“Ninety days won’t do,” said Mr. Grant, tersely.  “If we must sacrifice, it must be for something a bank will look at, Mr. Dartmouth.  But I want the ship cleared, and if you will say six at two months for the whole, it’s a bargain, bad as it is for me.”

“Not a bargain for me to be in a hurry about; but I’ll think of it.  Hold on till to-morrow.  But, on the whole, you needn’t do that.  It wouldn’t be an object.”

“But I will do it, if you say so, till noon to-morrow.”

“Better say five-and-three-fourths and have it done to-day,” said Chip, “for I may not give that to-morrow.  But if you hold on, and I buy anything at six, it shall be your lot.”

Captain Grant, beginning to believe that he should, after all, sell a little above the bottom of the market, took his leave for his home among the Waltham hills, a little less grouty than when he entered.

That same night, Chip, after having dropped in at numerous resorts of the fast men, in most of which somewhat of his conscience, such as it was, dropped out, was proceeding homeward through Devonshire Street, with the brightest of his wits still about him.  It was a raw night, one of the rawest ever got up by a belated equinoctial, with almost nothing stirring in the streets but the wind, and the loose shutters and old remnants of summer awnings left to its tender mercies.  Aeolus, with these simple instruments of sound, added to the many sharp corners of city architecture, managed to get up something of a symphony, enough almost to make up for the nocturnal cats, now retired to silence and the snuggest attainable quarters.  The hour was one of the short ones ayont the twal, and sleep reigned everywhere except in the daily-newspaper-offices and in the most fashionable of the grog-shops.  Besides Chip, the only living thing in Devonshire Street was a thinly-clad stripling, with a little roll of yellowish tissue-paper in his hand, knocking and shaking feebly at a door which grimly refused to open.  His powers of endurance were evidently giving way, and his grief had become both vocal and fluent in the channel of his infant years.

“What’s the matter, my boy?” asked Chip,—­“locked out, hey?”

“No,—­bo-hoo.  No, Sir, the door’s blowed to and froze up, and I can’t git this pos’crip’ up to the office.”

“Oh, oh! you’re the telegraph-boy, are you?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Most froz’n, aren’t you?”

“O-oo-oo, that I be, Sir.”

Here a very bright idea struck Chip, and he inquired,—­

“Is this all that’s coming?”

“Boo-hoo.  Yes, Sir.  They’ve sent good-night once before, and this is the pos’crip’.  The wires is shut off now, and some of the papers is shut off, too; for I’ve been to three before this, and can’t git into nary one on ’em.”

“Never mind, my poor fellow; I belong up here.  I’ll take the sheets and send ’em round to all the other papers that are open.  Never mind; you take that, and go right home to your mother.”