a by-blow and had need of his skill, it being necessary to protect her virtue, which her friends described as being whiter than snow. But death, which scruples not in such matters, betrayed the secret, and sent the whole village into a fever. There being no doubt of Killsly's guilt in the matter, I thereupon had him arrested and brought before me; and, being the guardian of public morality, I ordered him to prison, there to await the sitting of the County Court. Believe me, gentlemen, I would, as I failed not to tell him, have had him well hanged, had the case been left entirely with me. But I leave it to others to speak of the justice of my judgments. Now, though I say it, he called me a fool; and for that it would have gone hard with him, since society can well afford to lose all such vagabonds. But justice was weak in the screws, and he at last escaped between what is called a flaw in the indictment and the ingenuity of his lawyer, as is generally the case with such knowing fellows." All this and much more, the major said, and would have sworn it true. The sailors listened with grave demeanor, and were surprised and amazed at what they considered his extraordinary wisdom. CHAPTER XXII. HOW NEWS OF AN EXTRAORDINARY CHARACTER WAS RECEIVED AND RESTORED THE MAJOR TO SOUND HEALTH; ALSO A FEW REMARKS CONCERNING THE MANUFACTURE OF HEROES. THE judicious and forgiving reader will, I am sure, join me in approving the facility with which the major regained his stock of courage, (lost when entering Tarpaulin Cove,) on hearing that the politicians of New York had determined on making him a hero of no mean parts, and were devising a grand programme for our reception. And this consoling news I read to him from that very enterprising and extremely reliable journal, the New York Herald, a copy of which I got of the parson, who was its Tarpaulin Cove correspondent, and admired it much for its mingling of divine and human things, as well as the amount of honey the editor always mixed with his brimstone. The Common Council had, according to this sagacious journal, held a meeting, and, at the expense of much unintelligible oratory and disorder, passed a resolution appropriating five thousand dollars for the purpose of giving us a reception worthy of either Cicero or Washington. And this was to be entirely in consideration of the great public services we had rendered the country.