The Captain's eye gleamed with pleasure as he replied, "Jack is a noble fellow, Mr. Brown, though I say it who am his father. I've often promised myself a cruise to Oxford since he has been here. I came here at last yesterday, and have been having a long yarn with him. I found there was something on his mind. He can't keep anything from his old father; and so I drew out of him that he loves you as David loved Jonathan. He made my old eye very dim while he was talking of you, Mr. Brown. And then I found that you two are not as you used to be. Some coldness sprung up between you; but what about I couldn't get at. Young men are often hasty--I know I was, forty years ago--Jack says he has been hasty with you. Now, that boy is all I have in the world, Mr. Brown. I know my boy's friend will like to send an old man home with a light heart. So I made up my mind to come over to you and ask you to make it up with Jack. I gave him the slip after dinner and here I am." "Oh, sir, did he really ask you to come to me?" "No, sir," said the Captain, "he did not--I am sorry for it--I think Jack must be in the wrong, for he said he had been too hasty, and yet he wouldn't ask me to come to you and make it up. But he is young, sir; young and proud. He said he couldn't move in it, his mind was made up; he was wretched enough over it, but the move must come from you. And so that's the favor I have to ask, that you will make it up with Jack. It isn't often a young man can do such a favor to an old one--to an old father with one son. You'll not feel the worse for having done it, if it's ever so hard to do, when you come to be my age." And the old man looked wistfully across the table, the muscles about his mouth quivering as he ended. Tom sprang from his chair, and grasped the old sailor's hand, as he felt the load pass out of his heart. "Favour, sir!" he said, "I have been a mad fool enough already in this business--I should have been a double-dyed scoundrel, like enough, by this time but for your son, and I've quarrelled with him for stopping me at the pit's mouth. Favor! If God will, I'll prove somehow where the favor lies, and what I owe to him; and to you, sir, for coming to me tonight. Stop here two minutes, sir, and I'll run down and bring him over." Tom tore away to Hardy's door and knocked. There was no pausing in the passage now. "Come in." He opened the door but did not enter, and for a moment or two could not speak. The rush of associations which the sight of the well-known old rickety furniture, and the figure which was seated, book in hand, with its back to the door and its feet against one side of the mantel-piece, called up, choked him. "_May_ I come in?" he said at last. He saw the figure give a start, and the book trembled a little, but then came the answer, slow but firm-- "I have not changed my opinion."