ht to go and be doing
something for myself. You know quite well that I would rather stop
beside you than go anywhere in this wide world, Alice; but that would be
stupid. I'm getting to be a man now, and mustn't go on showin' the
weaknesses of a boy. In the second, or third place,--I forget which, but
no matter,--I am going with Henry, because I could not go with a better
man; and in the fourth--if it's not the fifth--place, I'm going because
Uncle Ole Thorwald has long wished me to go to sea; and, to tell you the
truth, I would have gone long ago had it not been for you, Alice.
There's only one thing that bothers me." Here Corrie looked at his fair
companion with a perplexed air.

"What is that?" asked Alice, sympathetically.

"It is that I must go without saying good-by to Uncle Ole. I am _very_
sorry about it. It will look so ungrateful to him; but it _can't_ be
helped."

"Why not?" inquired Alice. "If he has often said he wished you to go
sea, would he not be delighted to hear that you are going?"

"Yes; but he must not know that I am going to-night, and with Henry
Stuart."

"Why not?"

"Ah! that's the point. Mystery! Alice--mystery! What a world of mystery
this is!" observed the precocious Corrie, shaking his head with
profound solemnity. "I've been involved (I think that's the word),
rolled up, drowned, and buried in mystery for more than three weeks, and
I'm beginning to fear that I'll never again git into the unmysteriously
happy state in which I lived before this abominable man-of-war came to
the island. No, Alice: I dare not say anything more on that point, even
to you _just now_. But _won't_ I give it you all in my first letter? and
_won't_ you open your eyes until they look like two blue saucers?"

Further conversation between the friends was interrupted at this point
by the inrushing of Toozle, followed up by Poopy, and a short time
after, by Mr. Mason, who took Alice away with him, and left poor Corrie
disconsolate.

While this was going on, John Bumpus was fulfilling his mission to Ole
Thorwald.

He found that obstinate individual in his own parlor, deep in the
investigation of the state of his books of business, which had been
allowed to fall into arrears during his absence.

"Come in, Bumpus. So I hear you were half-hanged when we were away."

Ole wheeled round on his stool, and hooked his thumbs into the armholes
of his vest, as he said this, leaned his back against his desk, and
regarded