d.' How old would you take me to be?"

"Fifty or fifty-five," said Enoch.

"Thanks, captain, I know I must look all of that; but, let me see,
forty-five, fifty-five, sixty-five, seventy--seventy--what year is
this?"

"Seventy-three."

"Seventy-three. Well, I'm only twenty-eight now."

"Impossible! Why, man, you're as gray as I am, and I'm twice that."

"I was born in forty-five, just the same. My father was a sea captain in
the old clipper days, and a long time after. He was in the West India
trade when the war broke out, and as he had been educated in the navy,
enlisted at once. It was on one of the gunboats before Vicksburg that he
was killed. My mother came of a well-to-do family of merchants, the
Clarks of Boston, and--to make a long story short--died in sixty-six,
leaving me considerable money.

"An itching to travel, plenty of money, my majority, and no ties at
home, sent me away from college to roam, and so one spring morning in
sixty-seven found me sitting lazily in the stern of a little pleasure
boat off Fort Point in the Golden Gate, listlessly watching a steam
whaler come in from the Pacific. My boatman called my attention to her,
remarking that she was spick-and-span new, and the biggest one he ever
saw, but I took very little notice of the ship until in tacking across
her wake, I noticed her name in gold letters across the stern--'Duncan
McDonald.' Now that is my own name, and was my father's; and try as I
would, I could not account for this name as a coincidence, common as the
name might be in the highlands of the home of my ancestors; and before
the staunch little steamer had gotten a mile away, I ordered the boat to
follow her. I intended to go aboard and learn, if possible, something of
how her name originated.

"As she swung at anchor, off Goat island, I ran my little boat alongside
of her and asked for a rope. 'Rope?' inquired a Yankee sailor, sticking
his nose and a clay pipe overboard; 'might you be wantin' to come
aboard?'

"'Yes, I want to see the captain.'

"'Well, the cap'en's jest gone ashore; his dingy is yonder now, enemost
to the landin'. You come out this evenin'. The cap'en's particular about
strangers, but he's always to home of an evenin'.'

"'Who's this boat named after?'

"'The Lord knows, stranger; I don't. But I reckon the cap'en ken tell;
he built her.'

"I left word that I would call in the evening, and at eight o'clock was
alongside again. This time I was assisted