rules for the game of life, and peaceful methods promised to prove
more profitable than violent, the Ingerfields became traders and
merchants of grave mien and sober life; for their ambition from
generation to generation remains ever the same, their various
callings being but means to an end.

A hard, stern race of men they would seem to have been, but just--so
far as they understood justice. They have the reputation of having
been good husbands, fathers, and masters; but one cannot help
thinking of them as more respected than loved.

They were men to exact the uttermost farthing due to them, yet not
without a sense of the thing due from them, their own duty and
responsibility--nay, not altogether without their moments of heroism,
which is the duty of great men. History relates how a certain
Captain Ingerfield, returning with much treasure from the West
Indies--how acquired it were, perhaps, best not to inquire too
closely--is overhauled upon the high seas by King's frigate. Captain
of King's frigate sends polite message to Captain Ingerfield
requesting him to be so kind as to promptly hand over a certain
member of his ship's company, who, by some means or another, has made
himself objectionable to King's friends, in order that he (the said
objectionable person) may be forthwith hanged from the yard-arm.

Captain Ingerfield returns polite answer to Captain of King's frigate
that he (Captain Ingerfield) will, with much pleasure, hang any
member of his ship's company that needs hanging, but that neither the
King of England nor any one else on God Almighty's sea is going to do
it for him. Captain of King's frigate sends back word that if
objectionable person be not at once given up he shall be compelled