their little home. He often chaffs me about it, Sam does. "Well, you
_was_ a sawny-headed chunk, Josiah, _you_ was," he often says to me.
We're old chums, you know, sir, Sam and me, so he don't mind joking a bit
like.'

"Then the smile died away, and he added with a sigh, 'Yes, I've often
thought since, sir, how jolly it would have been if you could have seen
your way to making it Juliana.'

"I felt I must get him back to Hannah at any cost. I said, 'I suppose
you and your wife are still living in the old place?'

"'Yes,' he replied, 'if you can call it living. It's a hard struggle
with so many of us.'

"He said he did not know how he should have managed if it had not been
for the help of Julia's father. He said the captain had behaved more
like an angel than anything else he knew of.

"'I don't say as he's one of your clever sort, you know, sir,' he
explained. 'Not the man as one would go to for advice, like one would to
you, sir; but he's a good sort for all that.'

"'And that reminds me, sir,' he went on, 'of what I've come here about.
You'll think it very bold of me to ask, sir, but--'

"I interrupted him. 'Josiah,' I said, 'I admit that I am much to blame
for what has come upon you. You asked me for my advice, and I gave it
you. Which of us was the bigger idiot, we will not discuss. The point
is that I did give it, and I am not a man to shirk my responsibilities.