e left,
and we ought to be good friends, at least."

"We are good enough friends," mumbled Mr. Shackford, who could not
evade taking the hand which Richard had forlornly reached out to him,
"but that needn't prevent us understanding each other like rational
creatures. I don't care for a great deal of fine sentiment in people
who run away without so much as thank you."

"I was all wrong!"

"That's what folks always say, with the delusion that it makes
everything all right."

"Surely it help,--to admit it."

"That depends; it generally doesn't. What do you propose to do?"

"I hardly know at the moment; my plans are quite in the air."

"In the air!" repeated Mr. Shackford. "I fancy that describes
them. Your father's plans were always in the air, too, and he never
got any of them down."

"I intend to get mine down."

"Have you saved by anything?"

"Not a cent."

"I thought as much."

"I had a couple of hundred dollars in my sea-chest; but I was
shipwrecked, and lost it. I barely saved myself. When Robinson
Crusoe"--

"Damn Robinson Crusoe!" snapped Mr. Shackford.

"That's what I say," returned Richard gravely. "When Robinson
Crusoe was cast on an uninhabited island, shrimps and soft-shell
crabs and all sorts of delicious mollusks--readily boiled, I've no
doubt--crawled up on the beach, and begged him to eat them; but
_I_ nearly starved to death."

"Of course. You will always be shipwrecked, and always be starved
to death; you are one of that kind. I don't believe you are a
Shackford at all. When they were not anything else they were good
sailors. If you only had a drop of _his_ blood in your veins!"
and Mr. Shackford waved his head towards a faded portrait of a
youngish, florid gentleman with banged hair and high coat-collar,
which hung against the wall half-way up the stair-case. This was the
counterfeit presentment of Lemuel Shackford's father seated with his
back at an open window, through which was seen a ship under full
canvas with the union-jack standing out straight in the wrong
direction. "But what are you going to do for yourself? You can't
start a subscription paper, and play with shipwrecked mariner, you
know."

"No, I hardly care to do that," said Richard, with a good-natured
laugh, "though no poor devil ever had a better outfit for the
character."

"What _are_ you calculated for?"

Richard was painfully conscious of his unfitness for many things;
but he felt there was nothing in life