“Well, Old Ramskin!” said he, addressing M’Kinlay; for while he talked he drank freely, and was already in his third bottle of Burgundy, warmed up with occasional “flashes” of brandy--“well, Old Ramskin, I guess you’d rather be perched on a tall stool in your counting-house than up on a rock, watching for an Indian scout party; but, mark me, it’s all prejudice, and for my part I’d rather put a ball in a red-skin than I’d torture a white man with law and parchments.” He here diversified his personal recollections by some anecdotes of lawyers, and of the esteem in which their fellow-citizens hold them “Far West,” the whole winding up with a declaration that such creatures “warn’t in natur,” and only grew out of a rank, rotten, and stagnant condition of society, which, when only stirred by any healthy breeze of public opinion, either “left ‘em or Lynched ‘em.” He turned round for the approval of his host to this sentiment, and now saw, for the first time, that he had quitted the table. “If you had not been so energetic in your censures of my profession, Sir;” said M’Kinlay, “you might have heard Mr. Luttrell asking us to excuse his absence for a few minutes while he spoke to his son.” Perhaps the American felt this rebuke as a sharp one, for he sat in silence for some minutes, when he said, “Am I to have the pleasure of your company to-night when I weigh anchor?” “Yes; I intend to leave when you do.” “Your business is done, then?” “It is.” “And mine, too,” said the American; and each looked at the other, to see who first would divulge his secret. “I have made arrangements for the guardianship of his son, whom, by the way, I never suspected to be the boy we picked up at sea,” said M’Kinlay, thus endeavouring, by a half-confidence, to obtain the whole of the American’s. “He’ll not want such guardianship, I promise you, when he lives a few years with me.” “With you! What do you mean?” “Just what I say, stranger; that he’s coming aboard the _Squash_, bound now for the Isthmus; and, I repeat it, five years with Hairy Dodge will turn him out a long sight cuter than if he passed his ‘prenticeship even with yourself.” “It is a strange notion of Mr. Luttrel’s--a very strange notion.” The American raised himself up in his seat, and looked as if he were about to resent the speech, but he repressed the temptation, and merely said, “We’re going to have lighter weather than we came over in, and a fine bright night besides.” “I hope so, with all my heart,” said the other; and now each sat and sipped his wine in silence. Leaving them thus, let us turn one moment to Luttrell, as he stood at the window of his room, with his boy beside him. There was neither lamp nor candle, but a strong moonlight streamed into the chamber, and their shadows were distinctly marked upon the floor. “Why is Molly crying so bitterly, papa? Sure I’m not going away for ever!” said Harry.