“Births! It is your nautical word for ‘situation, or; station;’ is it not? We know but little of the marine vocabulary, we barristers; but I think I may venture on that as the true Doric. Am I justified by your authority?” “The word is certainly not yet obsolete; and, by a figure, it is as certainly correct in the sense you used it.” “Obsolete!” repeated the stranger in green, returning the meaning look he had just received: “Is that the name of any part of a ship? Perhaps, by _figure_, you mean figure-head; and, by _obsolete_, the long-boat!” The young seaman laughed; and, as if this sally had broken through the barrier of his reserve, his manner lost much of its cold restraint during the remainder of their conference. “It is just as plain,” he said, “that you have been at sea, as it is that I have been at school. Since we have both been so fortunate, we may afford to be generous and cease speaking in parables. For instance, what think you has been the object and use of this ruin, when it was in good condition?” “In order to judge of that,” returned the stranger in green, “it may be necessary to examine it more closely. Let us ascend.” As he spoke, the barrister mounted, by a crazy ladder, to the floor which lay just above the crown of the arches, through which he passed by an open trapdoor His companion hesitated to follow; but, observing that the other expected him at the summit of the ladder, and that he very kindly pointed out a defective round, he sprang forward, and went up the ascent with the agility and steadiness peculiar to his calling. “Here we are!” exclaimed the stranger in green, looking about at the naked walls, which were formed of such small and irregular stones as to give the building the appearance of dangerous frailty, “with good oaken plank for our deck, as you would say, and the sky for our roof, as we call the upper part of a house at the universities. Now let us speak of things on the lower world. A—a—; I forget what you said was your usual appellation—” “That might depend on circumstances. I have been known by different names in different situations However, if you call me Wilder, I shall not fail to answer.” “Wilder!” a good name; though, I dare say, it would have been as true were it Wildone. You young ship-boys have the character of being a little erratic in your humours at times. How many tender hearts have you left to sigh for your errors, amid shady bowers, while you have been ploughing—that is the word, I believe—ploughing the salt-sea ocean?” “Few sigh for me,” returned Wilder, thoughtfully, though he evidently began to chafe a little under this free sort of catechism. “Let us now return to our study of the tower. What think you has been its object?”