Regularly every Saturday afternoon Tite had come home, received his mother's blessing, and put his earnings into her hands for safe-keeping.

There would be an end of this if he went to the South Sea.

Then his parents were both getting old, and would soon need a protector, and if anything serious happened to them during his absence how could he ever forgive himself.

Week after week and month after month did Tite ponder these questions in his mind, and still his resolution to see the world grew stronger and stronger.
It was about this time that there settled in Nyack a queer and very inquisitive sort of man of the name of Bigelow Chapman.

He was a restless, discontented sort of man, very slender of figure, with sharp, well-defined features, keen gray eye, and wore his dark hair long and unkept.