r, for I have tried to do just as I was
instructed," answered the captain, meekly, and apparently as much
astonished as his owner. "I know my place, and I always expect to do
just what my employer expects of me."

"I did not expect you to run away with my steam-yacht, when all my
family were waiting to go in her," added the colonel, becoming more
indignant as he rehearsed the incidents of the morning we left
Jacksonville.

"But your going in the Islander depended on your business; and when I
saw you the morning before we sailed, you could not tell what you would
do. You instructed me to water and provision the vessel, and wait for
further orders. Towards evening, you sent off a card by young Boomsby,
directing me to have steam up and be ready to sail early in the
morning. I was ready to go by six o'clock," answered the captain,
taking from his desk in the pilot-house a package of papers, from which
he selected the card sent off by Nick. "Is it all straight so far?"

"Entirely: it was just as you say. I received a letter by the afternoon
mail, which assured me a business matter would allow me to be absent
from New York a month or six weeks longer; and I decided to go up the
river with the Sylvania."

"I didn't ask questions, or inquire into your business. All I had to do
was to obey the orders of my owner," added Captain Blastblow. "I made
sure that everything on board was ready for the voyage before I turned
in that night. By half-past five in the morning we had steam enough on
to sail down the river. It was about half-past six when your friend,
Mr. Boomsby, came----"

"My friend, Mr. Boomsby!" exclaimed the colonel. "I never even saw my
friend, Mr. Boomsby, that I know of."

"I only know that you called him your friend yourself," replied Captain
Blastblow.

"I called him so! How could I call him so when I had no acquaintance
with him?" demanded the owner, with a smile of incredulity.

"I don't know anything about that," continued the captain, fumbling
over the papers he had taken from his desk. "I learned to read writing
when I was a boy; and that was what you wrote."

"I never wrote anything of the kind, Captain Blastblow. But never mind
that: go on with your story," added the colonel.

"I can prove all that I say, sir. Your friend, Mr. Boomsby, as you
called him in your letter, came on board about half-past six, and gave
me your instructions to proceed to New Orleans as soon as I got the
letter."

"I s