He was too excited to worry over the patient and quiet suffering with which Mrs. Zapp heard the announcement that he was going.  That Theresa laughed at him for a cattleman, while Goaty, in the kitchen, audibly observed that “nobody but a Yankee would travel in a pig-pen, “merely increased his joy in moving his belongings to a storage warehouse.

Tuesday morning, clad in a sweater-jacket, tennis-shoes, an old felt hat, a khaki shirt and corduroys, carrying a suit-case packed to bursting with clothes and Baedekers, with one hundred and fifty dollars in express-company drafts craftily concealed, he dashed down to Baraieff’s hole.  Though it was only eight-thirty, he was afraid he was going to be late.

Till 2 P.M. he sat waiting, then was sent to the Joy Steamship Line wharf with a ticket to Boston and a letter to Trubiggs’s shipping-office:  “Give bearer Ren as per inclosed receet one trip England catel boat charge my acct.  SYLVESTRE BARAIEFF, N. Y.”

Standing on the hurricane-deck of the Joy Line boat, with his suit-case guardedly beside him, he crooned to himself tuneless chants with the refrain, “Free, free, out to sea.  Free, free, that’s me!” He had persuaded himself that there was practically no danger of the boat’s sinking or catching fire.  Anyway, he just wasn’t going to be scared.  As the steamer trudged up East River he watched the late afternoon sun brighten the Manhattan factories and make soft the stretches of Westchester fields.  (Of course, he “thrilled.”)

He had no state-room, but was entitled to a place in a twelve-berth room in the hold.  Here large farmers without their shoes were grumpily talking all at once, so he returned to the deck; and the rest of the night, while the other passengers snored, he sat modestly on a canvas stool, unblinkingly gloating over a sea-fabric of frosty blue that was shot through with golden threads when they passed lighthouses or ships.  At dawn he was weary, peppery-eyed, but he viewed the flooding light with approval.

At last, Boston.

The front part of the shipping-office on Atlantic Avenue was a glass-inclosed room littered with chairs, piles of circulars, old pictures of Cunarders, older calendars, and directories to be ranked as antiques.  In the midst of these remains a red-headed Yankee of forty, smoking a Pittsburg stogie, sat tilted back in a kitchen chair, reading the Boston American.  Mr. Wrenn delivered M. Baraieff’s letter and stood waiting, holding his suit-case, ready to skip out and go aboard a cattle-boat immediately.

The shipping-agent glanced through the letter, then snapped: 

“Bryff’s crazy.  Always sends ’em too early.  Wrenn, you ought to come to me first.  What j’yuh go to that Jew first for?  Here he goes and sends you a day late—­or couple days too early.  ’F you’d got here last night I could ’ve sent you off this morning on a Dominion Line boat.  All I got now is a Leyland boat that starts from Portland Saturday.  Le’s see; this is Wednesday.  Thursday, Friday—­you’ll have to wait three days.  Now you want me to fix you up, don’t you?  I might not be able to get you off till a week from now, but you’d like to get off on a good boat Saturday instead, wouldn’t you?”