, we must decline to have any business dealings
with you other than to accept your receipt for forty dollars, which will
be paid you in the outer office."

So Cabot swallowed his pride, took what he could get, and left the bank a
little more downcast than he had been at any time since the day on which
President Hepburn had entrusted him with his present mission.

"I don't understand it at all," he muttered to himself, as he sought an
eating-house, where he proposed to expend a portion of his money in
satisfying his keen appetite. "Seems to me it is a mighty mean return
for all I have gone through, and Mr. Hepburn will have to explain matters
pretty clearly when I get back to New York."

From the eating-house Cabot sent a letter to White, explaining his
inability to secure the money he had expected, begging him to lie low for
a few days, and announcing his own immediate departure for New York, from
which place he promised to send back the amount of the draft immediately
upon his arrival. In this letter Cabot also enclosed fifteen dollars,
just to help White out until he could send him some more money. This
outlay left our young engineer but twenty-five dollars, but that would
pay for a steerage passage, which, he reflected, would be plenty good
enough for one in his reduced circumstances, and leave a few dollars for
emergencies when he reached New York.

Two hours later, still clutching the bag of specimens that now formed his
sole luggage, he stood on the forward deck of the steamer "Amazon" as she
slipped through the narrow passage leading out from the land-locked
harbour, gazing back at the city of St. Johns climbing its steep hillside
and dominated by the square towers of its Roman Catholic cathedral. He
was feeling very forlorn and lonely, and was wondering how he should
manage to exist on steerage fare in steerage company during the next five
days, when a familiar voice, close at hand, said:

"Hello, young man in furs! Where do you come from? Been to the North
Pole with Peary?"

Turning quickly, Cabot gasped out:

"Captain Phinney!"

"No, not cap'n, but second mate Phinney," retorted the other. "But how
do you know my name? I don't recognise you."

"I am Cabot Grant, who was with you on the 'Lavinia' when----"

"Good heavens, man! It can't be."

"It is, though, and I never was more glad to see any one, not even David
Gidge, than I am to see you at this minute. But why are you second mate
inst