ut into the moonlight. The dock was only a quarter
of a mile away. The ship was to sail at daylight, on the turn of the
tide. There was much commotion going on around the boat, battening down
hatches and doing the last few necessary things before braving the
reeling deep.

Little Stephen was watching his chance to get aboard. He was going as a
stowaway. A man came up to him. It was the captain, and before the lad
could escape the man said, "Here, I want a cabin-boy--will you go?"

The boy thanked God that it was night, so the captain could not see his
crooked eye, and gasped, "Yes--yes!"

The cook was making coffee in the galley for the stevedores, who had
just finished loading the ship. The captain took the boy by the hand and
leading him up the plank to the galley told the cook to give him a cup
of coffee and a biscuit.

The ship pushed off and hoisted sail just at daylight, on the turn of
the tide.

The tide, too, had turned for Stephen Girard.

* * * * *

A very little observation will show that physical defects, when backed
up by mental worth, transform themselves into "beauty-spots." To be
sure, no one was ever so bold as to speak of Girard's blemishes as
beauty-spots, but the fact is that his homely face and ungraceful body
were strong factors in making him a favorite of fortune. Handsome is
that handsome does. Disadvantages are often advantages--they serve as
stimulus and bring out the best.

Young Girard had long arms and short legs, and could climb fast and
high. And he could see more with his one eye than most men could with
two. He expected no favor on account of his family or his good looks,
and so made himself necessary to the captain of the craft as a matter of
self-preservation.

Not all sea-captains are brutal, nor do all sailors talk in a hoarse
guttural, shift their quids, hitch their trousers, and preface their
remarks with, "Shiver my timbers."

That first captain with whom Stephen Girard sailed was
young--twenty-six, a mere youth, with a first mate twice his years. He
was mild-mannered, gentle-voiced and owned a copy of Voltaire's
"Philosophical Dictionary." His name is lost to us; even the name of his
ship has foundered in the fog; but that he was young, gentle, and read
Voltaire, are facts recorded in the crooked and twisted handwriting of
Stephen Girard, facts which even his blackguard biographer admitted.

The new cabin-boy was astonished that one so