guest to the door. When he entered again his small private room a
dark-eyed boy of five was crawling out from under the table.

"Dad," he inquired solemnly, "vat is a locked harbor?"

John Cabot laughed and swung his little son to his shoulder. "That is a
great question for a little brain," he said fondly. "But see thee here;
suppose I put thee in the chest and shut the lid and turn the key; thou
art locked in and canst not get out--so! But now I put thee out of door
and set the bandog to guard it; thou art locked out though the door be
wide open, seest thou? And when I forbid thee to pick up the plums that
fall on the grass from the Frenchman's damson tree, they are as safe as
if I locked them in the dresser here, are they not? So 't is when the
King forbids his people to send their goods to some harbor; it is the
same as if a great chain were stretched across that harbor with a great
lock upon it. Now run and play with Ludovico and Santo, Sebastiano mio,
and be glad thou art free of a pleasant garden."

But Sebastian still hung back, his dark head rubbing softly against his
father's shoulder. "When I am a great merchant," he announced, "the King
will let me send my ships all over the world."

John Cabot stroked the wavy dark hair with a lingering, tender touch.
"God grant thee thy wish, little one," he said. And Sebastian, with a
shout in answer to a call from the sunny out-of-door world, scampered
away.

John Cabot, who had been born in Genoa, married while a merchant in
Venice, and had now lived for many years in Bristol, felt sometimes that
the life of a trader was like that of a player at dice. And the dice