e
account of things? Suppose it had gone the other way, would you
contented bide?"

"Not I," laughed De Courval.

"Let us say, then, I have paid a score of thanks; credit me with
these--one should be prudent. Only in the Bible it is a thank,--one. Be
careful of the coin. Let it rest there. So you go to work to-morrow. It
is well; for you have been anxious of late, and for that exacting work
is no bad remedy."

The next day De Courval found himself before seven-thirty in the
counting-house. "It is hard in winter," said the clerk who was to
instruct him. "Got to make the fires then. Mr. Potts is particular. You
must leave no dust, and here are brooms in the closet." And so, perched
on a high stool, the clerk, well amused, watched his successor, Louis
Rene, Vicomte de Courval, sweep out the counting-house.

"By George!" said the critic, "you will wear out a broom a day. What a
dust! Sweep it up in the dust-pan. Sprinkle it first with the
watering-pot. Lord, man, don't deluge it! And now a little sand. Don't
build a sea-beach. Throw out the dust on the ash-heap behind the house."
It was done at last.

"Take your coat off next time. The clerks will be here soon, but we have
a few minutes. Come out and I will show you the place. Oh, this is your
desk, quills, paper, and sand, and 'ware old man Potts."

They went on to the broad landing between the warehouse and Dock Creek.
"There are two brigs from Madeira in the creek, partly unloaded."

The great tuns of Madeira wine filled the air with vinous odors, and on
one side, under a shed, were staves and salt fish from the North for
return cargoes, and potatoes, flour, and onions in ropes for the French
islands.

"The ship outside," said the clerk, "is from the Indies with tea and
silks, and for ballast cheap blue Canton china."

The vessels and the thought of far-away seas pleased the young man. The
big ship, it seemed, had been overhauled by a small British privateer.

"But there is no war?"

"No, but they claim to take our goods billed for any French port, and as
many men as they choose to call English."

"And she beat them off?"

"Yes; Mr. Wynne gave the master a silver tankard, and a hundred dollars
for the men."

De Courval was excited and pleased. It was no day of tame, peaceful
commerce. Malayan pirates in the East, insolent English cruisers to be
outsailed, the race home of rival ships for a market, made every voyage
what men fitly called a venture. Comm