"Young gentlemen," he said, "that yacht of Merriman's has been reminding me every afternoon for a month of something, and I've just thought what. You remember one day the _Merrimac_ came down the James, very slowly, and sunk the _Cumberland_, and damaged and frightened the Union fleet into fits, just the way Merriman has been going down to Wall Street every morning and frightening us into fits? Well, instead of finishing the work then and there, she suddenly quit and steamed off up the river in the same insolent, don't-give-a-hoot way that Merriman comes up from Wall Street every afternoon. Of course, when the _Merrimac_ came down to finish destroying the fleet the next day, the _Monitor_ had arrived during the night and gave her fits, and they called the whole thing off. Anyhow, it's that going-home-to-sleep-on-it expression of the _Merrimac's_ that I've been seeing in the _Sappho_." "You were on the _Monitor_, weren't you?" asked Powers cheerfully. The old man did not answer, but he was quite willing that Powers and Brett, and the whole world for that matter, should think that he had been. Powers and Brett, though in no cheerful mood, exchanged winks. "I don't see why history shouldn't repeat itself," said Powers. "You don't!" said Brett. "Why, because there isn't any _Monitor_ waiting for Merriman off Wall Street." "And just like the Civil War," said Callender, "this trouble in the street is a rich man's quarrel and a poor man's war. Just because old Merriman is gunning for Waters, you, and I, and the rest of us are about to go up the spout."