h his characteristic decision.

"Your majesty," said Uriah Levy, "I thank you. But the humblest
position in my country's service is more to be preferred than royal
favor." And bowing before Dom Pedro, he left the court.

Nor was Levy's trust in the justice of his country unfounded. Just as
he had persisted in bringing his mutinous crew to punishment, now he
showed the same determination in insisting that a court of inquiry be
established to question the justice of his court-martial. He prepared
his own defense--merely a statement of his record while in the service
of his country--a record that won his complete and honorable
acquittal. Not only was he restored to his old rank in the United
States Navy, but shortly afterwards he rose to the advanced rank of
commodore.

When the Civil War broke out he was holding the position of flag
officer, the highest rank in our navy at that time. The years had been
kind to the little cabin boy and his private inheritance had grown
into a considerable fortune. He had already purchased Monticello, the
home of his old idol, Thomas Jefferson, intending to preserve it as a
national shrine, and had presented a statue of the author of our
Declaration of Independence to the nation's Hall of Fame. Now he felt
that there was but one cause to which he cared to devote his wealth;
he sought an interview with President Lincoln and placed his entire
private fortune at the nation's disposal.

A few days later, his boyhood friend, Ned Allison, now crippled with
rheumatism but with a laugh as hearty and boyish as of old, visited
his former master. He found Uriah Levy grown frail and listless, the
fires of his youth beginning to burn low as he neared his seventieth
year. To be sure the commodore tried to rouse himself, asking after
Ned's children, and even laughing feebly at the latter's account of
his youngest grandson, "named Uriah Levy Allison, after you, sir," who
now toddled along the beach where the two boys had searched among the
pebbles so long ago.

"We didn't know we'd live to see two wars, did we, sir," mused
Allison, "when we were just lads playing before my father's shack.
Well, even if we're past our prime now, they can't say we didn't do
our part back in 1812," and he chuckled a little in his pride.

But Levy's eyes were sad. "We have lived a little too long, Allison,"
he said, gravely but without bitterness. "When this war broke out I
tried to help once more. But my offer of my en