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 sons, who had been thinking how much good there really had been in this or that particular boy, and how much more forbearing they ought to have been in the old days, suddenly grew worldly and cold and hard-hearted. And women who had been very quiet, and had said nothing, could no longer keep back the foolish tears.

Then the melodiously austere voice of the Reverend Ezra Sampson, the Rector of All Saints, sounded out above the murmur of the crowd.

He was, obviously, addressing the phlegmatic old engineer of the Lone Star.

"Mr. Brown, can it be possible, sir, that those are our boys, whom you have thus strangely secreted in your engine-room?"

"They be!" answered Mr. Brown, not over-pleased at the Rector's tone of voice. "They be—the whole kit of 'em!"

At that precise moment the Rector of All Saints caught a fleeting glimpse of what appeared to be his son, Lionel Clarence—more commonly known among his comrades of late as "Shag," or sometimes as "Slugger" Sampson. It was only fitting, as the leader