u the truth, sir--I had looked for a rendezvous of
careless jolly fellows. For cavaliers of your quality it never
occurred to me to bargain." He held up a flap of his ragged coat and
shook it ruefully.

My father frowned. "And I, sir, am disappointed. A moment since I
took you for an original; but it appears you share our common English
vice of looking at the world like a lackey."

"I, sir?" The young man waved a hand. "I am original? Give me
leave to assure you that this island contains no more servile
tradesman. Why, my lord--for I take it I speak to a gentleman of
title?--"

"Of the very humblest, sir. I am a plain knight bachelor."

The original cringed elaborately, rubbing his hands. "A title is a
title. Well, sir, as I was about to say, I worship a lord, but my
whole soul is bound up in a ledger: and hence (so to speak) these
tears: hence the disreputable garb in which you behold me. If I may
walk beside you, sir, after this good woman has fetched me the rose--
thank you, madam--and provided me with a pin from the _chevaux de
frise_ in her bodice--and again, madam, I thank you: you wear the
very cuirass of matronly virtue--I should enjoy, sir, to tell you my
history. It is a somewhat curious one."

"I feel sure, sir"--my father bowed to him from the saddle--"it will
lose nothing in the telling."

The young man, having fastened the rose in his hat, bade adieu to his
late assailant with a bow; waved a hand to her; lifted his hat a
second time; turned after us and, falling into stride by my father's
stirrup, forthwith plunged into his story.

THE TRAVELS OF PHINEAS FETT.

"My name, sir, is Phineas Fett--"

He paused. "I don't know how it may strike you: but in my infant
ears it ever seemed to forebode something in the Admiralty--a
comfortable post, carrying no fame with it, but moderately lucrative.
In wilder flights my fancy has hovered over the Pipe Office (Addison,
sir, was a fine writer; though a bit of a prig, between you and me)."

"There was a Phineas Pett, a great shipbuilder for the Navy in King
Charles the Second's time. I believe, too, he had a son christened
after him, who became a commissioner of the Navy."

"You don't say so! The mere accident of a letter . . . but it proves
the accuracy of our childish instincts. A commissionership--whatever
the duties it may carry--would be the very thing, or a
storekeepership, with a number of ledgers: it being understood that
ship