you know, and you must always be
ready to assist a shipmate in distress."

"That's our opinion exactly," said the admiral. "We're going up to the
academy now to bring down a good dinner for him."

"Who is Jack Crosstree?" asked Captain Green, when the students had
passed out of hearing.

"No one around here knows much about him," replied the grocer. "He is a
sea-faring man, and, if one might judge by his appearance, he has seen
some hard times. He has been all over the world, spent the best part of
his life in the navy, lost his leg during the war, and has settled down
here in Newport to pass the remainder of his days as a fisherman, but he
doesn't seem to be making a paying business of it. Suppose we go down
and talk to him."

Jack Crosstree, as he called himself, had been in Newport about six
months, and during that time he had shunned every body except the
students, who paid frequent visits to his cabin to listen to his
stories, when he happened to be in the humor to tell them, and to
purchase specimens of his handiwork in the shape of models of yawls,
jolly-boats, and full-rigged ships. He was a sullen and morose old
fellow, too lazy to work, and had a great deal to say about the cruelty
and injustice of the world.

A few minutes walk brought the three friends to a dilapidated cabin on
the beach, whose appearance and surroundings testified, in unmistakable
language, to the poverty and shiftlessness of its occupant. A broken,
leaky scow, that would have borne no comparison to Bob Jennings's old Go
Ahead, was drawn up on the beach, a tattered sail leaned against the
eaves, one side of the roof of the cabin was gone, and the door was so
nearly off its hinges, that, when Captain Green rapped upon it with his
cane, it fell down with a loud crash.

"Avast, there!" growled a hoarse voice, from the inside. "You've done it
now, haven't you?"

"Beg pardon," said Mr. Harding; "but we had no idea that your door was
in so shaky a condition, you know. Why don't you get some hinges for it?
And I believe, if you would put a few boards on that roof, you would
sleep better of stormy nights."

"Ah, yes; it's all well enough for you to talk about boards and
hinges--you, who, if you stand in need of such things, have only to go
and buy them. But, with me, the case is different; although I've seen
the time when I was better off than any of you. Let the door alone, and
go off about your business."

Mr. Harding and his friends