Chapter 27

"With look like patient Job's, eschewing evil;
With motions graceful as a bird's in air;
Thou art, in sober truth, the veriest devil
That ere clinched fingers in a captive's hair."
HALLECK.

There was about an hour of daylight, when I left the compting-house of
the consignees, and pursued my way up Wall Street to Broadway. I was
on my way to the City Hotel, then, as now, one of the best inns of the
town. On Trinity Church walk, just as I quitted the Wall Street
crossing, whom should I come plump upon in turning, but Rupert
Hardinge? He was walking down the street in some little haste, and was
evidently much surprised, perhaps I might say startled, at seeing
me. Nevertheless, Rupert was not easily disconcerted, and his manner
at once became warm, if not entirely free from embarrassment. He was
in deep mourning; though otherwise dressed in the height of the
fashion.

"Wallingford!" he exclaimed--it was the first time he did not call me
"Miles,"--"Wallingford! my fine fellow, what cloud did you drop
from?--We have had so many reports concerning you, that your
appearance is as much a matter of surprise, as would be that of
Bonaparte, himself. Of course, your ship is in?"

"Of course," I answered, taking his offered hand; "you know I am
wedded to her, for better, for worse, until death or shipwreck doth us
part."

"Ay, so I've always told the ladies--'there is no other matrimony in
Wallingford,' I've said often, 'than that which will make him a ship's
husband.' But you look confoundedly well--the sea agrees with you,
famously."

"I make no complaint of my health--but tell me of that of our friends
and families? Your father--"

"Is up at Clawbonny, just now--you know how it is with him. No change
of circumstances will ever make him regard his little smoke-house
looking church, as anything but a cathedral, and his parish as a
diocese. Since the great change in our circumstances, all this is
useless, and I often _think_--you know one wouldn't like to _say_ as
much to _him_--but I often _think_, he might just as well give up
preaching, altogether."

"Well, this is good, so far--now for the rest of you, all. You meet
my impatience too coldly."

"Yes, you _were_ always an impatient fellow. Why, I suppose you
need hardly be told that I have been admitted to the bar."

"That I can very well imagine--you must have found your sea-training
of great service on the examination."

"Ah! my dear Wallingford--what a simpleton I was! But one is so apt
to take up strange conceits in boyhood, that he is compelled to look
back at them in