“Tom Speers, you are ten times the man I took you to be,” said Judge Rodwood, grasping the hand of his ward, when he got near enough to him to do so. “I am sure your uncle’s fortune, or that part of it that came to you, will go to the right place. I congratulate you, Capt. Speers, and I know you are worthy of the place you have won.”
“Thank you, sir,” replied Tom, glowing with excitement. “I set out for the position, or one just like it, and I have got it. Of course you will not expect me to leave the squadron now?”
“Certainly not; but as soon as you are twenty-one I shall hand the Marian over to you; and any time before that, when you choose to leave the command of the Frisbone, she is at your service.”
Capt. Speers decided not to make any use of her at present. In the afternoon the new officers were put into position on board of the vessels of the fleet. Tom took possession of the captain’s cabin; and O’Hara “gushed” all the afternoon, he was so pleased with the present order of things on board.
On the 15th of the month, the fleet, including the Marian, sailed for Brockway. After a pleasant June passage, the vessels arrived.
And now, having taken the academy squadron twice across the Atlantic, our series of stories comes to an end. In the course of the summer the principal re-organized his squadron, as he had intended. In November Tom Speers, as captain of the Frisbone, as she was now legally named, conveyed Mr. Frisbone, his wife, her sister, and Dr. Phelps, to Orotava, in the island of Teneriffe, where they had decided to spend the winter. When he had landed his passengers, he sailed for Havana, where the American Prince was to join him; and the two vessels were to spend the winter in the West Indies.
Early in the spring the two steamers went to the Canaries again; where a happy meeting between Tom and Miss Louise occurred, and it was rumored that they were in very great peril of becoming more nearly related in a few months or years. At this point Tom concluded, that, as he was twenty-one, he would retire from the command, and go on a cruise in the Marian. The last we heard of him, he was in the China Sea, with O’Hara, who had graduated in the fall of the same year as Tom, still sticking to him like a brother. The young millionnaire does not spend all his income upon himself, and the poor and the needy have good reason to thank God that old Tom Speers gave half of his colossal fortune to his nephew.
Having taken our readers all over Europe, we bid them all good-by as we step ashore from our voyage among “The Isles of the Sea.”
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.