“State your own requirements, Flagg.  I didn’t propose that you should offer yourself as coachman.”

“It would amount to the same thing, Wesley.  I should at once be relegated to his level.  Some large opportunity is dead sure to present itself to me if I wait.  I believe the office should seek the man.”

“I have noticed that a man has to meet his opportunities more than halfway, or he doesn’t get acquainted with them.  Mohammed was obliged to go to the mountain, after waiting for the mountain to come to him.”

“Mohammed’s mistake was that he didn’t wait long enough.  He was too impatient.  But don’t you fret.  I have come to Yankeedom to make my fortune.  The despot’s heel is on your shore, and it means to remain there until he hears of something greatly to his advantage.”

A few days following this conversation, Mr. Nelson, of Files & Nelson, wholesale grocers on Front Street, mentioned to me casually that he was looking for a shipping-clerk.  Before the war the firm had done an extensive Southern trade, which they purposed to build up again now that the ports of the South were thrown open.  The place in question involved a great deal of outdoor work—­the loading and unloading of spicy cargoes, a life among the piers—­all which seemed to me just suited to my cousin’s woodland nature.  I could not picture him nailed to a desk in a counting-room.  The salary was not bewildering, but the sum was to be elastic, if ability were shown.  Here was an excellent chance, a stepping-stone, at all events; perhaps the large opportunity itself, artfully disguised as fifteen dollars a week.  I spoke of Flagg to Mr. Nelson, and arranged a meeting between them for the next day.

I said nothing of the matter at the dinner-table that evening; but an encouraging thing always makes a lantern of me, and Clara saw the light in my face.  As soon as dinner was over I drew my cousin into the little side room, and laid the affair before him.

“And I have made an appointment for you to meet Mr. Nelson to-morrow at one o’clock,” I said, in conclusion.

“My dear Wesley”—­he had listened to me in silence, and now spoke without enthusiasm—­“I don’t know what you were thinking of to do anything of the sort.  I will not keep the appointment with that person.  The only possible intercourse I could have with him would be to order groceries at his shop.  The idea of a man who has moved in the best society of the South, who has been engaged in great if unsuccessful enterprises, who has led the picked chivalry of his oppressed land against the Northern hordes—­the idea of a gentleman of this kidney meekly simmering down into a factotum to a Yankee dealer in canned goods!  No, sir; I reckon I can do better than that.”

The lantern went out.