house."

"No, by the Lord Harry, I didn't!" exclaimed Burke, slapping his knee.
"You must excuse me, Mrs. Cliff, for speaking out in that way, but
really I never was so much surprised as when I came into your front
yard. I thought I would find you in the finest house in the place until
you could have a stately mansion built somewhere in the outskirts of the
town, where there would be room enough for a park. But when I came to
this house, I couldn't help thinking that perhaps some beastly bank had
broke, and that your share of the golden business had been swept away.
Things like that do happen to women, you know, and I suppose they always
will; but I am mighty glad to hear you are all right!

"But, as you have asked me to tell you my story, I will make short work
of it, and then I would like to hear what has happened to you, as much
as you please to tell me about it.

"Now, when I got my money, Mrs. Cliff, which, when compared to what your
share must have been, was like a dory to a three-mast schooner, but
still quite enough for me, and, perhaps, more than enough if a public
vote could be taken on the subject, I was in Paris, a jolly place for a
rich sailor, and I said to myself,--

"'Now, Mr. Burke,' said I, for I might as well begin by using good
manners, 'the general disposition of a sea-faring man with a lot of
money is to go on a lark, or, perhaps, a good many larks, and so get rid
of it and then ship again before the mast for fourteen dollars per
month, or thereabouts.'

"But I made up my mind right there on the spot that that sort of thing
wouldn't suit me. The very idea of shipping again on a merchant vessel
made the blood run cold inside of me, and I swore to myself that I
wouldn't do it.

"To be sure, I wouldn't give up all notion of a lark. A sailor with
money,--and I don't believe there ever was an able-bodied seaman with
more money than I had,--who doesn't lark, at least to some degree, has
no right to call himself a whole-souled mariner; so I made up my mind to
have one lark and then stop."

Mrs. Cliff's countenance clouded. "I am sorry, Mr. Burke," said she,
"that you thought it necessary to do that. I do hope you didn't go on
one of those horrible--sprees, do they call them?"

"Oh no!" interrupted Burke, "I didn't do anything of that kind. If I'd
begun with a bottle, I'd have ended with nothing but a cork, and a badly
burnt one at that. No ma'am! drinking isn't in my line. I don't take
anything