ely," laughed the big man; "I'll stake my oath he has not a groat to
pay their beggarly accounts, as year honour is pleased to call them."

They ceased jabbering and straightened to attention, awaiting my reply.
But I forgot them all, and thought only of the captain, and of the
trouble I had brought him. He began to show some consternation as I went
up to him.

"My dear friend," I said, vainly trying to steady my voice, "I beg,
I pray that you will not lose faith in me,--that you will not think any
deceit of mine has brought you to these straits. Mr. Dix did not know
me, and has had no word from my grandfather of my disappearance. And Mr.
Manners, whom I thought my friend, spurned me in the street before the
Duke of Chartersea."

And no longer master of myself, I sat down at the table and hid my face,
shaken by great sobs, to think that this was my return for his kindness.

"What," I heard him cry, "Mr. Manners spurned you, Richard! By all
the law in Coke and Littleton, he shall answer for it to me. Your
fairweather fowl shall have the chance to run me through!"

I sat up in bewilderment, doubting my senses.

"You believe me, captain," I said, overcome by the man's faith; "you
believe me when I tell you that one I have known from childhood refused
to recognize me to-day?"

He raised me in his arms as tenderly as a woman might.

"And the whole world denied you, lad, I would not. I believe you--" and
he repeated it again and again, unable to get farther.

And if his words brought tears to my eyes, my strength came with them.

"Then I care not," I replied; "I only to live to reward you."

"Mr. Manners shall answer for it to me!" cried John Paul again, and made
a pace toward the door.

"Not so fast, not so fast, captain, or admiral, or whatever you are,"
said the bailiff, stepping in his way, for he was used to such scenes;
"as God reigns, the owners of all these fierce titles be fire-eaters, who
would spit you if you spilt snuff upon 'em. Come, come, gentlemen, your
swords, and we shall see the sights o' London."

This was the signal for another uproar, the tailor shrieking that John
Paul must take off the suit, and Banks the livery; asking the man in the
corner by the sea-chests (who proved to be the landlord) who was to pay
him for his work and his lost cloth. And the landlord shook his fist at
us and shouted back, who was to pay him his four pounds odd, which
included two ten-shilling dinners and a flask o