And amidst shouts of laughter and applause Mr. Manners limped forward from a group of stockholders, while the Colonel heartily shook his young guide by the hand. And behind Manners there loomed up in the doorway of the shops a goodly stack of luscious fruit and boxes of cigars, and it was evident the company meant to royally entertain its defenders.
And Mr. Manners was understood to express himself substantially as follows:
"Gentleman of Company L. If these works had been destroyed last night half a million dollars would have gone up in smoke. We couldn't get insurance for more than quarter of its value. You saved it. Never until last night did I know, or my associates, these gentlemen, what it meant to have a National Guard. We thought it was the same thing as the militia we used to join and have fun with forty years ago when we were young, and so had determined to have no more of it in our business. We've learned we didn't know the first thing about it. We're clean converted. We find that young men nowadays are doing better by themselves, their State, and their country than we did. Now I've got a boy at home—a good boy, if I do say it—who wanted to join you three months ago, and I wouldn't let him, and I'm going home this day to beg his pardon, as I beg yours, and tell him I'll be a proud father if he can wear the uniform in the same company with you and Wallace and Sercombe. You've made Wallace a sergeant. Well, the Amity Works will stand by what they've done, too. They discharged Mr. Wallace from what we'll call a second-class clerkship yesterday afternoon, and they now fill the vacancy by the promotion thereto of his friend Sercombe from the shops. They have established another first-class clerkship, and to fill that original vacancy they name Sergeant Fred Wallace, of Company L, and we'll drink his health in the best and coolest lemonade to be had in the whole State."
"Well," said old Wallace, as he sat later in the day with the mother's hand in his, "I didn't take much stock in that soldier business either. But where would we all have been this day but for Fred—Fred and his regiment?"
THE END.
HINTS OF A RACING CAT-BOAT AND ITS CARE.
The popular idea that a racing cat-boat is an expensive luxury has doubtless arisen from the cost entailed upon those who keep a racing boat, and either cannot or will not themselves attend to the labor connected with keeping such a craft in the best of condition. Many boat-owners after entering for a race put their boats in the hands of boat-builders to be gotten into condition so abundant around rivers and bays where boat-racing is popular. To these men are usually intrusted, besides getting the boat into condition, the procuring and training of the crew, and if the race is important, the command of that too. Most likely the crew will be composed of rivermen, amply compensated for their services, and an amateur or two, one of which perhaps is the owner. Of course all this costs, the builder having to be paid for his labor of getting the boat ready and if he wins the race he naturally expects something extra.
There are some owners, however, who attend to all these matters personally, and their expenses are reduced to a very low figure.
If a boy has become the happy possessor of a boat, and is desirous of becoming a good sailor, there is no reason why he shouldn't have the pleasure of racing his boat, even if his supply of pocket money is limited, provided he personally attends to all the work connected with his boat. Besides saving much expense, it will serve to thoroughly acquaint him with every part of his craft, a perfect idea of her construction and rigging. If he makes a point of rigging her in the spring and dismantling her in the fall, he will know what to do if some part of his rigging gives way when he is sailing: and not be obliged to do as the owner of a line boat on the Shrewsbury River did last year when the lashings of a throat-halyard block gave way, lower sail and wait for a friend to tow him in.