o the family, as usual. It was on business, he said, folding
it up in his wallet. He received several of these business letters from
time to time, and I noticed that they always made him silent and moody.

The fact is, my father's banking-house was not thriving. The
unlooked-for failure of a firm largely indebted to him had crippled
"the house." When the Captain imparted this information to me I didn't
trouble myself over the matter. I supposed--if I supposed anything--that
all grown-up people had more or less money, when they wanted it. Whether
they inherited it, or whether government supplied them, was not clear
to me. A loose idea that my father had a private gold-mine somewhere or
other relieved me of all uneasiness.

I was not far from right. Every man has within himself a gold-mine whose
riches are limited only by his own industry. It is true, it sometimes
happens that industry does not avail, if a man lacks that something
which, for want of a better name, we call Luck. My father was a person
of untiring energy and ability; but he had no luck. To use a Rivermouth
saying, he was always catching sculpins when everyone else with the same
bait was catching mackerel.

It was more than two years since I had seen my parents. I felt that I
could not bear a longer separation. Every letter from New Orleans--we
got two or three a month--gave me a fit of homesickness; and when it was
definitely settled that my father and mother were to remain in the South
another twelvemonth, I resolved to go to them.

Since Binny Wallace's death, Pepper Whitcomb had been my fidus Achates;
we occupied desks near each other at school, and were always together
in play hours. We rigged a twine telegraph from his garret window to
the scuttle of the Nutter House, and sent messages to each other in
a match-box. We shared our pocket-money and our secrets--those amazing
secrets which boys have. We met in lonely places by stealth, and parted
like conspirators; we couldn't buy a jackknife or build a kite without
throwing an air of mystery and guilt over the transaction.

I naturally hastened to lay my New Orleans project before Pepper
Whitcomb, having dragged him for that purpose to a secluded spot in the
dark pine woods outside the town. Pepper listened to me with a gravity
which he will not be able to surpass when he becomes Chief Justice, and
strongly advised me to go.

"The summer vacation," said Pepper, "lasts six weeks; that will give you
a