They had begun the necessary sea wall that was to safeguard the piers and the shipping that grew more extensive every year. Here was the old Fisherman's Pier, then steamers, trading vessels, queer foreign ships, business places of all sorts, many of them quite dilapidated, fringed East Street. Here, where Clay Street ran down, almost meeting Sacramento, there were warehouses, packing houses, boxes and bales and general confusion. The one-story place with the sign "J. Chadsey" over the wide doorway, not much handsomer than that of a barn, but strengthened with iron bars and great bolts, had stretched out and out, and now they were packing in stores from the Orient, stores from the Isthmus, that were being unloaded from two vessels. Jason Chadsey had been giving orders here and there, setting men at work, and was warm and tired when word came that a gentleman wanted to see him in the office. They made distinctions in those days, even if the country was new and rough.
That was no strange summons. He pulled out his handkerchief, and wiped the sweat and grime from his face, listened a moment to the wrangling, swearing, strange Chinese chatter, songs in various languages, then turned and went in, hardly able to see at first from the glitter of the sun that had drenched him. This was a place just now with two big desks and a clerk writing at one. The inner office had a window on the street side and two wooden stools, one dilapidated leathern chair before another desk.
A man rose up and faced him. A well-dressed, well-kept man, with a certain air of prosperity and authority, and if he had any scheme to exploit it would no doubt have some advantage in it. But he was a stranger.
"You are Jason Chadsey?" Westbury would have known him anywhere. Except to grow older, to be a little more wrinkled,—weatherbeaten, he had always been,—and his hair slightly grizzled at the temples, he was the same. There was honesty, truth, and goodness in the face that had not changed either.
"Yes," Chadsey replied briefly.
"And you don't remember me?"
Chadsey tried to consider the voice, but that had grown rounder, fuller, and lost all the Maine twang. There had been so many faces between youth and this time.
"Well, I am David Westbury."
Jason Chadsey dropped on a stool and stared, then mopped his face again, while a shiver passed over him that seemed to wring his very vitals, turn him stone-cold.
"It's odd how things come about." The man of the world had his rival at a disadvantage. "I'd had runs of hard luck," in an easy, almost indifferent tone, being where he could laugh at the past, "and I'd tried about everything in vain. I was too proud to come back to Laverne empty-handed. Then, when I had made something, I turned, hoping to ease up her hard life, and found she was dead and buried. You had befriended her; thank you for that. But you took my child. I traced you to Boston. After that my search was vain. I have looked over lists of vessels, thinking to strike your name as captain or mate, and finally given up search. Business brought me here, perhaps fate, too, had a hand in it. My wife has seen and known the child, and already loves her. I am grateful for your care all these years, but I would rather have had her in my keeping. I am a rich man—if I was a poor devil I would put in no claim, no matter how dear she was to me, but a father has the best right."