included as an ordinary debt, and of course you are legally responsible
for it just as much as I am. Take a friend's advice and get to America.
A young man with brains can always do something out there, and you can
live down this little mischance. It will be a cheap lesson if it teaches
you to take nothing upon trust in business, and to insist upon knowing
exactly what your partner is doing, however senior he may be to you.

"Yours faithfully,

"JEREMIAH PEARSON."

"Great Heavens!" groaned the Admiral, "he has absconded."

"And left me both a bankrupt and a thief."

"No, no, Harold," sobbed his mother. "All will be right. What matter
about money!"

"Money, mother! It is my honor."

"The boy is right. It is his honor, and my honor, for his is mine. This
is a sore trouble, mother, when we thought our life's troubles were all
behind us, but we will bear it as we have borne others." He held out
his stringy hand, and the two old folk sat with bowed grey heads, their
fingers intertwined, strong in each other's love and sympathy.

"We were too happy," she sighed.

"But it is God's will, mother."

"Yes, John, it is God's will."

"And yet it is bitter to bear. I could have lost all, the house, money,
rank--I could have borne it. But at my age--my honor--the honor of an
admiral of the fleet."

"No honor can be lost, John, where no dishonor has been done. What have
you done? What has Harold done? There is no question of honor."

The old man shook his head, but Harold had already called together his
clear practical sense, which for an instant in the presence of this
frightful blow had deserted him.

"The mater is right, dad," said he. "It is bad enough, Heaven knows, but
we must not take too dark a view of it. After all, this insolent letter
is in itself evidence that I had nothing to do with the schemes of the
base villain who wrote it."

"They may think it prearranged."

"They could not. My whole life cries out against the thought. They could
not look me in the face and entertain it."

"No, boy, not if they have eyes in their heads," cried the Admiral,
plucking up courage at the sight of the flashing eyes and brave, defiant
face. "We have the letter, and we have your character. We'll weather it
yet between them. It's my fault from the beginning for choosing such a
land-shark for your consort. God help me, I thought I was finding such
an opening for you."

"Dear dad! How could you possibly know? As he says