'Is your father here?'
'No; but ma is,' answered the chorus.—'Ma! ma!'
Ma appeared, a portly female, who held converse with us from the top of the ladder. The sum and substance of the dialogue was that she had not a corner to give us, and recommended us to find Liakim, and have him show us the way to Waiting Samuel's.
'Waiting Samuel's?' we repeated.
'Yes; he's a kind of crazy man living away over there in the Flats. But there's no harm in him, and his wife is a tidy housekeeper. You be surveyors, I suppose?'
We accepted the imputation in order to avoid a broadside of questions, and asked the whereabouts of Liakim.
'O, he's round the point, somewhere there, fishing!'
We rowed on and found him, a little, round-shouldered man, in an old flat-bottomed boat, who had not taken a fish, and looked as though he never would. We explained our errand.
'Did Rosabel Lee tell ye to come to me?' he asked.
'The woman in the lighthouse told us,' I said.