"Well," Tab said, "I'll see you as far as the door for fear you'll bolt. You're a sight nearer funking than I ever saw you, Jacko. You must have your nerve with you if you don't want to come out of the little end of the horn."

"I feel small enough to go through it," Jack retorted.

"Oh, that's all right. Just take a brace, and"—

"Humph!" snorted the captain. "It's all well enough for you to snoozle round and give me advice, but if you had to face Uncle Randolph yourself, you wouldn't be so chipper, let me tell you!"

The young men were crossing Atlantic Avenue not far from the East Boston Ferry. They had at last, sea-weary and glad of land, made harbor on the previous evening. Jack had hardly waited for the anchor to be down before he had sent off in haste for his European letters, intrusting the messenger to post a voluminous epistle on which he had written industriously at intervals all the way over; and for half the night he had read and reread Katrine's missives, giving Jerry tantalizing bits now and then, with messages from Mrs. Fairhew enjoining him not again to aid and abet Jack in any nefarious schemes. In the morning the crew had been paid off generously, and given passages on the City of Rockland. Then Gonzague had been left in charge of the yacht, and now, with feelings curiously mixed, the captain was bound for the office of his uncle for the inevitable reckoning with the owner of the stolen Merle.

It was a bright, sharp morning, without a cloud in the sky. The air had a clean crispness which went to the head like wine. The streets were thronged and noisy. Heavy trucks rolled past the pair like batteries moving into action; the Elevated thundered overhead with its rumbling screech. The teamsters shouted profanely at their straining horses; a fat policeman at the crowded crossing waved his arms like semaphores, now holding up the traffic and again with commanding gesture sweeping it along. The shrill voices of the newsboys rang out in mechanical iteration of the leading sensations of the morning journals.

"Oh," cried Tab, as they walked briskly up State Street, "how good it is, isn't it, Jacko?"

Jack was too much absorbed in the interview before him to do more than nod mechanically. He could not at the moment bring himself up to the gay mood of his friend.

"There's no place like it after all," Jerry ran on, his honest, homely face aglow with delight. "My word, you may talk about Italy and all the rest of it till the crack of doom, but they can't hold a candle to good old Boston! Blest if this isn't the best part of the whole cruise!"

"Think so, do you?" asked Jack dryly. "It's funny, but the very reverse was in my head. What the deuce," he burst out, "what the deuce am I going to tell the President anyway?"

"Oh, just give him the yarn off the reel," returned Tab, as if it were all the simplest thing in the world. "You've got the log with you, and—I say, do look at those pigeons! Aren't they jolly! Come, brace up!"

"Oh, yes," said Jack. "Brace up, of course—in the very mouth of the lion's lair. Here's the building,—we're just about seventy feet under Uncle Randolph's den. Brace up! The very thing, of course! So glad you suggested it!"

"Now, Jacko," protested Jerry, "you mustn't take things this way. Do put some spirit into it. I'll leave you here; but if you want, I'll face the music with you."

"No, thank you," his friend said gravely; "I'll take the medicine alone."

"Well, that's what we decided last night when we threshed things out. Go ahead. Bring the remains round to lunch, though. The Roundheads at one. It's eleven now, and you've got two hours for the job of placating the president. Come sure; for I shall be in a stew till I know how you two get on together."

"All right," Jack responded dispiritedly.

"Good luck," Jerry said, stretching out his hand.

"Thank you," Jack returned, giving Tab a hearty grasp. "So long."

"One o'clock," Jerry repeated; and with a buoyant wave of the hand, he went on his way up State Street.

"Suppose he'll weep when he sees the Frog Pond," muttered Jack to himself with a wan smile. "Wish I felt half as chipper."

He went to the elevator, and pressed the electric button. The big cage came down, the boy clashed the door, and Jack went in as he might have mounted the steps to a scaffold.

"Mr. Drake's," he said briefly, moistening his lips, and wondering why they seemed so stiff and dry.

Deposited on the proper floor, he tucked the brown log-book more tightly under his arm, and approached his uncle's office.

"I must have time," he said to himself. "I haven't thought this business out for a cent."

