e to me.

"He is quarrelling with his nurse," she said, smiling up at me through
her tears. "He is such a masterful baby."

Next moment I was bounding up the stairs, and on entering the nursery I
saw my boy seated on the floor, his face red with passion, while with
his chubby little hands he was tearing the sails off a toy ship that
had been given him to play with. The clever lad, even in his infancy,
must have noticed that the wretched apology for a ship which they
offered him was not rigged in seaman-like fashion. Well, I promised
myself that I would make him a model of the "Golden Seahorse", perfect
in every detail, and big enough for him to sail in. When I came into
the nursery he stopped crying and looked at me, but the nurse kept on
saying, "Oh, Master Peter, Master Peter, you must not be naughty like
that," as though she were repeating a formula.

I ran to Master Peter and picked him up, when he tried to bite my hard
hand with his little pearly teeth. Ah, what a lad of spirit he was! He
was not a bit afraid of me or of anyone. A boy after my own heart. Then
he looked at me, and the passion in his rosy face melted into a dimpled
smile. He knew me, I am certain of it, and putting his little arms
round my neck, he seemed to ask pardon for his wilfulness. We were
comrades from that moment, he and I, and although not a word was spoken
we understood each other thoroughly.

Pauline and the nurse watched us. Both women were weeping, as is the
way with women when they seek to relieve their feelings. But the tears
they shed were tears of joy.

When we were more composed, Pauline and I and young Peter went together
to look at the presents I had brought back with me. Pauline was
delighted with the pearls and the fox-skins, but she at once decided
that the skins would make a warm winter coat for baby, and a splendid
rug for his little carriage. I believe she would have given Master
Peter the pearls to play with had he shown a fancy for them, but
fortunately he did not notice them, so taken up was he in burying his
face in the thick fur of the silver fox-skins.

What a home-coming this was for me after so much tossing upon the
ocean, and so many wanderings into unknown lands, and how I trembled
when I thought on the dangers I had passed, and how easily I might have
lost my life, and thus forfeited the happiness that I knew was in store
for me!

Well, my voyages were over now. Never again would I leave my wife and
chil