"I was all alone; d'ye know what that is, Stephen Brent?" says Wabberley. How long he lived thus solitary he knew not, but he was nearly out of his mind when one day a ship's boat came ashore for water, and brought him home, the wreck we saw him. "You won't forget your old schoolmate, Stephen Brent?" says he; and my uncle, who had muttered "Dear, dear!" and "Poor fellow!" and suchlike things, while Wabberley was speaking, now thrust his hand into his pocket, and saying "God have mercy on us all!" gave him a handful of silver. Wabberley touched his forelock in the old mechanical fashion, and without a second look at me he hobbled away, and as he came to the gate, whom should he meet but Billy, walking up to the house with his eldest son, a boy of twelve. Billy stopped, and in his face I saw a great amazement; but Wabberley passed him by, not knowing him again. And then I was surprised, and touched too, to see Billy follow after the poor old man, and take him by one arm, and make his boy take the other, to help his tottering footsteps, and so they passed out of my sight. [Sidenote: The End] I have been long of telling my story; yet I might have told much more but for the fear of wearying you. Billy sometimes says he wouldn't have minded taking a trip to the South Seas and having a look at Old Smoker; but if it had come to the point I think he could hardly have torn himself away from Elizabeth and the little Bobbins. As for me, though I have neither wife nor child, I am too busy a man, and maybe too old, to think of entering upon what would, I fear, be a long and troublesome search. There have been many voyages of discovery in those parts since my time, and if Palm Tree Island is now marked on maps and charts for the guidance of captains and navigators, I think I should feel a trifle sorry did I see it under another name. [1] This must have been Bougainville Island, one of the Solomon Group.--H.S. RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK. HERBERT STRANG'S BOOKS FOR BOYS "_Mr. Strang is the legitimate successor to the late Mr. Henty. There were many chapters of Henty's, however, which boys were prone to 'skip'; they will not be tempted to skip anything of Mr. Strang's._"--BIRMINGHAM POST. Humphrey Bold: His Chances and Mischances by Land and Sea Illustrated in Colour by W. H. MARGETSON. Crown 8vo, cloth elegant, olivine edges, 6/-. Special Presentation Edition, 7/6 net.