He turned on his heel, and walked slowly down the marble-flagged corridor past the glazed doors of half a dozen offices. Then he stopped with sudden resolution.

"Damn it! Be a man!" he adjured himself. "This won't do."

He walked resolutely up to the door, and entered his uncle's outer office. A typewriter was clicking busily at one desk, and various clerks were scratching away assiduously. Several people were seated about, evidently waiting to speak with Mr. Drake. Even as Jack entered, the door opened, and a man came out from the inner room. The head clerk nodded to Jack, but regarded him curiously.

"How do you do, Mr. Castleport?" he said.

"Can I see my uncle?" Jack asked, returning his salutation, and he added to himself, "He knows all about the Merle. I can tell by his looks."

"He's pretty busy this morning," the clerk answered, "but I'll tell him you're here. Of course he'll see you as soon as he can."

Jack took a seat and waited until the next man came out of the inner office. Then the head clerk went in, and in a moment returned with a queer look on his face. "Mr. Drake says these men are here by appointment," he reported, "and he cannot see you till they are gone."

"All right," Jack answered, reflecting ruefully that he was not accustomed to be thus kept waiting in his uncle's office. "I am in no hurry."

He settled himself in his chair, feeling that he could have borne anything better than this delay, and half tempted now to give it up, and beat a retreat. He saw one man after another go into the inner room, and after a time return and go away. He crossed and recrossed his legs with an impatient feeling that he had never sat in so uncomfortable a chair. He tried to beguile the time by reading the log, but first he opened to the account of the lifting of the Merle, and then to the story of how her bulwarks were torn away by the storm. He fell to thinking how good Uncle Randolph had always been to him, and every minute felt more and more like a wretch for having left the old gentleman stranded at North Haven. The time grew longer and longer, and every moment more intolerable as the second hour began to drag its slow length after the first. Then he noticed that only one man remained to delay his interview, and so completely was he demoralized that he felt that he would have given anything in the world to be excused from the trial before him. It seemed to him that the last man but one did his business, whatever it was, in an amazingly short time; and he all but bolted when the last went to his appointment. If he could get away and think things over once more, he might perhaps be able to devise some sort of excuse more plausible than anything he had to offer; and he all but started to his feet to fly when the door opened to let out the only visitor who had stood between him and the dreaded encounter with the president.

"Mr. Drake will see you now, sir," said the office boy.

Jack got to his feet as if by automatic action, and felt them drag him forward against his will. Another instant, and the door had closed behind him; he stood in the inner office. With a tremendous effort—an effort which was almost physical—to pull himself together, he looked up at his uncle.

He saw a slight gentleman, dressed in a well-fitting suit of gray, looking out of one of the windows with his back to the door. The office was high enough to command a view of the harbor, shining blue in the sun beyond the clusters of roofs and chimneys. Mr. Drake stood for a moment as if examining the view for the first time, while Jack wondered whether this unconsciousness of his presence was real, or was of a piece with the infliction of the long wait. Then the President turned to him, and bowed formally, as if to a stranger. His face wore a curious look of weariness and patience which somehow reminded Jack of his father. The high forehead was wrinkled with a line or two that Jack did not remember, and the curly hair was surely more thickly streaked with gray.

"Well, sir?" Mr. Drake said in a tone hard and even.

"Well, Uncle Randolph," said Jack, confused, "I—I'm here."

"So I see," remarked the President. "Is that what you came to say?"

Jack felt that the interview promised to be even worse than he had feared. He shuffled his feet uncomfortably, and studied the figures in the rug. Then he looked up at the face of the elder man, and something in it smote him to the heart.

"Uncle Randolph," he said suddenly, "I suppose it's pretty late to say anything of the sort, but—but something that happened on the way over made me see that—made me see what a blackguard I'd been to steal the Merle as I did. I don't think apologies are much good, anyway, especially after you've had all the fun. It's a good deal like trying to sneak out of consequences, but I—I really mean most sincerely that I'm beastly sorry."

Mr. Drake did not move a muscle of his keen, well-bred face, but into his eyes came some faint glint of humor which made Jack stop in confusion.

