“He is a rich man,” said the Colonel, promptly. “Did you ever miss bringing her a present, Lige?” he asked.
“When the Cora Anderson burnt,” answered the Captain.
“Why,” cried Virginia, “you brought me a piece of her wheel, with the char on it. You swam ashore with it.”
“So I did,” said Captain Brent. “I had forgotten that. It was when the French dress, with the furbelows, which Madame Pitou had gotten me from Paris for you, was lost.”
“And I think I liked the piece of wheel better,” says Virginia. “It was brought me by a brave man, the last to leave his boat.”
“And who should be the last to leave, but the captain? I saw the thing in the water; and I just thought we ought to have a relic.”
“Lige,” said the Colonel, putting up his feet, “do you remember the French toys you used to bring up here from New Orleans?”
“Colonel,” replied Brent, “do you recall the rough and uncouth young citizen who came over here from Cincinnati, as clerk on the Vicksburg?”
“I remember, sir, that he was so promising that they made him provisional captain the next trip, and he was not yet twenty-four years of age.”
“And do you remember buying the Vicksburg at the sheriff's sale for twenty thousand dollars, and handing her over to young Brent, and saying, 'There, my son, she's your boat, and you can pay for her when you like'?”