Andy was wearing a noisy green-and-orange plaid sport coat and a green wide-brimmed hat, and he was bent over a maelstrom of books and accounts and bills of lading. He was writing a business letter in an odd backward-sloping script and his long legs were wound around the rungs of his chair as if correspondence was a chore which demanded a great deal of twisting himself up into knots. Above his head, a gas-lamp glowed soft and white.

Collis, who was short on breath after four flights of wooden stairs, could do nothing at first but rap at the open door, and then step into the crowded office with his hat in his hand and wait for Andy to raise his head and see him. But Andy didn’t have to look up.

‘Collis,’ he said, still scratching away at his letter. ‘How the devil are you?’

‘Winded,’ said Collis.

‘Everybody is when they first come up. It gives me a six-to-four advantage, right from the word go. Especially with debt collectors, or city officials. Have you tried asking for thirty dollars back rent when you don’t even have breath enough to say “help”?’

Collis crossed the bare-board floor. The walls of the office were clustered with maps and timetables and orders, all of which riffled softly in the breeze from an open quarter-light.

‘How did you know it was me?’ he asked, setting his hat on top of a heap of papers. ‘I didn’t write to tell you I was coming down.’

Andy Hunt glanced up at him at last and gave a quick, foxy grin. ‘I don’t miss much that happens in or around the harbour,’ he said. ‘I’ve had to make it my business. And besides, Arthur Teach was grumbling about you last week in Captain Cropper’s. He said you had the gall of a goat and the morals of a duck.’

Collis smiled. ‘If I knew what he meant, I’d ask for satisfaction.’

Andy put down his pen, unwound his legs, and stood up. ‘It’s good to see you, anyway, looking so well. Charles wrote me they’d made you a partner.’

‘Yes,’ said Collis. ‘And that’s partly why I’ve come to see you.’

‘I was surprised you didn’t come earlier. Not prying, mind. But we could have had ourselves a roaring night out or two. There’s a new house of assignation on Stockton Street, and I hear you can do whatever you care to do with three young beauties, all under the age of fifteen, all night, for less than the price of an oyster supper.’

Collis went to the window. It had a fan-shaped arch to it, and looked eastwards over towards Market Street and the Bay. The topmasts of clippers and schooners glided behind the foggy rooftops on silent errands of trade.

‘I met Hannah,’ he said.