“Old chart,” he said. “Out of date. The new surveys and new channel markings aren’t here. Kind of a curiosity.”

“Yes,” says Catty, “but what’s the idea of those marks in Nantucket harbor? Nobody’s been charting a course like that.”

“Looks like somebody had checked a place to dig clams or something,” says Mr. House. He kind of hesitated like he was thinking, and then he says: “Say, if you haven’t any special use for this chart, I’d like to have it. I was arguing with my friend last night about the old harbor markings over at Cuttyhunk. He claimed they had been the way they’re shown now for six years. I was sure they were changed a couple of years ago. This shows I was right. I’d sort of like to show it to him to prove it.”

“Go ahead,” says Catty. “It’s no use to us. Mr. Topper threw it away. You’re welcome.”

“Much obliged,” says Mr. House, and right there he forgot all about what he came ashore to do, but hurried right back to his dinghy and had himself rowed back to the Porpoise.

“He bit,” says Catty. “He swallowed hook, line, and sinker. In about ten minutes we’ll see the Porpoise hauling up her anchor and making away.”

“On a wild-goose chase,” says I, “and that’s the last we’ll see of her.”

But I was just a little mistaken in that last guess.

CHAPTER V

We lay in Padanaram all that day and night. In the afternoon Catty and I went on the street car to New Bedford and saw the old whaling museum, which is one of the most interesting things in America, and looked around the town to find traces of the whalers that used to sail from the port. But there weren’t so many traces. The whaling fleets are almost done with. But we had a good time and saw lots of things.

That evening we were sitting on the deck of the Albatross and Catty says, “What are those funny riggings so many of these yachts have on them?”

“You mean that dingus sticking out in front?” says I; “the thing that looks like a bowsprit?”

“Yes,” says he.

“That,” says Mr. Browning, “is the pulpit.”

“For preaching?” says I. “Who do they preach to, and why do they all have it?”

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