much as we
have."

"You forget how the affair began," said Sam. "Suppose the Porsslanese
had sent us missionaries to teach us their religion, and these
missionaries had gradually got possession of land and also some local
power of governing, and then we had ruthlessly murdered some of them
and they had seized all our ports for the purpose of benefiting us, do
you suppose that we would have risen like those miserable Fencers and
massacred anybody? It is inconceivable. They have the strangest
aversion to foreigners too."

"Some of them haven't," said Cleary. "Chung Tu is a friendly old soul,
if he is cracked. He says he believes the Powers have been turned loose
on his country to punish them for having invented gunpowder. He laughs
at Cope's inventions. He says his people set the fashion, and then
wisely stopped when they found that such inventions did more harm than
good. I think they have a right to complain of us. Why, there's one of
our soldiers in the steerage with seventeen of their pigtails with the
scalps still fastened to them as trophies! Old Chung says our ribbons
and decorations are the equivalent of the scalps dangling at a savage's
belt. I didn't tell him we had the genuine article. But, come, you had
better turn in. You'll have a hard day to-morrow. I've advertised your
coming for all I was worth, and if they don't give you a send-off at
St. Kisco, it isn't my fault. I'm glad you're well enough to stand it."

"I'm not as well as I look," said Sam. "I've lost all my nerve. I'm
even worrying a little about all my loot in those cases in the hold. It
sometimes seems that I oughtn't to have taken it."

"What!" cried Cleary. "Well, you are getting squeamish! After all the
fellows you've killed or had killed, I shouldn't mind an ornament or
two."

"Killing is a soldier's main business," said Sam. "Oh, well, I suppose
looting is, too. I won't think anything more about it. Good-night."

While Sam and his friend were conversing on deck, another conversation
which was to have a portentous effect upon the former's destiny was
taking place in the upper corridor of the Peckham Young Ladies'
Seminary at St. Kisco.

"He's perfectly lovely," said a young lady, standing barefoot before
her door in her night-dress to a group of young ladies similarly
attired. "I've got his photograph. And I'm not just going to stand
still and see him pass. It's all very well to have the school dra