I said that such was my intention, and asked why.
"Why, you see, I'm going that way myself, to Communipaw. The Raritan is lying down there."
"Dear me! It never struck me——" I began. He laughed quietly.
"No," he said, "I don't suppose, if you asked a thousand New Yorkers where such and such a ship was loaded, that more than one could tell you. They know the Lusitania lies somewhere about Eighteenth Street and the Oceanic's next to her, and that's about all. It's the same everywhere. Ask a man in the Strand how to get to Tidal Basin; he won't know what Tidal Basin is, let alone where it is. As for an oil-boat—Humph!"
"I shall have your company, then?" I said. He shrugged his shoulders.
"If you don't object, sir," he said.
"I should like it above all things," I returned. "I was thinking last night that there were many things I should like to ask you, but I was afraid that possibly you might not visit us again for a long time."
"Not at all," he said. "I was very glad to step in. You've got an atmosphere ... if I can call it that. I mean there's something I don't get on a ship, or for that matter, at home ... you understand? Now and again I feel I'd like to talk to people who do understand."
"That reminds me," I said, "that I have been wondering how New York impresses you. I think it is rather wonderful myself."
Mr. Carville smoked silently for a few moments while the card-players pursued their games and the train thundered through the flat swamps of Riverside.