mate saying that he believed he should go
down to the vessel and sleep aboard,--if he could sleep,--and murmuring
at the last moment the hope of returning the compliment, while the
other walked homeward, weary as to the flesh, but, in spite of his
sympathy for Jonathan Tinker, very elate in spirit. The truth is,--and
however disgraceful to human nature, let the truth still be told,--he
had recurred to his primal satisfaction in the man as calamity capable
of being used for such and such literary ends, and, while he pitied him,
rejoiced in him as an episode of real life quite as striking and
complete as anything in fiction. It was literature made to his hand.
Nothing could be better, he mused; and once more he passed the details
of the story in review, and beheld all those pictures which the poor
fellow's artless words had so vividly conjured up: he saw him leaping
ashore in the gray summer dawn as soon as the ship hauled into the dock,
and making his way, with his vague sea-legs unaccustomed to the
pavements, up through the silent and empty city streets; he imagined the
tumult of fear and hope which the sight of the man's home must have
caused in him, and the benumbing shock of finding it blind and deaf to
all his appeals; he saw him sitting down upon what had been his own
threshold, and waiting in a sort of bewildered patience till the
neighbors should be awake, while the noises of the streets gradually
arose, and the wheels began to rattle over the stones, and the milk-man
and the ice-man came and went, and the waiting figure began to be stared
at, and to challenge the curiosity of the passing policeman; he fancied
the opening of the neighbor's door, and the slow, cold understanding of
the case; the manner, whatever it was, in which the sailor was told that
one year before his wife had died, with her babe, and that his children
were scattered, none knew where.
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