Y WITH THE
BOAT. They subsequently admitted that THEY had first taken the boat and
brought Johnnyboy with them, "just to frighten him," but they adhered to
the rest. And certainly Johnnyboy and the boat were nowhere to be found.
The shore was communicated with, the alarm was given, the telegraph,
up and down the coast trilled with excitement, other boats were
manned--consternation prevailed.

But that afternoon the captain of the "Saucy Jane," mackerel fisher,
lying off the point, perceived a derelict "Whitehall" boat drifting
lazily towards the Gulf Stream. On boarding it he was chagrined to find
the expected flotsam already in the possession of a very small child,
who received him with a scornful reticence as regarded himself and his
intentions, and some objurgation of a person or persons unknown. It was
Johnnyboy. But whether he had attempted the destruction of the three
other boys by "marooning" them upon the rocks--as their parents firmly
believed--or whether he had himself withdrawn from their company simply
because he did not like them, was never known. Any further attempt to
improve his education by the roughing gregarious process was, however,
abandoned. The very critics who had counseled it now clamored for
restraint and perfect isolation. It was ably pointed out by the Rev.
Mr. Belcher that the autocratic habits begotten by wealth and pampering
should be restricted, and all intercourse with their possessor promptly
withheld.

But the season presently passed with much of this and other criticism,
and the Sluysdaels passed too, carrying Johnnyboy and his small aches
and long eyelashes beyond these Crustacean voices, where it was to be
hoped there was peace. I did not hear of him again for five years,
and then, oddly enough, from the lips of Mr. Belcher on the deck of
a transatlantic steamer, as he was being wafted to Europe for his
recreation by the prayers and purses of a grateful and enduring flock.
"Master John Jacob Astor Sluysdael," said Mr. Belcher, speaking
slowly, with great precision of retrospect, "was taken from his private
governess--I may say by my advice--and sent to an admirable school in
New York, fashioned upon the English system of Eton and Harrow, and
conducted by English masters from Oxford and Cambridge. Here--I may
also say at my suggestion--he was subjected to the wholesome discipline
equally of his schoolmates and his masters; in fact, sir, as you are
probably aware, the most perfect d