They parted when they were seventeen and did not meet again for years, for Humphrey went into the Navy as he had planned and Jonathan, with mallet and chisel in hand and with that sober, earnest air that always clung to him, was already at work in his father’s shipyard. In time he became master of the entire business, while Humphrey was scouring the seas, sailing on just those far voyages of which he had so often dreamed. Jonathan had his dreams also, but he did not speak of them, only toiled away at building the heavy, sturdy vessels that carried America’s trade overseas early in the last century. Honest ships they were and reliable, as sure of coming to port as though they had belonged to the age of steam, but oh, how long it took them to make a voyage! In the privacy of his dingy little office Jonathan, with the door fastened, would push aside the clutter of plans and drawings and would get out the model of a strange vessel, sharp, slender and graceful, with a hull like a racing yacht. He would set it upon the bench to carve a little here, to alter a curve by a hair’s breadth there, or merely to stand staring at it sometimes for hours at a time, staring and thinking. One day when he was so standing, utterly lost in some unspoken vision, there came a knock at the door, followed by an impatient second one and a thunderous third, all during the moment of time that it took the shipmaster to put out of sight his beloved model. When the door was opened there strode in a tall sunburned person in blue uniform, Humphrey Reynolds come at last to see his old comrade, bringing a roll of government documents under his arm. “Congress has taken a sudden turn toward increasing the Navy,” the young officer explained, “and the orders are going out to build twelve ships in haste. One of the contracts is to come to you, if you will take it. They are even in such need that they have not laid down the specifications to the last bolt and rope’s end, so that the man who builds this ship and the officer who superintends the construction, can really have something to say about the design.” He looked his old friend very steadily in the eye and saw a slow smile of deep, unspoken delight dawn upon the shipbuilder’s face. Jonathan Adams’ hard hands did not often tremble, but they shook a little now as he reached up to the shelf above the bench and brought down his model. “I have been thinking about such a design since I was ten years old,” he said, “and the chance to build it has come at last. We will make them a real ship, Humphrey, and the whole world will open its eyes when it sees you sail her.”