I found it a little hard to descend so much on the ladder of life, but an early and capital training enabled me to act Dicky over again, with some credit; and, before the ship went to sea, our chief mate was discharged for drunkenness, and I got a lift.  Marble was put in my place, and from that time, for the next five months, things went on smoothly enough; I say five months, for, instead of sailing for home direct, the ship went to Spain, within the Straits, for a cargo of barilla, which she took up to London, where she got a freight for Philadelphia.  We were all a little uneasy, at finding that our story, with sundry perversions and exaggerations, were in the English papers; but, by the time we reached England, it was forgotten; having been crowded out by the occurrence of new events of interest, at a moment when every week was teeming with incidents that passed into history.

Nevertheless, I was glad when we left England, and I once more found myself on the high seas, homeward bound.  My wages had enabled me, as well as Marble and Neb, to get new outfits, suited to our present stations, and we sailed for Philadelphia with as good a stock of necessaries as usually fall to the lot of men in our respective positions.  These were all that remained to me of a ship and cargo that were worth between eighty and ninety thousand dollars!

The passage proved to be very long, but we reached the capes of the Delaware at last.  On the 7th September, 1804, or when I wanted a few weeks of being three-and-twenty, I landed on the wharves of what was then the largest town in America, a ruined and disappointed man.  Still I kept up my spirits, leaving my companions in ignorance of the extent of my misfortunes.  We remained a few days to discharge the cargo, when we were all three paid off.  Neb, who had passed on board the Schuylkill for a free black, brought me his wages, and when we had thrown our joint stock into a common bag, it was found to amount to the sum of one hundred and thirty-two dollars.  With this money, then, we prepared to turn our faces north, Marble anxious to meet his mother and little Kitty, Neb desirous of again seeing Chloe, and I to meet my principal creditor John Wallingford, and to gain some tidings of Mr. Hardinge and Lucy.

Chapter XXVI.

        “You think, I’ll weep. 
  No, I’ll not weep:—­
  I have full cause of weeping; but this heart
  Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,
  Or ere I’ll weep.”

  Lear.

I pass over the manner and time of our being on the road between Philadelphia and New York, as things belonging to a former age, and to be forgotten.  I will merely say that we travelled the South Amboy road, and went through a part of the world called Feather-bed Lane, that causes my bones to ache, even now, in recollection.  At South Amboy, we got on board a sloop, or packet, and entered the bay of New York, by the passage of the Kills, landing near White-hall.  We were superintending the placing of our chests on a cart, when some one caught my hand, and exclaimed—­