"Where is my boy?" Mrs. Irons asked when Binkus returned alone.
"Gone down the river," said the latter.
"Gone down the river!" Mrs. Irons exclaimed. "Why! Isn't that he coming yonder?"
"It's only part o' him," said Solomon. "His heart has gone down the river. But it'll be comin' back. It 'minds me o' the fust time I throwed a harpoon into a sperm whale. He went off like a bullet an' sounded an' took my harpoon an' a lot o' good rope with him an' got away with it. Fer days I couldn't think o' nothin' but that 'ere whale. Then he b'gun to grow smaller an' less important. Jack has lost his fust whale."
"He looks heart-broken--poor boy!"
"But ye orto have seen her. She's got the ol' harpoon in her side an' she were spoutin' tears an' shakin' her flukes as she moved away."
CHAPTER II
SOWING THE DRAGON'S TEETH
Solomon Binkus in his talk with Colonel Hare had signalized the arrival of a new type of man born of new conditions. When Lord Howe and General Abercrombie got to Albany with regiments of fine, high-bred, young fellows from London, Manchester and Liverpool, out for a holiday and magnificent in their uniforms of scarlet and gold, each with his beautiful and abundant hair done up in a queue, Mr. Binkus laughed and said they looked "terrible pert." He told the virile and profane Captain Lee of Howe's staff, that the first thing to do was to "make a haystack o' their hair an' give 'em men's clothes."