course. My father had taught me to make a flat-knot, a bowline, a
clove-hitch, two half-hitches, and such sort of things; and I got
through with both a long and a short splice tolerably well. I found
all this, and the knowledge I had gained from my model-ship at home of
great use to me; so much so, indeed, as to induce even that indurated
bit of mortality, Marble, to say I "was the ripest piece of green
stuff he had ever fallen in with."

All this time, Rupert was kept at quill-driving. Once he got leave to
quit the ship--it was the day before we sailed--and I observed he went
ashore in his long-togs, of which each of us had one suit. I stole
away the same afternoon to find the post-office, and worked up-stream
as far as Broadway, not knowing exactly which way to shape my course.
In that day, everybody who was anybody, and unmarried, promenaded the
west side of this street, from the Battery to St. Paul's Church,
between the hours of twelve and half-past two, wind and weather
permitting. There I saw Rupert, in his country guise, nothing
remarkable, of a certainty, strutting about with the best of them, and
looking handsome in spite of his rusticity. It was getting late, and
he left the street just as I saw him. I followed, waiting until we got
to a private place before I would speak to him, however, as I knew he
would be mortified to be taken for the friend of a Jack-tar, in such a
scene.

Rupert entered a door, and then reappeared with a letter in his
hand. He, too, had gone to the post-office, and I no longer hesitated
about joining him.

"Is it from Clawbonny?" I asked, eagerly. "If so, from Lucy,
doubtless?"