"Are you done, sir?" his uncle asked.

"I'm not quite through, sir," Jack said in a sort of desperate humility. "I—I—that is"—He floundered for a moment, and then went on with a rush, "I may as well explain that I'm not sorry one way; that is—I can't honestly say I wish I hadn't taken the Merle, for I—you know I'm engaged to Miss Marchfield, and I never could have been except—that is, unless I'd got over there. I can't be sorry for that."

"No?" queried Mr. Drake, raising his brows. "You are not thinking, perhaps, what is the price I have paid for the privilege of congratulating you on this engagement. I have no son, and from the day your father died I have made one of you. You deceive me, humiliate me in the eyes of my guests, make me the joke of my club, leave me high and dry at North Haven"—

Sad and sorry as Jack really was, he could not help the impulse that made him see the chance, and murmur under his breath,—

"I didn't think anything could be high and dry in the sort of fog we went off in."

His uncle gave a slight cough, as if he were strangling an inclination to laugh, and then went on in the same even voice as before.

"Of course I can't expect you to have any feeling about the way I felt about your tricking me, any more than of the anxiety I went through when the Merle disappeared, and I didn't know whether you were on top of the sea or under it."

"I—I never thought of that," stammered Jack, feeling his cheeks grow hot.

"No, I suppose not. Nor how I enjoyed the storm you must have been in on the way home. Lloyd's people sent me word of your giving them the slip at Plymouth."

"But they let us," Jack put in eagerly, seizing with avidity at any point which seemed to afford him a chance to defend himself. "I didn't think, Uncle Randolph, and I'm afraid I've been a beastly cad to you. I am sorry to the very bottom of my heart."

The President took a quick stride forward and clapped one hand on his nephew's shoulder, while with the other he grasped warmly the hand Jack put out swiftly to meet him.

"There, Jack," he said, "that's all I want. You don't know what we old fools go through worrying over you young ones. Perhaps it's just as well you don't."

He gave Jack's hand a vigorous shake, and then turned away to blow his own nose with equal violence. Jack himself felt hot in the eyes, but he had no words which seemed adequate to the situation.

"Sit down," his uncle said, waving him to a chair, and then going to his desk. He took from a pigeon-hole some letters and papers. "I have several things to say to you. Mrs. Fairhew writes a very spicy letter when she wants to."

"I should think she might, sir. She can be spicy when she talks."

"She says I didn't know you were grown-up, Jack."

Jack blushed at the remembrance, vivid and sharp, of his declaration to Jerry that he would make his uncle realize that he had come to man's estate.

"Oh, ho," said Mr. Drake, regarding him keenly, but with humorous eyes, "you thought so too, did you? Of course you did! Well, I know it now, and I've been an old fool. I congratulate you, Jack, with all my heart. If Miss Marchfield is like her mother"—He broke off as if his thought had got the better of his speech. "If she is all that Mrs. Fairhew says she is, you have a treasure, my boy. Don't ever run off with her yacht."

"I never mean to repeat that performance with anybody," Jack declared stoutly, again shaking hands fervently. "You've always been awfully good to me, Uncle Randolph, and I've never done anything for you."

"Hum, perhaps not that you know of," the other replied, with a humorous lift of his eyebrows; "but we sometimes do good when we think we're doing harm. Read this."

He held out a long blue envelope, much stamped and written upon, and provided with both American and English postage-stamps. Jack knew it at a glance as the one he had taken from the messenger that foggy night at North Haven, had found in the pocket of his coat at Nice, and had after much cogitation remailed at Plymouth. In the upper left-hand corner was the notice to return to R. B. Tillington, if not delivered in five days, and the Boston address written in his own hand. He drew out the letter and read:—

