I spoke of the
All-love of his great Mother Nature, and her profuse gifts to her
children. Leaving him with grapes and oranges, I stepped back to Pompey,
and taught him how to untie parcels so as to save the string. Leaving
him winding the string neatly, I went back to Julius, and gave to him
ginger-cakes. The dear boys grew from year to year. They outgrew their
knickerbockers, and had trousers. They outgrew their jackets, and became
men; and I felt that I had not lived in vain. I had conquered nature.
Pompey, the little spendthrift, was the honored cashier of a savings
bank, till he ran away with the capital. Julius, the miser, became the
chief croupier at the New Crockford's. One of those boys is now in
Botany Bay, and the other is in Sierra Leone!

"I thought you were going to say in a hotter place," said John
Blatchford; and he told his story:--

THE STOKER'S STORY.

We were crossing the Atlantic in a Cunarder. I was second stoker on the
starboard watch. In that horrible gale we spoke of before dinner, the
coal was exhausted, and I, as the best-dressed man, was sent up to the
captain to ask what we should do. I found him himself at the wheel. He
almost cursed me and bade me say nothing of coal, at a moment when he
must keep her head to the wind with her full power, or we were lost. He
bade me slide my hand into his pocket, and take out the key of the after
freight-room, open that, and use the contents for fuel. I returned
hastily to the engine-room, and we did as we were bid. The room
contained nothing but old account books, which made a hot and effective
fire.

On the third day the captain came down himself into the engine-room,
where I had never seen him before, called me aside, and told me that by
mistake he had given me the wrong key; asking me if I had used it. I
pointed to him the empty room: not a leaf was left. He turned pale with
fright. As I saw his emotion he confided to me the truth. The books were
the evidences or accounts of the British national debt; of what is
familiarly known as the Consolidated Fund, or the "Consols." They had
been secretly sent to New York for the examination of James Fiske, who
had been asked to advance a few millions on this security to the English
Exchequer, and now all evidence of indebtedness was gone!

The captain was about to leap into the sea. But I dissuaded him. I told
him to say nothing; I would keep his secret; no man else knew it. The
Government would never ut