I saw right away that you hadn’t come here for an ordinary cob. Where did I see that? In your eyes. What did they show? Ah, sir—they want to play polo. This is a professional observation, pure and simple. Yes, kind sir, they have that sort of otherworldly keenness that can’t be mistaken. I’m quite pleased with this way of describing it. I came up with it myself. Yes. And then there are the ones who have a sort of down-to-earth keenness. For instance, when you take a close look at a silver dollar . . . myself, for instance, I have a keenness that’s entirely down-to-earth. I’m very good at giving a dollar a close inspection. I know right away where it comes from, where it is at the moment, and where it’s going. But there are others—and you’re one of them, don’t deny it—who have a keenness in their gaze that’s focused outward where absolutely nothing exists. Up in the sky, out at sea, off into space, in a word, out there where I, for my part, see nothing at all. You’re one of them. You can swear on your mother’s grave that you aren’t, but you are! You play polo, and, as far as your needs are concerned, I have exactly what’s required.

It’s the Acushnet, a whaler, 359 tons. It’s about to sail for Fairhaven, a little whaling port two steps away from here. Just one more word, kind sir. Again, about your eyes. The game is straightforward. It’s played by ordinary men. Why am I telling you this? Because your gaze goes ever so slightly beyond the spot where the ball lands, as a rule. But only the tiniest bit, sir, only a few fractions of an inch, I believe. You . . . why, you look like you can hit the target on a damnably big field. But a whaler is nothing more than a simple ball, sir, it’s not a seabird. Or so it seems to me. But you know better than I do. I beg your pardon.

Yes, the horse trader in him has it right. But he’s too polite. It isn’t by only a few fractions of an inch that Herman looks past the mark, it’s by several nautical miles. He’ll never be able to fit in with the other players. He plays a game out of proportion with human powers. Even so, for the moment, you can’t draw any conclusions from this. Does any boy at his age play a game in moderation?

On the list of the Acushnet’s crew, among twenty-two Americans, three Portuguese, and one Englishman, he’s inscribed as being a native of New York, twenty-one years of age, residing at Fairhaven (a falsehood invented to shuffle the deck), six feet tall, dark-complexioned, with chestnut hair. It was Valentine Pease, the captain’s daughter, who drew up the list. She would have been sitting at the table while her father called out the particulars for each sailor who enlisted. But Valentine was capable, all on her own, of lifting her eyes off the page to look at a boy. In the margin, in front of Herman’s name, she wrote down “Squaller.” Oh, Miss Valentine! A grumbler? What made you see that in him? He didn’t say a thing.