Y dear boy," said the Admiral, as soon as the party had been comfortably stowed at a hotel, of which officers of the united service are very fond, and after had been ordered, "don't you want to make your fortune by a few strokes of your pen—or pencil?"  
"Admiral," replied Jermyn, "my heart never before warned me so of the condition of my pocket. Fire away."
 
"Good! Do you remember a conversation we had a few nights ago at the fort with a certain semi-public character about business?"
 
"A few nights ago?" repeated Jermyn dreamily. "I remember such a talk, but it seems that it was a few months ago."
 
"Tut, tut! Wake up! This is business—not moonshine."
 
"I beg your pardon," said Jermyn, quietly rallying himself. "You mean the affair of that gold placer on the Pacific Coast? Do you suppose I ever can forget it, after the that came of it, and the trouble you were put to?"
 
"Never mind me, at present, except to give me your close attention. My dear boy, our suggestions did the business, and Blogsham has more sense of honor than I usually attribute to a business man. Our plans were of so much promise that he has already organized a company to develop the property. The capital is a million dollars, with permission to increase to three millions, and there are at present ten thousand shares of the value of one hundred dollars each."
 
"! That sounds business-like, but I don't see how it implies the sense of honor of which you a moment ago."
 
"What? Oh, to be sure; I've not reached the most important part of the story. Well, the writes me that he hasn't forgotten his promise, and that there are five hundred shares of the stock waiting for me, and five hundred for you, which we can have if——"
 
"No, I've fooled away enough of my hard upon projects of that kind. Excitement of that sort may do for you, on the pay of a rear admiral, , but I——"
 
"Do let me finish, won't you? I wouldn't put a cent into gold-mining, unless I myself were the manager of the concern, if I were a dozen times as well off as I am. But don't you remember Blogsham's promise? We're to have this stock for nothing but the services we have already rendered. Blogsham asks only that the transactions and his assertions to the company may be business-like, that we shall send him for the company's archives, the which gave him his new ideas as to how to make the placer a working success."
 
"Whew-w-w-w-!" whistled Jermyn. "Will you remember where those sketches are [Pg 197]—or where there is every reason to believe they are?"
 
"; nevertheless they must be obtained. Fifty thousand dollars is too much money for either of us to throw away—Blogsham says the stock can already be sold at par. I'm sure that Mrs. Highwood is too much interested in your future welfare to make any objection to giving up the original document."
 
"You forget that she sent it to her husband."
 
"Well, he and she are one, aren't they? I should imagine so, from Madam Trif's manner of talking about her lord and master."
 
"But there was a private letter on the same sheet of paper, which——"
 
"Which can easily be ."
 
"I can't ask it—really I can't," said Jermyn. "I'd rather lose fifty thousand dollars than remind Mrs. Highwood of something that would be embarrassing to think of, in my presence."
 
"Then ask her by letter, from as far away as you like. It ought to be done at once though, for offers like Blogsham's are too much in air when made only verbally. We must have the sketches. If you won't ask for them I must. My conscience won't let me see a woman like Miss Trewman marry a subaltern with less than two thousand a year. The income of fifty thousand dollars, added to your own salary, will enable you to marry, and support your wife in a manner that she is accustomed to."
 
Jermyn was in an unpleasant , but he soon got out of it by saying that to ask for the letter would be ungentlemanly of him, so he couldn't do it.
 
 
"Then, you stupid fellow," said the Admiral, "I myself shall ask for them—for my own , at least. She already knows that I know the contents of the letter."
 
"You won't dare remind her of it," exclaimed Jermyn.
 
"Won't I, though! Indeed I will. I have sufficient excuse. I shall tell her why I want it—that an estimable though friend of mine is about to marry on an income, and that I'm so sorry for his wife that I'm going to settle fifty thousand dollars upon her, and that I can't do it unless I the sketch which was on the blank half of that letter sheet; your sketch, you'll remember, was on the back of the written portion. Then, if she gives me the entire letter——"
 
"Which you know she wouldn't do."
 
"I don't see why not, if I first ask her to the writing. Now, my dear boy, I have you at my mercy. You're on your way back to the fort; I will accompany the ladies back to New York, and——"
 
"Aha! You will, will you?" exclaimed the younger man, with a soldier's delight at getting an enemy at a disadvantage. "I'm going back to New York with them myself. I've been ordered back, on duty."
 
"Hem! For how long, may I ask?"
 
"Wel............