"Adam is idly inclined. I am sorry for it, but it is so. One thing has been against him, and that's his health. He's as tall and strong a young fellow to look at as you'd meet in a summer's day, but he is, I fear, anything but sound in constitution. A nice fellow too, Joseph." "Of good disposition?" "Very. We had used to be almost afraid of him as a boy; he would put himself into such unaccountable fits of passion. Just as--as--somebody else used to do, you know, Joseph," added the sailor with some hesitation. Sir Joseph nodded. The somebody else was the captain's wife, and Adam's mother. Sir Joseph's own wife was not exempt from the same kind of failing: but in a less wild degree than Mrs. Andinnian. With her the defects of temper partook more of the nature of sullenness. "But Adam seems to have outgrown all that: I've seen and heard nothing of it since he came to manhood," resumed the captain. "I wish from my heart he had some profession to occupy him. His mother always filled him up with the notion that he would be your heir and not want it." "He'll be my heir, in all senses, safe enough, Harry: though I'd rather have heard he was given to industry than idleness. How does he get through his time? Young men naturally seek some pursuit as an outlet for their superfluous activity." "Adam has a pursuit that he makes a hobby of; and that is his love of flowers; in fact his love of gardening in any shape. He'll be out amidst the plants and shrubs from sunrise to sunset. Trained to it, he'd have made a second Sir Joseph Paxton. I should like you to see him: he is very handsome." "And the young one--what is he like? What's his name by the way? Henry?" "No. Karl." "_Karl?_" repeated Sir Joseph in surprise, as if questioning whether he heard aright. "Ay, Karl. His mother was in Germany when he was born, it being a cheap place to live in--I was only a poor lieutenant then, Joseph, and just gone off to be stationed before the West Indies. A great friend of hers, there, some German lady, had a little boy named Karl. My wife fell in love with the name, and called her own infant after it." "Well, it sounds an outlandish name to me," cried the baronet, who was entirely unacquainted with every language but his own. "So I thought, when she first wrote me word," assented Captain Andinnian. "But after I came home and got used to call the lad by it, you don't know how I grew to like it. The name gains upon your favour in a wonderful manner, Joseph: and I have heard other people say the same. It is Charles in English, you know." "Then why not call him Charles?" "Because the name is really Karl, and not Charles. He was baptized in Germany, but christened in England, and in both places it was done as 'Karl.' His mother has never cared very much for him." "For him or his name, do you mean?" "Oh, for him." Sir Joseph opened his eyes. "Why on earth not?"