My Dear Drake,—You and I have known the ins and outs of the market for so many years that we ought to appreciate both the danger of getting into an unsound stock and the foolishness of letting the real thing go by for the want of a little courage. I think you are not likely to have forgotten what Orrington said in the club last week about Orion Copper, or that I told you I meant to sift that thing to the very bottom. Well, I have been looking it up with a microscope ever since. I enclose three or four copies of letters,—this is all confidential, of course; you would know that without my saying so, but the thing's too important not to be particular about. I write to you because I've got to have somebody share the thing, and I think you can raise the money without putting anybody on the scent. Besides that, we have always got on well together, I believe in your luck, and I want somebody to stand with me in running the whole thing. There's nothing less than millions in it if we can get control at once. Sell anything,—I'm selling everything myself,—and get in on the ground floor of Orion. If I had known just where to hit you, I'd have got you to town to investigate for yourself; but I've wasted a small fortune already telegraphing to every damned port on the coast I could think of. You'll find wires waiting at every place you put into. Orion's bound to be the coming financial constellation. B. B., Mellington, Foster, and two or three others have blundered into it just by bull luck, but they haven't got enough stock to hurt us if you'll stand by me.

Yours for Orion,
R. B. T.

Jack read in steadily increasing consternation.

"Good heavens!" he said. "Did I make you lose the chance? Did you get the telegrams?"

"I got them, but they referred me to the letter, and I was too upset about the Merle to pay much attention. Then I went over to the island, and stayed there three or four days; so that by the time I did get a letter—a second one—the whole thing was over."

"Was that what broke Tillington?" Jack asked, feeling as if his escapade had destroyed half the financial world.

"It saved me from going with him," Mr. Drake returned, with a smile. "See here." He extended a lot of newspaper cuttings, and then drew them back. "Never mind, though," he went on. "There's no need of going into the particulars. The whole thing was a trap from beginning to end. If you made a fool of me, Jack, by running off with the Merle, it isn't a circumstance to the fool I'd have made of myself if I'd got that letter. If it hadn't been for that perfectly heartless and entirely inexcusable performance of yours, we'd both of us be beggars at this blessed moment. We came so near it that I can't read that sign downstairs, 'Beggars and Peddlers not Allowed,' without thinking how near I was to having it forbid me my own office."

"Do you really mean it, Uncle Randolph?" Jack asked half breathlessly.

"I do mean it, my boy, though I'm afraid the moral of it all's pretty crooked. I had been led in with a cleverness that gives me cold shivers. That talk at the club that I'd heard as if by accident had all been planned out, and so on for a lot more things I won't go into. Mellington's blown his brains out, and poor old Foster isn't up to anything but cadging for drinks at the club, and telling how he was roped in when he was drunk, poor old fellow! I was so sure of Orion that I'd have put in the last dollar of yours or mine I could have laid hands on! I feel like a humbug when men congratulate me on knowing enough to keep out of the mess."

"And I saved you?" cried Jack, bending forward with boyish eagerness.

"Yes, you rascally jackanapes; but small credit to you!"

Jack sent the log up into the air, and, bounding to his feet, caught it as it fell.

"Whoop!" he shouted. "Oh, how glad I am old Tillington wrote that letter and I carried it off!"

The President laughed with responsive joyousness, but reminded his ebullient nephew that there were clerks in the other room. He began to ask questions about the voyage, but the clock struck one and Jack recalled the fact that Taberman was waiting for him at the Roundheads, and probably was on tenterhooks for his news.

"You'll come to luncheon, won't you, sir?" he pleaded.

"That'll look well," retorted his uncle with humorous derision. "Everybody knows about your running off with the Merle—Bardale couldn't hold his tongue—and I shall be accused of condoning a felony."

Nevertheless they set out arm in arm for the club, and as they went the President informed his secretary that he should not be back at the office that afternoon.

"We shall want to run over the log," he explained to Jack as they waited for the elevator. "I've no doubt it will make you blush to have me read it, but I'm going to."

"I brought it for you," Jack answered, with a grin of pure joy. "Do you mind waiting a minute, while I send a cable to Katrine? She was awfully anxious to know how hard you'd be on me."

"Now she'll think I've no backbone at all. Well, when you played me that trick, Jack, I felt terribly old and alone; but I think I am a little bit younger now you're back, and prepared to behave yourself."

"Wait till you've read the log," laughed Jack, "and you'll think you're in your teens!"