“Will you take a passenger?” he asked, rather diffidently.

“Who?”

“Myself.”

“I will, with pleasure.”

“Thank you, Wolf.”

I pushed the tender up to the wall, and he stepped into it.

“Some of the fellows say you are not a bit like other boys, Wolf; and I begin to think they are more than half-right,” said Dick Bayard, as he came on board of the Belle.

“Well, I don’t know. I don’t suppose I’m very different from other fellows,” I replied, with becoming modesty.

“You don’t seem to have a grudge against any one. If a fellow abuses you, you treat him as well as ever. You knock him over in self-defense, and then behave toward him just as though nothing had happened.”

“I think I can afford to do so.”