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yeah. You could say that. A tendency. Right. A kind of westness. But I can choose the roads that seem most appealing, the ones that seem to offer the most pleasant route to—or at least toward—the goal.”
    â€œI see what you mean. You don’t have to go right at it.”
    â€œRight,” I said, inspired. “I can tack.”
    â€œWell put.”
    â€œA sailor soon learns that he almost never takes a direct route,” I declaimed under the influence of her praise, or flattery. “He learns that wind and tide and currents will alter his course, and he learns to live with that, even to enjoy it.”
    â€œâ€˜A tar rolls with the swells,’ as Mr. Summers said—”
    â€œWell, yeah,” I said, surprised that she should know about Mr. Summers, leader of the Young Tars, and the mottoes he tried to persuade his followers to adopt, surprised that she should have access to my memory.
    â€œâ€”enjoying the diversion of wind and tide and currents and swells the way that you’re enjoying the wandering course of this journey.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œYou seem to have learned a lot from the days you spent as a boy, sailing with your grandfather on Bolotomy Bay,” she said, mining my memory again.
    â€œThose were wonderful days,” I said with a sigh.
    I went on for a while, reminiscing happily about those carefree days on Bolotomy Bay, until, suddenly, to my surprise, there was Bolotomy Bay right in front of me. I throttled down and rolled slowly to the water’s edge, where a bulkhead formed the margin of the bay. Somewhere, I realized, somewhere in my recent past, I had made a wrong turn.
    Long Island is long and narrow, running east-and-west. When I set out from Babbington I had been headed west, in the general direction of New Mexico. My intention had been to continue heading west, and if I had succeeded in doing so, the bay, which stretches along Long Island’s southern shore, should have been to the south of my route. I should have been traveling westward, paralleling the bay, not heading directly into it. I should have arrived in New York City, not at the West Bayborough Municipal Dock, which was where I found myself, or where I found myself lost.
    I turned away from the water and in the manner of all lost people began trying to retrace my steps, hoping to find the place at which I had gone wrong, and there to go right, to regain the westward tendency that I had hoped to maintain throughout my journey.
    After spending some time in that effort, I began to understand that I must have made many wrong turns. The first one must have been made quite some time ago, not very far from Babbington, and then I must have spent most of the afternoon and early evening making one wrong turn after another. The pleasure I had found in traveling had been a false pleasure, founded on ignorance, a bliss that I felt only while my ignorance lasted, a bliss that vanished when my eyes were opened.
    â€œI blame it on the weather,” I explained to Spirit. “When the day clouded over, I had no sunlight or shadows to help me tell west from south or north or even east. I was flying blind.”
    â€œIn more ways than one,” she muttered.
    â€œOkay. You’re right. It’s my own fault. I should have brought a map.”
    I thought she might offer me some consolation, perhaps even tell me that I shouldn’t blame myself, but she didn’t. We rolled on in silence, retracing my steps, but I retraced my steps so badly that I found myself back at the West Bayborough Municipal Dock again.
    I stopped. I sighed. Beside me, a grizzled fisherman sitting on the bulkhead heard me sigh and guessed the reason for it.
    â€œLost?” he asked.
    â€œYes,” I admitted.
    â€œThat’s nothing to be ashamed of,” said a lovely dark-haired girl beside him. “Everyone gets lost now and then.”
    â€œIn my case, there is something to be ashamed