now, for the sake of the
good lads, we'll speak of lighter subjects. Where is the play of
Richard III to be given, Benjamin?"

"Mr. Hallam has obtained a great room in a house that is the property
of Rip Van Dam in Nassau Street. He has fitted it up in the fashion
of a stage, and his plays are always attended by a great concourse of
ladies and gentlemen. Boston and Philadelphia say New York is light
and frivolous, but I suspect that something of jealousy lies at the
core of the charge. We of New Amsterdam--again the name leaps to my
lips--have a certain freedom in our outlook upon life, a freedom which
I think produces strength and not weakness. Manners are not morals,
but I grow heavy and it does not become a seafaring man to be
didactic. What is it, Piet?"

The door of the dining-room opened, admitting a serving man who
produced a letter.

"It comes by the Boston post," he said, handing it to Master Hardy.

"Then it must have an importance which will not admit delay in the
reading," said Master Hardy. "Your pardon, friends, while I peruse
it."

He read it carefully, read it again with the same care, and then his
resonant laughter boomed forth with such volume and in such continuity
that he was compelled to take a huge red handkerchief and wipe the
tears from his eyes.

"What is it, Benjamin, that amuses you so vastly?" asked Willet.

"A brave epistle from one of my captains, James Dunbar, a valiant man
and a great mariner. In command of the schooner, _Good Hope_, he was
sailing from the Barbados with a cargo of rum and sugar for Boston,
which furnishes a most excellent market for both, when he was
overhauled by the French privateer, _Rocroi_."

"What do you find to laugh at in the loss of a good ship and a fine
cargo?"

"Did I say they were lost? Nay, David, I said nothing of the kind. You
don't know Dunbar, and you don't know the _Good Hope_, which carries a
brass twelve-pounder and fifteen men as valiant as Dunbar himself. He
returned the attack of the _Rocroi_ with such amazing skill and
fierceness that he was able to board her and take her, with only three
of his men wounded and they not badly. Moreover, they found on board
the privateer a large store of gold, which becomes our prize of
war. And Dunbar and his men shall have a fair share of it, too. How
surprised the Frenchies must have been when Dunbar and his sailors
swarmed aboard."

"'Tis almost our only victory," said Willet, "and I'm right gl