This last omission gives Planter Paul Jones as sharp a pang as though he has been slighted by some dearest friend. Having on his own part a native lust for battle, it bewilders him when so excellent a foundation for a duel falls into neglect, and no architect of combat steps forward to build thereon. “It is not to be understood!” observes Planter Paul Jones dejectedly, after the sloop of war, with Lieutenant Parker and those others of that gold-lace coterie, has sailed away, “it’s not to be understood! Surely, there must have been one gentleman among them who, free to do so, would have called me to account.” Then, with solemn sadness: “I am convinced that their admiral interfered.” Who shall say? The admiral is the paternal uncle of Lieutenant Parker of the crushed and broken nose. The story will go later to England to the explanatory effect that no fellow-officer would act for Lieutenant Parker. However, in doubt of this, that last named imprudent person--wearing the marks of Planter Paul Jones’ rebuke for many a day--is not dismissed the king’s service. He will be in the fight off Fort Moultrie, where--unlike Sergeant Jasper of the Americans--he in no wise is to distinguish himself. Planter Paul Jones, when every final chance of the trouble for which he longs has departed with the departure of the war sloop, sorrowfully steers the peace sloop back to his plantation by the Rappahannock; and thereafter he does his best to forget an incident that--because of the mysterious tameness of the English, under conditions which should have brought them ferociously to the field--gives him an aching sense of pain. He says to Mr. Hurst, when about to spread his small canvas and sail away for home, “It is one of those experiences, sir, that shake a man’s faith in his kind.” The colonial dames get hold of the tale, and Planter Paul Jones becomes all the more the petted darling of the drawing-rooms. This of itself is a destiny most friendly to his taste; for our Virginia Bayard lives not without his tender vanities. Bright eyes are more beautiful than stars; and he can sigh, or whisper a sonnet, or softly press a little hand. Also, having in his composition an ardent dash of the peacock, he is capable, with fair ladies looking on, of a decorous, albeit a resplendent strut. Four months, dating from the disaster to Lieutenant Parker’s nose, have squeezed through the gates of a narrow present, and merged with those other countless months which together make the past. It is a muggy April morning, and New York City, panting with its metropolitan population of forty thousand, is soaked to the bone. Little squalls of rain follow each other in gusty procession. Between the squalls the sun shines forth, and sets the world a-steam. After each of these intermittent bursts of glory, the sun is again blotted ont by a black flurry of clouds, and another shower sets in.