he said, "like a grampus."

That night Charlie Brooke sat with his mother in her parlour. They were
alone--their friends having considerately left them to themselves on
this their first night.

They had been talking earnestly about past and present, for the son had
much to learn about old friends and comrades, and the mother had much to
tell.

"And now, mother," said Charlie, at the end of a brief pause, "what
about the future?"

"Surely, my boy, it is time enough to talk about that to-morrow, or next
day. You are not obliged to think of the future before you have spent
even one night in your old room."

"Not absolutely obliged, mother. Nevertheless, I should like to speak
about it. Poor Shank is heavy on my mind, and when I heard all about
him to-day from May, I--. She's wonderfully improved, that girl,
mother. Grown quite pretty?"

"Indeed she is--and as good as she's pretty," returned Mrs Brooke, with
a furtive glance at her son.

"She broke down when talking about Shank to-day, and I declare she
looked quite beautiful! Evidently Shank's condition weighs heavily on
her mind."

"Can you wonder, Charlie?"

"Of course not. It's natural, and I quite sympathised with her when she
exclaimed, `If I were only a man I would go to him myself.'"

"That's natural too, my son. I have no doubt she would, poor dear girl,
if she were only a man."

"Do you know, mother, I've not been able to get that speech out of my
head all this afternoon. `If I were a man--if I were a man,' keeps
ringing in my ears like the chorus of an old song, and then--"

"Well, Charlie, what then?" asked Mrs Brooke, with a puzzled glance.

"Why, then, somehow the chorus has changed in my brain and it runs--`I
_am_ a man! I _am_ a man!'"

"Well?" asked the mother, with an anxious look.

"Well--that being so, I have made up my mind that _I_ will go out to
Traitor's Trap and carry the money to Shank, and look after him myself.
That is, if you will let me."

"O Charlie! how can you talk of it?" said Mrs Brooke, with a distressed
look. "I have scarcely had time to realise the fact that you have come
home, and to thank God for it, when you begin to talk of leaving me
again--perhaps for years, as before."

"Nay, mother mine, you jump to conclusions too hastily. What I propose
is not to go off again on a long voyage, but to take a run of a few days
in a first-class steamer across what the Americans call the big
fish-pond; then go a