ke charge of him.

"We shall get along, Jennie, very well indeed," said Rollo. "I asked one
of the passengers about it. The custom-house officers will come and look
into our trunks, to see if we have got any smuggled goods in them. They
won't find any in ours, I can tell them. Then all I have got to do is,
to ask one of the cabmen to take us in his cab, and carry us to a
hotel."

"To what hotel?" asked Jennie.

"Why--I don't know," said Rollo, rather puzzled. "To the best hotel.
I'll just tell him to the best hotel."

"Well," said Jennie, "and what then?"

"Well,--and then,"--said Rollo, looking a little perplexed again, and
speaking rather doubtingly,--"then,--why, I suppose that father will
send somebody there to find us."

Jennie was not convinced; but she had nothing more to say, and so she
was silent.

Rollo's plan, however, of taking care of himself in the landing seemed
not likely to be realized; for there were not less than three different
arrangements made, on the evening of the arrival, for taking care of
him. In the first place, his father and mother were at the Adelphi
Hotel, in Liverpool, awaiting the arrival of the steamer, and intending
to go on board as soon as the guns should announce her coming. In the
second place, Mr. Chauncy, Maria's brother, said that they should go
with him and Maria. He would take the children, he said, to a hotel, and
then take immediate measures to find out where Mr. Holiday was. In the
third place, the captain came to Rollo just after sunset, and made a
similar proposal.

Rollo, not knowing any thing about his father's plan, accepted Mr.
Chauncy's offer; and then, when the captain came, he thanked him for his
kindness, but said that he was going with Mr. Chauncy and Maria.

"Then you will go in the night," said the captain; "for Mr. Chauncy is
the bearer of despatches."

Rollo did not understand what the captain meant by this, though it was
afterward explained to him. The explanation was this: Every steamer,
besides the passengers, carries the mails. The mails, containing all the
letters and papers that are passing between the two countries, are
conveyed in a great number of canvas and leather bags, and sometimes in
tin boxes; enough, often, to make several cartloads. Besides these
mails, which contain the letters of private citizens, the government of
the United States has always a bag full of letters and papers which are
to be sent to the American minister in Lo