"Perhaps you misjudge their character," returned the captain, with a look of good-natured severity. "I'm _sure_ he does," cried Miss Millet, with enthusiasm. "Noble-hearted, simple men, who would probably never go wrong at all if it were not for their unsuspecting trustfulness and bad companions! Come, sit down, Dick. Tea is ready." "Yes, young man," continued Captain Millet "you misjudge 'em. You should not judge of a school by the shouting and mischief of the worst boys, who always flaunt their colours, while the good ones steer quietly on their course. You'll understand that better when your beard is grey. Youth is fond o' lookin' at the surface, an' so is apt to misjudge the character of men as well as the ways of Providence." Jeff took the rebuke in good part, readily admitted that youth was prone to err, and slily expressed a hope that in his case coming in contact with age might do him good. "If you mean that for a shot at me," cried the captain, with a loud guffaw, "you've missed the mark; for I'm only forty-five, an' that isn't age; is it, Molly?" "Of course not. Why, you're little more than a baby yet," replied Miss Millet who greatly enjoyed even a small joke--indeed, she enjoyed almost everything, more or less, that was not wicked. "But now, Dick, I want you to tell Jeff some of your adventures in foreign parts--especially those that have a moral, you know." "Why, Molly, that's a hard job--you don't want me to _draw_ the moral, do you? I never was good at that, though I've known fellows with that peculiar cast o' brain as could draw a moral out of a marline-spike if they were hard put to it. Seems to me that it's best to let morals draw themselves. For instance, that time when I was wrecked on the South American coast, I came to a shallow river, an' had to wade across, but was too lazy to pull off my boots, 'cause they were long fisherman's boots, right up to the hip an' rather tight; so in I went boots an' all. Just as I was gettin' to the other side, a most awful alligator seized hold o' my right foot. It's wonderful how easy my boot came off just then! Although I was used to tug, an' shove, and gasp, and pull, at that boot of a night, no sooner did the alligator lay hold on it than my leg came out like a cork out of a bottle, and I was out o' the water and up the bank like a squirrel. Now, Molly, what would you say was the moral that should be drawn from that--Never use an alligator as a boot-jack--eh?" "I should say, Never wade across a South American river without your boots on," suggested Jeff.