This produced a general laugh, even the yellow rascal of a mulatto,
who was passing into the cabin with some crockery, grinning in our
faces at this salutation. I saw it was now or never, and determined
not to be brow-beaten, while I was too truthful to attempt to pass for
that I was not.

"We left home last night, thinking to be in time to find berths in one
of the Indiamen that is to sail this week."

"Not _this_ week, my son--not till _next_," said Mr. Marble,
jocularly. "Sunday is _the_ day. We run from Sunday to Sunday--the
better day, the better deed, you know. How did you leave father and
mother?"

"I have neither," I answered, almost choked. "My mother died a few
months since, and my father, Captain Wallingford, has now been dead
some years."

The master of the John was a man of about fifty, red-faced,
hard-looking, pock-marked, square-rigged, and of an exterior that
promised anything but sentiment. Feeling, however, he did manifest,
the moment I mentioned my father's name. He ceased his employment,
came close to me, gazed earnestly in my face, and even looked kind.

"Are you a son of Captain Miles Wallingford?" he asked in a low
voice--"of Miles Wallingford, from up the river?"

"I am, sir; his only son. He left but two of us, a son and a daughter;
and, though under no necessity to work at all, I wish to make this