Chapter 3 - Page 2

and he will
be happy to discharge it on the spot. I would advise you to pay the money
at once. Should the receipt ever be found, this Van Tassel will be obliged
to refund; for, though the law winks at many wrongs, it will not wink at
one so atrocious as this, provided you can satisfy it with proof. I shall
leave Moses----"

"His name is Oloff, or Oliver," interrupted the old woman easerly "I named
him after my own father, and had him duly christened, before he was
entrusted to the nurse, in the hope it might soften his grandfather's
heart, when he came to know of my marriage. Oloff Van Duzer Wetmore is his
real name."

I smiled to think of Marble's sailing under such an appellation, and was
about to suggest a compromise, when the subject of our discourse returned.
The mate had regained his composure during the half-hour he had been
absent; and I saw by the kind glance he threw on his mother, whose look
answered his own more naturally than I could have hoped, that things were
getting right; and, by way of removing the awkwardness of excessive
sensibility, I pursued the discourse.

"We were talking of your true name, Moses, as you came in," I said. "It
will never do for you to hail by one name, while your mother hails by
another. You'll have to cut adrift from Moses Marble altogether."

"If I do, may I be----"

"Hush, hush--you forget where you are, and in whose presence you stand."

"I hope my son will soon learn that he is always in the presence of his
God," observed the mother, plaintively.

"Ay, ay--that's all right, mother, and you shall do with me just what you
please in any of them matters; but as for not being Moses Marble, you
might as well ask me not to be myself. I should be another man, to change
my name. A fellow might as well go without clothes, as go without a name;
and mine came so hard, I don't like to part with it. No, no--had it come
to pass, now, that my parents had been a king and a queen, and that I was
to succeed 'em on the throne, I should reign as King Moses Marble, or not
reign at all."

"You'll think better of this, and take out a new register under your
lawful designation."

"I'll tell you what I'll do, mother, and that will satisfy all parties.
I'll bend on the old name to the new one, and sail under both."

"I care not how you are called, my son, so long as no one has need to
blush for the name you bear. This gentleman tells me you are an honest and
true-hearted man; and those are blessings for which I shall never cease
to thank God."

"Miles has been singing my praises, has he! I can tell you, mother, you