“Wait till you are of age, Miles, and then you can do as you please. I hold four thousand dollars of your invested money, which has been paid in, and I have placed it in stocks. Altogether, I find we can muster, in solid cash, more than twenty thousand dollars, while the price of the ship, as she stands, almost ready for sea, is only fifteen. Now, go and look at the vessel; if you like her, I will close the bargain at once.”
“But, my dear Mr. Hardinge, do you think yourself exactly qualified to judge of the value of a ship?”
“Poh! poh! don't imagine I am so conceited as to purchase on my own knowledge. I have taken some of the very best advice of the city. There is John Murray, to begin with—a great ship-holder, himself—and Archibald Gracie, and William Bayard—all capital judges, have taken an interest in the affair. Three others of my friends have walked round to look at the vessel, and all approve—not a dissenting voice.”
“May I ask, sir, who have seen her, besides the gentlemen you have named? they, I admit, are, indeed, good judges.”
“Why?—why—yes—do you happen to know anything of Dr. Benjamin Moore, now, Miles?”
“Never heard of him, sir, in my life; but a physician can be no great judge of a ship.”
“No more of a physician than yourself, boy—Dr. Benjamin Moore, the gentleman we elected Bishop, while you were absent—”
“Oh! he you wished to toast, instead of Miss Peggy Perott—” cried I, smiling. “Well, what does the Bishop think of her—if he approve, she must be orthodox.”
“He says she is the handsomest vessel he ever laid eyes on, Miles; and let me tell you, the favourable opinion of so good a man as Dr. Moore, is of value, even though it be about a ship.”
I could not avoid laughing, and I dare say most of the readers will also, at this touch of simplicity; and yet, why should not a Bishop know as much of ships, as a set of ignoramuses who never read a theological book in their lives, some of them not even the Bible, should know about Bishops? The circumstance was not a tittle more absurd than many that are occurring daily before our eyes, and to which, purely from habit, we submit, very much as a matter of course.