Having now arrived near the termination of our voyage, we were
moved by various emotions with the prospect of soon landing at the
city of Buenos Ayres, which was about two hundred miles up the river
we had just entered. To enable the reader fully to enter into our
peculiar feelings, I will now go back to a period about ten days previous
to our making Cape St. Mary's, the northernmost cape of the
La Plata.

After the storm and the imminent peril in which our lives were
placed and which led to kinder feelings, we got on very well for about

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twenty-six or seven days, the general harmony only interrupted by
those short squalls of ill-humor that will take place in the best regulated
cabins where passengers get tired of the voyage, themselves, and especially
of their fellow-passengers. We had, however, discovered our
Mr. Bedrick to be a man of violent temper, and supremely selfish, and
disposed to be arrogant in the exercise of his authority over us four
young men. His eldest son, too, we had found vain, conceited, assuming,
and with great pretentions to universal knowledge, withal extremely
ignorant. The brother Bill we found to be fiery, reckless,
indifferent whom he offended, and perfectly independent of his father
and of every body else, doing just what his wild and wayward will
dictated.

Yet we got along pretty well with all three without coming to an
open rupture, though we had to forbear a good deal with each of them.
At length, as I have said, about ten days before we entered the river,
a violent quarrel took place in the cabin between Captain Pright and
Mr. Bedrick. What the cause of it was we never exactly understood,
but from a few words we overheard, we supposed that it related to the
payment of our passage out.

In a little while the Captain came on deck looking as black as a
thunder cloud. He had a cigar in his mouth which instead of lighting
he walked the deck chewing at the end with the utmost zeal. Every
little while he would burst out with an oath, and then pace the deck
again. The Bedrick in spectacles had run down into the cabin as
soon as the Captain came on deck; but Bill, who was stretched upon
the larboard hen-coop reading a novel, paid no attention to what was
passing. It seemed to be altogether indifferent with him whether his
father knocked the Captain down, or the Captain his father; for he
had had regular quarrels with both within the last twenty-four hours.
As for ourselves, we did not love `the merchant' so well as to be sorry
to see him in a difficulty; and besides, a flare-up like this greatly relieved
the tedium of the voyage.

For some days past Captain Pright had treated us four with more
than ordinary consideration. We had discovered that, as he grew cold
towards Mr. Bedrick and his sons, he warmed kindly towards ourselves.
We were, therefore, likely to be gainers by the present tremendous
outbreak. So we remained quietly awaiting the issue. I
was engaged by the capstan, which I used as a table, in making a pencil
drawing of the brig; Radsworth seated upon a coil of rigging, in
studying navigation; Hewitt bothering his brain over his Spanish
grammar, and Fairfax lying at his length smoking under the lee of the
weather bulwarks with his head in the bight of the foretopsail braces
for a pillow. The Captain paced the deck untll he had munched up
half the length of his cigar, and then throwing it away took another
and called the cook to bring him a coal of fire. He now began to walk
and smoke. The difference between chewing a cigar and smoking it
was very soon apparent in the change that took place in his countenance.
The cloud gradually passed off as if it had been ejected
through his lips in the shape of tobacco smoke, and he began to look
composed. At length, he paused in his walk, and looked at us with

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an expression as if he had something to say to us. But he turned
away without speaking, glancing at the younger Bedrick as if he did
not care he should hear what he had to communicate. By and by
Edwin Bedrick came on deck, his face as pale as ashes with anger.—
He looked at the Captain as if he would like to annihilate him. Captain
Pright smiled with malicious pleasure. Bedrick acted as if he
wished to give vent to his displeasure upon him, but was prevented by
that discretion which is known by the name of `fear.'

`So, you don't like it that I have called your father an old rascal,'
said the Captain quietly; for I suppose he has made his complaints to
his petted son.'

`You are no gentleman to abuse an old man like my father! A man
of the highest respectability, sir,' cried Bedrick.

`Very respectable,' answered the Captain contemptuously.

`You shall apologise to him for calling him an old rascal! Brother
Bill, do you care nothing att seeing your honored father insulted!—
Captain Pright has had the audacity to call him an old rascal!'

`Well, I dare say Captain Pright knows him quite as well as we do!'
answered Bill dryly.

At this reply, we all laughed so heartily that Edwin Bedrick in great
rage, began to rate us roundly, calling us ungrateful and without
good manners, and that when we got to Buenos Ayres we should pay
for it!

We made no reply, but laughed at his threats, and made up our
minds within ourselves that we would not `pay for it' when we got to
Buenos Ayres. At length Captain Pright interposed his authority,
and told Bedrick if he did not be quiet he would `put him in
irons!'

This threat silenced him, and he went grumbling below to talk over
the affair with his father.

`Let me once get the boys there,' we overheard the old man say
among other words, `and I will let 'em know who's master.'

