had no keen reason for converting the shallop’s master to an opposite way of thinking; and even if he had, he knew it would be of no use to try.

“I think I’ll be setting about my affairs,” he said. “It’s coming on midday.”

The skipper hitched up his trousers. “Of course,” stated he, “I don’t know what your affairs are; but, as I said before, I have suspicion of them. And look you, my hearty, give no heed to old Dana’s talk. Go about your business in your own way.”

“Thank you,” said young Prentiss. “I had made up my mind to do that. Mr. Dana,” he added to himself, “has been mistaken;[37] he expected one passenger, evidently, and found another.”

[37]

Directly up Broad Street he made his way until he came to Beaver; here he turned in toward the Parade at the foot of Broadway. The red-coated sentries were mounting guard upon the walls of the fort; the British ensign floated from its tall pole; but the streets were filled with the blue and buff of the young American army, and the numerous and strangely devised flags of the revolution.

Apparently the Parade was a favorite place for the showing of oneself in the middle of the day. Ladies in carriages and upon horseback drove and cantered up and down the paved ways; groups of citizens and scores of militia officers stood here and there; companies of raw troops were being put sternly through the manual by hard-faced sergeants.

As George walked across the Parade he gained not a little attention, for the dispatch bag which hung across his arm, the broad shoulder belt supporting a steel hilted hanger, the pistol butt which showed beneath his coat, gave him a particularly businesslike appearance. And then his bronzed looks, the[38] breadth of his shoulders, and the cock of his hat, spoke of a youth to be reckoned with in any company.

[38]

Pausing before one of the numerous groups, he inquired politely:

“Will you have the goodness to direct me to headquarters?”

A foppish young dragoon officer with a mincing manner, who had been entertaining the occupants of a carriage beside which he stood, turned upon the speaker.

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