hole privy council puzzled over
those notes of mine. I felt very pleased with them when they were done.

I had not much more than a half-hour left to me when I finished writing
them out. The ship's bells told me that it was seven o'clock. Cabin
breakfast, as I knew very well, would be at eight. I could expect to
be called at half past seven. I put the two flaps of the satchel evenly
together, removing all traces of the thread used in the earlier sewing.
Then I very trimly sewed the two flaps with my sail-needle, using all
my strength to make secure stitches. I used some brown soap in the
wash-stand as thread wax, to make the sewing more easy. "There," I
thought, "no one will suspect that this was sewn by a boy." When I had
finished, I thought of dirtying the twine to make the work look old; but
I decided to let well alone. I might so easily betray my hand by trying
to do too much. The slight trace of the soap made the work look old
enough. But I took very great care to remove all traces of my work
in the cabin. The little scraps of thread which I had cut out of the
satchel I ate, as I could see no safer means of getting rid of them. I
cannot say that they disagreed with me, though they were not very easy
to get down. My palm, being a common sea-implement, not likely to
seem strange in a ship's cabin, I hid in a locker below my bunk. My
sail-needles I thrust at first into the linings of the pockets of my
tarred sea-coat. On second thoughts, I drove them into the mattress of
my bunk. My hank of twine I dropped on deck later, when I went out to
breakfast. Having covered all traces of my morning's work, I washed with
a light heart. When some one came to my cabin-door to call me, I cried
out that I would be out in a minute.

When the breakfast bell rang, I walked aft to the great cabin, with my
satchel over my shoulder. The captain asked me how I had slept; so
I said that I had slept like a top, until a few minutes before I was
called.

"That's the way with you young fellows," he said. "When you come to be
my age you won't be able to do that." Presently, as we were sitting down
to breakfast, he began his attack upon the satchel. "You still got your
satchel, I see," he said. "Do you carry it about with you always? Or are
you pretending to be a military man with a knapsack?"

I looked a little uncomfortable at this; but not from the reason which
flashed through his mind. I said that I liked carrying it about, as it
served