A Plea for Old Cap Collier

A quiet illness finds the narrator holed up in a tiny seaside hotel, where the only reading material seems to be price lists and mail‑order ads. In a moment of desperation he discovers a tattered old Fifth Reader, its smell of age sparking a sudden resolve to write a “plea for Old Cap Collier.” The scene is framed by a community that treats Sunday as a three‑week fast of strict propriety, where even the oysters stay closed and any audible scratch is deemed sinful.

The story then turns back to the narrator’s boyhood, a time of frequent spankings for breaking the town’s rigid codes and for the guilty pleasure of swapping cheap adventure stories. He and his friends run a clandestine network of dime novels, daring to read heroes like Nick Carter or the rough‑hewn Old Cap under the watchful eyes of teachers and peers. Their secret escapades capture the tension between oppressive rules and the irresistible lure of imagination.