should have to go; and for the moment
I was about to turn sharp round on Tom, and shake hands and say, "That's
right, Tom, we will go out and carve our fortunes together." But I
checked myself directly, as I thought of my position.

For how was I to take out with me what to all intents and purposes would
be a servant, when the probabilities were that I should hardly have the
money to pay my own passage to the far-off land?

I was interrupted in my thoughts by Tom, who turned to me and said,
"Give me your knife, Mas'r Harry, and I'll give it a good sharp up along
o' mine. There's nothing like having a good keen knife in your pocket
when you're going travelling, so they say."

"Very true, Tom," I cried laughing; "are you really in earnest over
this?"

"Really in earnest, Mas'r Harry? Why, I never felt so earnest before in
my life. To be sure I am, I want to see a bit o' the world."

"Very well then, Tom," I replied; "you will have a hard lot to share
with me, but share it you shall if you like."

"I don't want to share or anything of the kind," said Tom gruffly.
"You're young master, and I'm only lad. I know what I am and what I'm
fit for well enough, Mas'r Harry, so don't you get talking no more about
sharing danger, because it won't do."

"Oh, very well, Tom, we won't quarrel about that."

"That's right then, Mas'r Harry; so now give us hold of your knife."

I gave him my knife, in a thoughtful way, and he took it, opened it, and
examined its edge.

"Blunt as a butter knife, Mas'r Harry," he cried. "And now, when do we
start?"

"Start, Tom?" I cried laughing. "Oh, it is not like going to London,
we must make a great many preparations first, for it's a long journey."

"Is it?" he said. "Two or three hundred miles, Mas'r Harry?"

"A good deal more than two or three thousand, Tom," I replied.

"Oh, all right, Mas'r Harry. I don't mind how far it is, as long as we
keep together. My word an' honour, won't it be different to making best
yaller and mottled and cutting it into bars?"

"Different, Tom?" I said dreamily. "Yes, my lad, it will indeed."

CHAPTER THREE.

I COME TO AN UNDERSTANDING WITH MY FATHER.

I believe I lay in bed that night with my eyes wide open, seeing, as if
in a waking dream, the whole of the eventful life I had pictured out for
myself--a glorious career of adventure in a land of imaginary beauties--
a land built up out of recollections of Robinson Crusoe's island, _