n some easy, pleasant business, that would run along
smoothly, without the least exertion on his part. They would have
described him as a boy utterly wanting in firmness of purpose, except
when he got one of his grand ideas into his head, and then he was as
unreasonable and obstinate as a mule. They would have said that his
numerous failures had not taught him wisdom, but had made him more
determined; that he would not listen to any one's advice, and that he
clung with bull-dog tenacity to his favorite belief that "nobody could
teach him." And they would have come, at last, to the inevitable
consequences of such a life as Tom had been leading, and told how he had
been going down hill all this while, until he had at last got so low
that no boy who had the least respect for himself could associate with
him; that he was the leader of a band of rascals, the companion of
burglars, a fugitive from justice, and one of the most miserable and
despised of human beings. Tom could not help acknowledging to himself
that such was his condition, but he clung to the idea that it was not
his fault. His father was responsible for it all.

"If he had only given me that yacht, as he ought to have done," Tom had
said to himself twenty times that night, "things would have been very
different. I could have paid him back his four hundred dollars in a week
or two, and after that every cent I earned would have been clear profit.
But now--just look at me! I won't stand no such treatment from any body,
and that's all about it."

"What's the row now, cap'n?" asked the governor.

"O, I was thinking about that yacht," drawled Tom.

"And, talkin' about her, too," returned Sam; "I heard what you said.
This is a hard world, Tommy, that's a fact. The lucky ones go up, an'
the onlucky ones go down. Life's nothing but luck, nohow."

"Well, if that's the case," whined Tom, "what is the use of a fellow's
exerting himself at all? If it is his lot to go ahead in the world, he
will, and if it isn't, he won't, and all the working and planning he can
do will not better his condition in the least."

"Exactly! Sartinly! That's just my way of thinkin' to a dot; an' every
thing goes to prove that I am right. Now, me an' you were born to be
poor--to go down hill; an' your father was born to be rich--to go up
hill. Haven't you tried hard to be somebody?"

"O, now, yes I have!"

"I know it. I never in my life saw a feller that tried harder, an'
what's the reaso