“I beg that you will excuse me,” returns Planter Paul Jones. He has been making plans of his own while they talked. “I trust you will pardon me; but I shall have no more than time to write and post my letters, and get away on the ebb tide. Three days from now I must be at my plantation by the Rappahannock, putting all in order for the storm.” “Remember!” cries Mr. Livingston, as he and Planter Paul Jones shake bands at parting, “my brother Philip will be in the coming Congress. You have but to go to him, he is as much your friend as is either Mr. Washington or Mr. Jefferson. I shall speak to Philip of you before the day is out.” “Say to your brother,” returns Planter Paul Jones, “that I shall come to him among the first.” The winds generously flatter the little sloop on her return voyage. She came north slowly, reluctantly; now, with the wind aft and all but blowing a gale, she flies southward like a bird. As Planter Paul Jones boasted, within the three days after seeing the last of Sandy Hook, he steps ashore on his own domain by the Rappahannock. Cato and Scipio grin in exultation. In a pardonable anxiety to open the eyes of plodding fellow-slaves of the tobacco fields, they mendaciously shorten the sailing time out of New York by forty-eight hours, and declare that Planter Paul Jones brought the sloop home in a single day. “Potch um home, Marse Paul does, faster than a wil’ duck could trabble!” is their story. Thereupon, the innocent tobacco blacks marvel, openmouthed, at the far-travelled Cato, and Scipio of the many experiences. Planter Paul Jones, on whom a war-fever is growing, plunges into immediate conference with Duncan Macbean. “How much free money can we make?” he asks. The old Highlander scratches his grizzled locks. Then he thoughtfully considers the inside of his Glengarry bonnet, which he takes from his head for that purpose. One would think, from his long study of it, that he keeps his accounts in its linings. The inspection being over, he puts it back on his head. “Now there s’uld be the matter of three thousand guineas in gold in Williamsburg,” returns old Duncan Macbean; “besides a hunner or so siller in the house. I can gi’ ye three thousand guineas, and never miss the feel o’ them, gin that’ll be enou’.” “Three thousand guineas! What time I shall be in Philadelphia it should keep a king! Have it set to my credit, Duncan, in Mr. Ross’ bank in Chestnut Street in that town. I shall go there as soon as Congress convenes.” “And will ye no be back home agen?” asks Duncan, his bronzed cheek a trifle white. “If there’s war--and, take it from me, there will be--I shall not return. I hope to sail in the first warship that flies the colors of the Colonies.” Then, grasping old Duncan’s hand in a grip of steel: “You stay here and run the plantation, old friend! Wherever I am, I shall know that all is right ashore while you are here. For I can trust you.”