'No; you are making your fortune; you'll have a house and a family some day. It's written, a hundred girls would think the chance beyond their desert; or they _might_ think so.' 'Yes; well--I don't want a hundred girls.' 'Nor one, I suppose.' Behind this idle talk the gravest and sharpest scrutiny was bestowed by each man on his fellow. Both were thinking of Josephine, but neither would name her. 'You're a philosopher, Paul says,' continued Cromwell. 'Paul is always talking about you. I don't like to leave that boy; but knowing that you are his friend should make me comfortable. Beside, I couldn't do anything for the lad, if he stood in need of a ten-penny bit.' Cromwell laughed, but not in recklessness--in pride. 'How can you afford to travel, then?' asked Scheffer. 'Oh, I shall go as some other good fellows have gone--on foot; for I shall work my passage, and get somehow from Havre to Paris.' 'What next?' 'Hard work, you know.' 'Yes; I know what hard work means. But do you? Such hard work as this will be?' 'Do you take me for a dunce? Of course I know; and I shall tell you how I did it, five years from now.' Then Scheffer said, not hesitating--for anything like a doubtfulness of manner on his part would have defeated his design: 'I want to invest some money, Harry. Take a couple of hundred for me, and buy some of the specimens; or find them, if you like that better. You shall sell them, when you get back, and pay me a percentage, whatever you can afford.' There was no delay in the answer. It had all the readiness, and the sound, of sincerity. 'Sooner from you, August, than from any other man; but not from any man. I should feel that I was mortgaged. I must begin my own master, as I told Josephine Mitchell. What I bring to her shall be fruit from the tree of my own planting.' August, for a moment, was like a man struck dumb; but when he spoke, he was the philosopher again. 'That's all foolishness,' he said, in a gentle voice; but there was no tenderness in it: it was but the firmness of self-control that made the voice so mild, and the expostulation, so deliberate. 'It's like using an old tool, when you have a new invention that would save half the labor. You'd laugh at a man for that.' 'Laugh away! But I must go out my own man, Scheffer. You'd do the same thing. Don't talk about it. Have you any of those boots I asked for?' Scheffer found a pair. He named the price. Cromwell paid for them, and shook his hand when they separated; for, in the press of business, he said, it might be he should not find time to call on his old friend again. The young men did not meet again. But a fortnight after Cromwell sailed, Scheffer was called upon to pay a note at the bank; a note that bore his own signature, and stated that, for 'value received, I promise to pay to the order of Henry Cromwell, four hundred dollars.' The demand was made in such a manner, and at such a time, as to vex Scheffer to the utmost.