ffered a prejudice to override your shrewd good sense. The
man is a snob, and no more."

"Well, sir, I 'd like to ask, could you say worse of him? Ain't a snob
a fellow as wants to be taken for better bred or richer or cleverer or
more influential than he really is? Ain't he a cheat? Ain't he one as
says, 'I ain't like that poor publican yonder, I 'm another guess sort
of crittur, and sit in quite another sort of place?' Jest now, picture
to your own mind how pleasant the world would be if one-fourth, or even
one-tenth, of its inhabitants was fellows of that stamp!"

It was only after two or three turns on the deck that Lay-ton could
subdue the Colonel's indignation sufficiently to make him listen to
him with calm and attention. With a very brief preamble he read Clara's
letter for him, concluding all with the few lines inscribed "My Secret."
"It is about this I want your advice, dear friend," said he. "Tell me
frankly what you think of it all."

Quackinboss was always pleased when asked his advice upon matters which
at first blush might seem out of the range of his usual experiences. It
seemed such a tribute to his general knowledge of life, that it was a
very graceful species of flattery, so that he was really delighted by
this proof of Layton's confidence in his acuteness and his delicacy, and
in the exact proportion of the satisfaction he felt was he disposed to
be diffuse and long-winded.

"This ain't an easy case, sir," began he; "this ain't one of those
measures where a man may say, 'There's the right and there's the wrong
of it;' and it takes a man like Shaver Quackinboss--a man as has seen
snakes with all manner o' spots on 'em--to know what's best to be done."

"So I thought," mildly broke in Layton,--"so I thought."

"There's chaps in this world," continued he, "never sees a difficulty
nowhere; they 'd whittle a hickory stick with the same blade as a piece
of larch timber, sir; ay, and worse, too, never know how they gapped
their knife for the doin' it! You 'd not believe it, perhaps, but
the wiliest cove ever I seen in life was an old chief of the Mandans,
Ai-ha-ha-tha, and his rule was, when you 're on a trail, track it step
by step; never take short cuts. Let us read the girl's letter again."
And he did so carefully, painstakingly, folding it up afterwards with
slow deliberation, while he reflected over the contents.

"I 'in a-thinkin'," said he, at last,--"I 'm a-thinkin' how we might
utilize that