“Father,” said Phil, after some moments spent in silence and facial contortion, “I can’t take your watch, even for a little while. You’ve always worn it: it’s your--the family’s--patent of nobility.” “Well,” said the old farmer, after contemplating the toes of his boots a few seconds, “I don’t mind ownin’ up to my oldest son that I look at the old watch in about the same light; but a patent of nobility is a disgrace to a family if the owner’s heir isn’t fit to inherit it. See? Guess you’d better make up your mind to break yourself into your comin’ responsibilities, by carryin’ that watch in New York. Wonder what time ’tis?” The question was a good pretext on which to take the “patent of nobility” from his fob-pocket and look at it. He did it in a way which caused Phil quickly to avert his face and devote himself with great industry to stacking corn. Half a minute later the old man, cutlass in hand, was cutting corn as if his life depended upon it. CHAPTER III. “DOWN TO YORK.” Despite his father’s expressed desire, Phil went to New York on Sol Mantring’s sloop. The difference in time promised to be a day or two days, but the difference in cash outlay was more than five dollars,--a sum which no one in the vicinity of Hayn Farm had ever been known to spend needlessly without coming to grief. Between cash in hand and its nominal equivalent in time, Phil, like most other prudent young countrymen, had learned to distinguish with alacrity and positiveness: besides, he knew how small was the amount of ready money that his father, in spite of care and skill at his business, was able to show for more than a quarter of a century of hard work.