sacrifice of this, his devoted follower. Nay, more, he would have endured the ordeal without a murmur had his father, deeming it unsafe to enter into formal explanations, only hinted to him that this was a farce which

   they two must play together. If his father had only winked at him! Surely he might have done that with safety! But not to be admitted to the secret,—not to be allowed to play the heroic part,—to be used as an ignoble tool by a father who neither loved him nor knew his courage,—that was too much! He would not betray his father—no, a thousand times, no! But the day would come—

   The afternoon dragged on. Jim sat there in his room, looking out into the pleasant sunshine, conscious that the boys were playing "three old cat" in the field not faraway

   —as rebellious and magnanimous, as hot and angry, as heroic and morally muddled a boy as one could wish to see. And looking at the affair from his point of view, not many people will blame him. It is delightful, of course, to have a pirate chief for father; but what if he makes you walk the plank?

   It is amusing to think of Mr. Peaslee and Jim each shut up in his respective room; but if Mr. Peaslee in his gloomy parlor—faced by the crayon portrait of his masterful wife, a vase of wax flowers under a glass dome, the family Bible on a marble-topped table, and three stiff horse

   hair-covered chairs—had the advantage of being able to leave at any moment, he was even more perturbed in mind.

   "Terrible awk'ard mess," he kept repeating to himself, as he mopped his damp forehead with his handkerchief, "terrible awk'ard." And indeed it would be awkward for a respectable citizen with political aspirations to be accused before a grand jury of which he is a member of assault with a dangerous weapon upon an inoffensive man.

   Mr. Peaslee's reflections rose in a strophe of hope and fell in an antistrophe of despair.

   "'T ain't likely it hurt him any—just bird shot," said Hope.

   "Bird shot's mighty irritatin'—specially to a wrathy fellow," said Despair.

   And alternating thus, his thoughts ran on: "Bird shot'll show I didn't have any serious

    in

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