Leaving the grim row of tall columns guarding the front of the old custom-house, he turned his steps in the direction of the docks, wheeled sharply to the left, and continued up South Street until he stopped in front of a ship-chandler's store.
Some one was at work inside, for the rays of a lantern shed their light over piles of old cordage and heaps of rusty chains flanking the low entrance.
Picking his way around some barrels of oil, he edged along a line of boxes filled with ship's stuff until he reached an inside office, where, beside a kerosene lamp placed on a small desk littered with papers, sat a man in shirt-sleeves. At the sound of O'Day's step the occupant lifted his head and peered out. The visitor passed through the doorway.
“Good evening, Carlin; I hoped you would still be up. I stopped on the way down or I should have been here earlier.”
A man of sixty, with a ruddy, weather-beaten face set in a half-moon of gray whiskers, the ends tied under his chin, sprang to his feet. “Ah! Is that you, Mr. Felix? I been a-wonderin' where you been a-keepin' yourself. Take this chair; it's more comfortable. I was thinkin' somehow you might come in to-night, and so I took a shy at my bills to have somethin' to do. I suppose”—he stopped, and in a whisper added: “I suppose you haven't heard anything, have you?”
“No; have you?”
“Not a word,” answered the ship-chandler gravely.
“I thought perhaps you might have had a letter,” urged Felix.
“Not a line of any kind,” came the answer, followed by a sidewise movement of the gray head, as if its owner had long since abandoned hope from that quarter.
“Do you think anything is the matter?”