After all, I'll go with you this evening,
when supper is done, to see Joseph Whidden."
The lamps were lighted when we left the house, and long beams from the
windows fell on the walk and on the road. We went down the street side by
side, my father absently swinging his cane, I wondering if it were not
beneath the dignity of a young man about to go to sea that his parent
should accompany him on such an errand.
Just as we reached the corner, a man who had come up the street a little
distance behind us turned in at our own front gate, and my father, seeing
me look back when the gate slammed, smiled and said, "I'll venture a guess,
Bennie-my-lad, that some one named Roger is calling at our house this
evening."
Afterwards--long, long afterwards--I remembered the incident.
When my father let the knocker fall against Captain Whidden's great front
door, my heart, it seemed to me, echoed the sound and then danced away at a
lively pace. A servant, whom I watched coming from somewhere behind the
stairs, admitted us to the quiet hall; then another door opened silently, a
brighter light shone out upon us, and a big, grave man appeared. He
welcomed us with a few thoughtful words and, by a motion of his hand, sent
us before him into the room where he had been sitting.
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