The man roared with laughter as the boys raced off like startled rabbits. He gave the reins a flick and urged the horse through the whalebone gate. He tied up in front of the big house, which resembled an octagonal wedding cake layered with red and yellow frosting. He was still chuckling to himself as he climbed the porch steps and announced his arrival using the brass door knocker shaped like a whale’s tail.

Footsteps approached. A man opened the door, and a smile crossed his pallid face.

“Strater, what a pleasant surprise,” Caleb Nye said.

“Good to see you too, Caleb. Been meaning to stop by, but you know how it is.”

“Of course,” Caleb said. He stepped aside. “Come in, come in.”

Caleb’s skin had grown even whiter over the years. Age had added wrinkles to skin that looked like parchment to begin with, but, despite his premature aging, he still retained the boyish smile and puppy-dog eagerness that had endeared him to his whaling colleagues.

He led the way to a spacious library lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases. The wall sections not devoted to books on the subject of whaling were decorated with large, colorful posters that had the same motif: a man caught in the jaws of a sperm whale.

Strater went up to one particularly lurid poster. The artist had made liberal use of crimson paint to depict blood flowing from the harpoon shafts into the water. “We made a bundle of money out of that Philadelphia show.”

Caleb nodded. “Standing room only, night after night, thanks to your skills as a showman.”

“I’d be nothing without my star attraction,” Strater said, turning.

“And I have you to thank for this house and everything I own,” Caleb said.

Strater flashed a gap-toothed grin. “If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s putting on a show. The minute I laid eyes on you, I saw the potential for fame and fortune.”

Their partnership had begun a few nights after the Princess docked in New Bedford. The oil barrels had been off-loaded, and the owners tallied the take and calculated the lays. Crewmen who didn’t have wives or sweethearts to go home to went off in a raucous mob to celebrate in the waterfront bars that were more than willing to relieve the whalers of their hard-won earnings.

Caleb had stayed on the ship. He was there when the captain came back onto the Princess with Caleb’s pay and asked if he was going home to his family farm.

“Not like this,” Caleb had replied with a sad smile.

The captain handed the young man the pitifully small amount of money he had earned for his years at sea. “You have my permission to stay on board until the ship sails again.”