m from his head to his feet.

'What, then, brave fellow?' asked August. It was well to know the worst,
and Harry seemed to be in a communicative mood.

'Why, what are _you_ working for?'

'Because I've nothing else to do,' said Scheffer, with a shrug. 'I hate
to be idle.'

'No; you are making your fortune; you'll have a house and a family some
day. It's written, a hundred girls would think the chance beyond their
desert; or they _might_ think so.'

'Yes; well--I don't want a hundred girls.'

'Nor one, I suppose.'

Behind this idle talk the gravest and sharpest scrutiny was bestowed by
each man on his fellow. Both were thinking of Josephine, but neither
would name her.

'You're a philosopher, Paul says,' continued Cromwell. 'Paul is always
talking about you. I don't like to leave that boy; but knowing that you
are his friend should make me comfortable. Beside, I couldn't do
anything for the lad, if he stood in need of a ten-penny bit.'

Cromwell laughed, but not in recklessness--in pride.

'How can you afford to travel, then?' asked Scheffer.

'Oh, I shall go as some other good fellows have gone--on foot; for I
shall work my passage, and get somehow from Havre to Paris.'

'What next?'

'Hard work, you know.'

'Yes; I know what hard work means. But do you? Such hard work as this
will be?'

'Do you take me for a dunce? Of course I know; and I shall tell you how
I did it, five years from now.'

Then Scheffer said, not hesitating--for anything like a doubtfulness of
manner on his part would have defeated his design:

'I want to invest some money, Harry. Take a couple of hundred for me,
and buy some of the specimens; or find them, if you like that better.
You shall sell them, when you get back, and pay me a percentage,
whatever you can afford.'

There was no delay in the answer. It had all the readiness, and the
sound, of sincerity.

'Sooner from you, August, than from any other man; but not from any man.
I should feel that I was mortgaged. I must begin my own master, as I
told Josephine Mitchell. What I bring to her shall be fruit from the
tree of my own planting.'

August, for a moment, was like a man struck dumb; but when he spoke, he
was the philosopher again.

'That's all foolishness,' he said, in a gentle voice; but there was no
tenderness in it: it was but the firmness of self-control that made the
voice so mild, and the expostulation, so deliberate. 'It's like using an
old tool, when you h