"
"Be off, then, in a jiffy, and I will run out to see where I can
dispose of my books. I will be back in two hours, and meet you here."
They parted, and John hurried away to see the captain. He found him on
board his sloop.
"Can you take a friend of mine to New York?" he asked.
"That depends on circumstances," replied the captain. "Who is your
friend? Can't take a pauper or a criminal, you know."
"He is neither one nor the other. He is a young man about my age, a
printer by trade, and he is going to New York to find work."
"Why doesn't he find work in Boston? There are more printers in Boston
than there are in New York."
"That may be; but he prefers to work in New York. He's tired of
Boston."
"Perhaps Boston is tired of him--is that so? I want to accommodate,
but I don't want to get anybody into trouble, nor get there myself."
John saw that there was no evading the captain's questions, and so he
resolved to tell the false story he had thought of on his way to the
sloop.
"Well," said John, "if I must tell you the whole story, the case is
this: He is a young fellow who has been flirting with a girl, who
wants to marry him, and now her parents are determined that he shall
marry her, and he is as determined that he will not; and he proposes
to remove secretly to New York. He would have come to see you himself,
but his coming might awaken suspicion on the part of some one
acquainted with the affair, who might see him and know him.
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