After taking me through a confusion of streets, Peter brought me to a place called the Boston House, at the corner of Davis and Chambers streets. I was so near the waterfront that I could smell the sea and hear the scream of the seagulls. The sound of music and laughter greeted me as I stood in the street outside, with the bright lights of the bar inveigling me.
“Here we are,” Peter said. “Our home from home for tired frontiersmen and weary sailors.”
“I’d like to see the sea,” I said. “I’ve never seen the sea.”
Peter grinned. “Never? Come this way, William.” Taking my arm in a friendly grip, he guided me to the waterfront. I looked upon a mass of ships and boats, with masts and spars and sails like a forest, a thing I had never seen before.
“I saw the Chesapeake once,” I confessed, “du
