When I parted from Jared I gave him my address, and we were to meet again next day.  The old man felt an interest in me that was soothing to my feelings, and I wished to glean all I could from him; more especially concerning Lucy and Mr. Hardinge.  I now followed Marble and Neb to the boarding-house, one frequented by masters and mates of ships, the masters being of the humble class to condescend thus to mingle with their subordinates.  We consumed the rest of the morning in establishing ourselves in our rooms, and in putting on our best round-abouts; for I was not the owner of a coat that had skirts to it, unless, indeed there might be a few old garments of that sort among the effects that had been removed from Clawbonny to the Wright farm.  Notwithstanding this defect in my wardrobe, I would not have the reader suppose I made a mean or a disagreeable appearance.  On the contrary, standing as I did, six feel one, in my shoes, attired in a neat blue round-about of mate’s cloth, with a pair of quarter-deck trowsers, a clean white shirt, a black silk handkerchief, and a vest of a pretty but modest pattern, I was not at all ashamed to be seen.  I had come from England, a country in which clothes are both good and cheap, and a trimmer-looking tar than I then was, seldom showed himself in the lower part of the town.

Marble and I had dined, and were preparing to sally forth on a walk up Broadway, when I saw a meagre, care-worn, bilious-looking sort of a person enter the house, and proceed towards the bar, evidently with an inquiry concerning some of the inmates.  The bar-tender pointed at once to me, when the stranger approached, and with a species of confidence that seemed to proclaim that he fancied news to be the great end of life, and that all who were engaged in its dissemination were privileged beings, he announced himself as Colonel Warbler, the Editor of the New York Republican Freeman.  I asked the gentleman into the common sitting-room, when the following dialogue took place between us.

“We have just heard of your arrival, Captain Wallingford,” commenced the Colonel, all New York editors of a certain calibre seeming to be, ex-officio, of that blood-and-thunder rank, “and are impatient to place you, as it might be, rectus in curia, before the nation.  Your case excited a good deal of feeling some months since, and the public mind may be said to be prepared to learn the whole story; or, in a happy condition to indulge in further excitement.  If you will have the goodness to furnish me with the outlines, sir,” coolly producing pen, ink, and paper without further ceremony, and preparing to write, “I promise you that the whole narrative shall appear in the Freeman of to-morrow, related in a manner of which you shall have no reason to complain.  The caption is already written, and if you please, I will read it to you, before we go any further.”  Then without waiting to ascertain whether I did or did not please to hear him, the colonel incontinently commenced reading what he called his caption.