Ah ha, Master Fritz," shouted out the sailor lad, as his brother drew nigh, "you're just in time to see the last of me.

I thought the worthy Herr would not let you come, you are so very late." "Better late than never," said the other, smiling, coming up beside the pair, who were standing in front of one of the railway carriages, into which Eric had already bundled his bag.

"The old man did growl a bit about my `idling away the afternoon,' as he called it; but when I impressed him with the fact that you were going away to sea, he relented and let me come, saying that it was a good job such a circumstance did not occur every day!" "Much obliged to him, I'm sure!" said Eric, with that usual toss of his head which threw back his mane-like locks of yellow hair.

"He would have been a fine old curmudgeon to have refused you leave to wish good- bye to your only brother!" And he put one of his arms round Fritz's neck as he spoke.
"Hush, my son," interposed Madame Dort.

"You must not speak ill of the good merchant who has been such a kind friend to Fritz and given him regular employment in his warehouse!" "All right, mutterchen, I won't mention again the name of the old cur--, I mean dear old gentleman, little mother, there!" And then catching the twinkling eye of Fritz, the two burst into a simultaneous laugh at the narrow escape there had been of his repeating the obnoxious epithet; while Madame Dort could not help smiling too, as she gazed fondly into the merry face of the roguish boy, standing by his brother's side and clinging to him with that deep fraternal affection which is so rarely seen, alas! in members of the same family.
Truly, they were sons of whom any mother might have been proud.
Fritz was tall and manly, by virtue of his two-and-twenty years and a small fringe of dark down that covered his upper lip; Eric was shorter by some inches, but more thick-set and with broader shoulders, predicting that he would be the bigger of the two as time rolled on.
The firstborn, Fritz, with his closely cropped hair and swarthy complexion, took after his dead father, who had been a Holsteiner--a mariner by profession, who had sailed his ship from the Elbe some years before for the last time, and left his wife to bring up her fatherless boys by the sweat of her brow and her own exertions; for Captain Dort had left but little worldly goods behind him, his all being embarked with himself in his ship, which was lost, with all hands on board, in the North Sea.