them to sell the very rings out of their ears.  Succeeding so well in this, Mr. Bazalgette plied him on other points, and found him full of valuable matter, and, by a rare union of qualities, very modest and very frank.  “Now I like this,” said Mr. Bazalgette, cheerfully.  “This is a return to old customs.  A century or two ago, you know, the merchant and the captain felt themselves parts of the same stick, and they used to sit and smoke together before a voyage, and sup together after one, and be always putting their heads together; but of late the stick has got so much longer, and so many knots between the handle and the point, that we have quite lost sight of one another.  Here we merchants sit at home at ease, and send you fine fellows out among storms and waves, and think more of a bale of cotton spoiled than of a captain drowned.”

David.  “And we eat your bread, sir, as if it dropped from the clouds, and quite forget whose money and spirit of enterprise causes the ship to be laid on the stocks, and then built, and then rigged, and then launched, and then manned, and then sailed from port to port.”

“Well, well, if you eat our bread, we eat your labor, your skill, your courage, and sometimes your lives, I am sorry to say.  Merchants and captains ought really to be better acquainted.”

“Well, sir,” said David, “now you mention it, you are the first merchant of any consequence I ever had the advantage of talking with.”

“The advantage is mutual, sir; you have given me one or two hints I could not have got from fifty merchants.  I mean to coin you, Captain Dodd.”

David laughed and blushed.  “I doubt it will be but copper coin if you do.  But I am not a captain; I am only first mate.”

“You don’t say so!  Why, how comes that?”

“Well, sir, I went to sea very young, but I wasted a year or two in private ventures.  When I say wasted, I picked up a heap of knowledge that I could not have gained on the China voyage, but it has lost me a little in length of standing; but, on the other hand, I have been very lucky; it is not every one that gets to be first mate at my age; and after next voyage, if I can only make a little bit of interest, I think I shall be a captain.  No, sir, I wish I was a captain; I never wished it as now;” and David sighed deeply.

“Humph!” said Mr. Bazalgette, and took a note.

He then showed David his maps.  David inspected them with almost boyish delight, and showed the merchant the courses of ships on Eastern and Western voyages, and explained the winds and currents that compelled them to go one road and return another, and in both cases to go so wonderfully out of what seems the track as they do. Bref, the two ends of the mercantile stick came nearer.

“My study is always open to you, Mr. Dodd, and I hope you will not let a day pass without obliging me by looking in upon me.”

David thanked him, and went out innocently unconscious that he had performed an unparalleled feat.  In the hall he met Captain Kenealy, who, having received orders to amuse him, invited him to play at billiards.  David consented, out of good-nature, to please Kenealy.  Thus the whole day passed, and les facheux would not let him get a word with Lucy.