his cutlass till the boarding-party joined him."

"With his cutlass?" said I. "Then he was not always a Quaker?"

"No," said our senior: "they don't learn these gymnastics at Fourth and
Arch, though perchance the committee may have a word to say about it."

"Quaker or not," said the wine-taster, "I wish any of you had legs as
good or a heart as sound. Very good body, not too old, and none the
worse for a Quaker fining."

"That's the longest sentence I ever heard Wilton speak," said a young
fellow aside to me; "and, by Jove! he is right."

I went back into the counting-house, and was struck with the grim
sadness of face of our junior partner. He had taken up a paper and
affected to be reading, but, as I saw, was staring into space. Our
senior said something to him about Old Tom, but he answered in an absent
way, as one who half hears or half heeds. In a few moments he looked up
at the clock, which was on the stroke of twelve, and seeing me ready,
hat in hand, to return home for our one-o'clock dinner, he gathered
himself up, as it were, limb by limb, and taking his wide-brimmed hat
brushed it absently with his sleeve. Then he looked at it a moment with
a half smile, put it on decisively and went out and away up Arch street
with swifter and swifter strides. By and by he said, "You do not walk as
well as usual."

"But," said I, "no one could keep up with you."

"Do not try to: leave a sore man to nurse his hurts. I suppose you saw