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But the season presently passed with much of this and other criticism, and the Sluysdaels passed too, carrying Johnnyboy and his small aches and long eyelashes beyond these Crustacean voices, where it was to be hoped there was peace. I did not hear of him again for five years, and then, oddly enough, from the lips of Mr. Belcher on the deck of a transatlantic steamer, as he was being wafted to Europe for his recreation by the prayers and purses of a grateful and enduring flock. “Master John Jacob Astor Sluysdael,” said Mr. Belcher, speaking slowly, with great precision of retrospect, “was taken from his private governess–I may say by my advice–and sent to an admirable school in New York, fashioned upon the English system of Eton and Harrow, and conducted by English masters from Oxford and Cambridge. Here–I may also say at my suggestion–he was subjected to the wholesome discipline equally of his schoolmates and his masters; in fact, sir, as you are probably aware, the most perfect democracy that we have yet known, in which the mere accidents of wealth, position, luxury, effeminacy, physical degeneration, and over-civilized stimulation, are not recognized. He was put into compulsory cricket, football, and rounders. As an undersized boy he was subjected to that ingenious preparation for future mastership by the pupillary state of servitude known, I think, as ‘fagging.’ His physical inertia was stimulated and quickened, and his intellectual precocity repressed, from time to time, by the exuberant playfulness of his fellow-students, which occasionally took the form of forced ablutions and corporal discomfort, and was called, I am told, ‘hazing.’ It is but fair to state that our young friend had some singular mental endowments, which, however, were promptly checked to repress the vanity and presumption that would follow.” The Rev. Mr. Belcher paused, closed his eyes resignedly, and added, “Of course, you know the rest.”

“Indeed, I do not,” I said anxiously.

“A most deplorable affair–indeed, a most shocking incident! It was hushed up, I believe, on account of the position of his parents.” He glanced furtively around, and in a lower and more impressive voice said, “I am not myself a believer in heredity, and I am not personally aware that there was a MURDERER among the Sluysdael ancestry, but it seems that this monstrous child, in some clandestine way, possessed himself of a huge bowie-knife, sir, and on one of those occasions actually rushed furiously at the larger boys–his innocent play-fellows–and absolutely forced them to flee in fear of their lives. More than that, sir, a LOADED REVOLVER was found in his desk, and he boldly and shamelessly avowed his intention to eviscerate, or–to use his own revolting language–‘to cut the heart out’ of the first one who again ‘laid a finger on him.'” He paused again, and, joining his two hands together with the fingers pointing to the deck, breathed hard and said, “His instantaneous withdrawal from the school was a matter of public necessity. He was afterwards taken, in the charge of a private tutor, to Europe, where, I trust, we shall NOT meet.”

I could not resist saying cheerfully that, at least, Johnnyboy had for a short time made it lively for the big boys.

The Rev. Mr. Belcher rose slowly, but painfully, said with a deeply grieved expression, “I don’t think that I entirely follow you,” and moved gently away.

The changes of youth are apt to be more bewildering than those of age, and a decade scarcely perceptible in an old civilization often means utter revolution to the new. It did not seem strange to me, therefore, on meeting Jack Bracy twelve years after, to find that he had forgotten Miss Circe, or that SHE had married, and was living unhappily with a middle-aged adventurer by the name of Jason, who was reputed to have had domestic relations elsewhere. But although subjugated and exorcised, she at least was reminiscent. To my inquiries about the Sluysdaels, she answered with a slight return of her old vivacity:–