“Oh yes. Well, you tell him I’m coming up to see him myself, today. It’s a mystery to me why he should go to that place. I don’t understand it. How was he looking when you saw him—for I take it you have seen him?”
“How do you mean—sick or well?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, he appeared in pretty fair health, I should say,” replied Brandon, beginning to think that there was something queer about it all.
“Well, I’ll see him myself,” declared the merchant, rising and giving the boy his hand. “I tell you what we’ll do, Brandon. If you don’t get back here by noon, I’ll step up and get you, and we’ll go to lunch together; then afterward we’ll take a look at the whaleback, if you like.”
Brandon thanked him and opened the door into the outer office, almost falling over Mr. Alfred Weeks, who had his head suspiciously near the keyhole.
“Lo—looking for my ruler that I dropped,” declared the red haired clerk, as his employer’s eyes rested sternly upon him.
But as he passed out, Brandon noticed that the ruler was on the high desk holding open the leaves of a much tattered paper novel.
“Funny sort of fellow for a respectable ship owner to employ,” Brandon decided, as he made his way along the crowded thoroughfare. “In fact, I guess I’ll withhold my opinion of all three of these people till I know ’em better—Wetherbee, Pepper, and his clerk.”
By closely scanning the signs on the buildings as he passed, the captain’s son finally discovered the place he sought. He came within an ace of not doing so, however, for the words “New England Hotel” were simply painted on a small strip of tin on one side of the doorway, the rest of the sign space being devoted to the words: John Brady, Wines, Liquors, and Cigars.