and other duties to attend to. I and my concerns will be but secondary
objects with you hereafter, Mr. Wetmore."

"Wetmore be d----d! D'ye mean, Miles, that I'm to give up my calling,
give up the sea, give up _you_?"

"You wished to be a hermit once, and found it a little too solitary; had
you a companion or two, you would have been satisfied, you said. Well,
here is everything you can wish; a mother, a niece, a house, a farm,
barns, out-houses, garden and orchard; and, seated on that porch, you can
smoke segars, take your grog, look at the craft going up and down the
Hudson----"

"Nothing but so many bloody sloops," growled the mate. "Such in-and-in
fore-and-afters that their booms won't stay guyed-out, even after you've
been at the pains to use a hawser."

"Well, a sloop is a pleasant object to a sailor, when he can set nothing
better. Then there is this Mr. Van Tassel to settle with--you may have a
ten years' law-suit on your hands, to amuse you."

"I'll make short work with that scamp, when I fall in with him. You're
right enough, Miles; that affair must be settled before I can lift an
anchor. My mother tells me he lives hard by, and can be seen, at any
moment, in a quarter of an hour. I'll pay him a visit this very night."

This declaration caused me to pause. I knew Marble too well, not to
foresee trouble if he were left to himself in a matter of this nature, and
thought it might be well to inquire further into the affair. Sailors do
everything off-hand. Mrs. Wetmore telling me that her son's statement was