l on my shoulders, the breath is still in my body, and Master
Jonathan, to whom figures are Biblical, says the balance on my books
is excellent."

"You talk o'er much, Ben, old friend, but since it's the way of
seafaring men and 'tis cheerful it does not vex my ears. You behold
with me, Tayoga, a youth of the best blood of the Onondaga nation, one
to whom you will be polite if you wish to please me, Benjamin, and
Master Robert Lennox, grown perhaps beyond your expectations."

Master Benjamin turned to Robert, and, as Master Jonathan had done,
measured him from head to foot with those intensely bright blue eyes
of his that missed nothing.

"Grown greatly and grown well," he said, "but not beyond my
expectations. In truth, one could predict a noble bough upon such a
stem. But you and I, Dave, having many years, grow garrulous and
forget the impatience of youth. Come, lads, we'll go into the
drawing-room and, as supper was to have been served in half an hour,
I'll have the portions doubled."

Robert smiled.

"In Albany and New York alike," he said, "they welcome us to the
table."

"Which is the utmost test of hospitality," said Master Benjamin.

They went into a great drawing-room, the barred windows of which
looked out upon a busy street, warehouses and counting houses and
passing sailors. Robert was conscious all the while that the brilliant
blue eyes were examining him minutely. His old wonder about his
parentage, lost for a while in the press of war and exciting events,
returned. He felt intuitively that Master Hardy, like Willet, knew who
and what he was, and he also felt with the same force that neither
would reply to any question of his on the subject. So he kept his
peace and by and by his curiosity, as it always did, disappeared
before immediate affairs.

The drawing-room was a noble apartment, with dark oaken beams, a
polished oaken floor, upon which eastern rugs were spread, and heavy
tables of foreign woods. A small model of a sloop rested upon one
table and a model of a schooner on another. Here and there were great
curving shells with interiors of pink and white, and upon the walls
were curious long, crooked knives of the Malay Islands. Everything
savored of the sea. Again Robert's imagination leaped up. The blazing
hues of distant tropic lands were in his eyes, and the odors of
strange fruits and flowers were in his nostrils.

"Sit down, Dave," said Master Benjamin, "and you, too, Robert and
Tay