Now, pay attention while I talk books and lucre. Poking through an alcove of books in my room, I came across a curious dismembered volume, and I want you to track down a complete copy for me. It begins on the ninety-ninth page, its covers are gone, its binding unstitched. From what little I can glean, it’s the edited journal of a voyage from Sydney to California by a notary of San Francisco named Adam Ewing. Mention is made of the gold rush, so I suppose we are in 1849 or 1850. The journal seems to be published posthumously, by Ewing’s son (?). Ewing puts me in mind of Melville’s bumbler Cpt. Delano in “Benito Cereno,” blind to all conspirators—he hasn’t spotted his trusty Dr. Henry Goose [sic] is a vampire, fueling his hypochondria in order to poison him, slowly, for his money.
Something
