's son, who, after all, was less unearthly
than Mr. Jaffrey himself, and seemed more properly an inhabitant of this
globe than the toothless ogre who kept the inn, not to mention the
silent Witch of Endor that cooked our meals for us over the
bar-room fire.

In spite of the scowls and winks bestowed upon me by Mr. Sewell, who let
slip no opportunity to testify his disapprobation of the intimacy, Mr.
Jaffrey and I spent all our evenings together--those long autumnal
evenings, through the length of which he talked about the boy, laying
out his path in life and hedging the path with roses. He should be sent
to the High School at Portsmouth, and then to college; he should be
educated like a gentleman, Andy.

"When the old man dies," remarked Mr. Jaffrey one night, rubbing his
hands gleefully, as if it were a great joke, "Andy will find that the
old man has left him a pretty plum."

"What do you think of having Andy enter West Point, when he's old
enough?" said Mr. Jaffrey on another occasion. "He needn't necessarily
go into the army when he graduates; he can become a civil engineer."

This was a stroke of flattery so delicate and indirect that I could
accept it without immodesty.

There had lately sprung up on the corner of Mr. Jaffrey's bureau a small
tin house, Gothic in architecture and pink in color, with a slit in the
roof, and the word BANK painted on one facade. Several times in the
course of an evening Mr. Jaffrey would rise from his chair without
interrupting the conversation, and gravely drop a nickel into the
scuttle of the bank. It was pleasant to observe the solemnity of his
countenance as he approached the edifice, and the air of triumph with
which he resumed his seat by the fireplace. One night I missed the tin
bank. It had disappeared, deposits and all, like a real bank. Evidently
there had been a defalcation on rather a large scale. I strongly
suspected that Mr. Sewell was at the bottom of it, but my suspicion was
not shared by Mr. Jaffrey, who, remarking my glance at the bureau,
became suddenly depressed.

"I'm afraid," he said, "that I have failed to instill into Andrew those
principles of integrity which--which--" and the old gentleman quite
broke down.

Andy was now eight or nine years old, and for some time past, if the
truth must be told, had given Mr. Jaffrey no inconsiderable trouble;
what with his impishness and his illnesses, the boy led the pair of us a
lively dance. I shall not soon for