`Yes,' answered his son; `here Captain Pright snstains them. By
the Lord! when we once get them out of the vessel, we'll make 'em
smart for it, father.'

`Here that, my lads?' said the Captain, looking at us and winking.

He then came towards us and said in an under tone:

`I want you all to be on deck to-night in my watch. Bedrick and
the boys will be turned in. You must come up one by one without
disturbing any of them, for I have got something to tell you, that you
ought to hear.'

We promised to obey him; and then went forward and began to
discuss the matter and try to guess the subject upon which he was to
speak with us. At length the sun set, the night advanced towards
twelve o'clock, when the Captain would come on deck, for he took
the middle watch. We had all turned in by ten o'clock, but as soon
as we heard eight bells, we began to turn out and steal on deck. The
night was clear, with a bright moon that made the brig look as if covered
with a cloud of snow. After the larboard watch had gone below
and the starboard had taken the deck, the helmsman relieved, and

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every thing quiet, we went aft to where the Captain was standing smoking
his cigar, which was never out of his lips.

`Well, my lads,' he said, addressing us in a cordial tone, `I am
glad to see you on deck. The old one is sound asleep, and his sons,
too, I suppose; but to prevent surprises, I will just close the companion-way,
so that if they take a fancy to come on deck they may be
heard! Now take seats about me on the hen-coop, and I will tell you
what I have wished to tell you ever since I learned from some of your
conversation I overheard a few days ago, that you were all four completely
taken in!'

`Taken in?' we exclaimed.

Don't speak so infernal loud,' he said angrily. `I wouldn't have
Bedrick know that I tell you this for all the world! He might make
something of it to get me into trouble. But when I find respectable
young men like yourselves, the victims of deceit and downright fraud,
my danger will get up. The old man is a confounded rascal, and he
has crowned his rascality by deceiving you!'

`How has he deceived us?' we asked, filled with dismay.

`I overhearo you talking together one day about your prospects.—
From your words I learned that you had been engaged by Mr. Bedrick
to go out to Buenos Ayres to be clerks in a Mercantile House that he
was to establish there and at Monte Video.'

`Yes,' we answered, `that is what we are engaged for!'

`Well, you see, you will find yourselves confoundedly mistaken, my
lads! When I found from what I heard that you were laboring under
a deception practiced upon you by Bedrick, I came very near blowing
the whole affair at once and letting you know just what you were
going out to South America for! I saw that you were respectable
young men, from genteel families, and were destined certainly for
something more than was in prospect before you. When I first found
who and what you were, after the first week at sea, I confess I was
surprised that young men of your education and appearance should
have taken up with Mr. Bedrick, and consent to go with him on his
expedition!'

`What expedition then is it? How are we deceived? What does
he want of us?' we demanded, filled with alarm and indignation.

`I will tell you. You expect to become clerks in a respectable mercantile
establishment. But you are destined for no such thing. Mr.
Bedrick has nothing higher in view on his arrival at Buenos Ayres
than to open a soda-shop!'

`A soda-shop?' we repeated, confounded.

`Don't raise your voices so high, my friends!' said the Captain
warmly. `Yes, you are are destined for nothing more uor less than
to tend soda shops in Buenos Ayres and Monte Video!'

Our amazement was almost without bonds. It was only surpassed
by our indignant anger at the duplicity of which we had been the victims.
The announcement, however, was so unexpected and so strange,
that after a moment's reflection, recollecting the Captain's quarrel with
Mr. Bedrick, it occurred to me that he might only desire to injure him.
I, therefore, remarked to the Captain when our excitement had a little

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subsided, that I thought he must be laboring under a mistake, for the
cargo in the brig was certainly Mr. Bedrick's.

`Not a dollar of it,' he answered. `Did he tell you so?'

`Yes. He said that he had freighted the brig with his goods for
South America,' was our reply.

You have been thoroughly duped. All the freight he has on board
are four copper soda fountains which you have seen. These are what
he means by his goods for his Commercial House. I tell you truly he
has no interest in the brig or her cargo. He has only these soda
fountains and some jars of lemon syrup, which are all his `stock in
trade!' I had taken him and you out by a previous contract, made
not with him, but with the owners, who are related to him, and who
are glad to get rid of him at any rate whatever. The fact is, he has
been a merchant somewhere in the North, and failed in business some
years ago. Since then he has been fiddling round and doing little or
nothing, and rather a burden upon some rich relatives, one of whom
owns this brig. A few weeks before we sailed, Bedrick heard that
there were no soda-shops in Buenos Ayres, but that one had been set
up by an English adventurer in Rio Janeiro, which took amazingly
with the Brazilians, who paid twenty-five cents a glass for their soda,
and that the adventurer was making a fortune. So, starting on this
idea, Mr. Bedrick proposed to the owner of the brig, who was his
relation, that if he would purchase him four soda fountains, secure
him a passage out to Buenos Ayres, with his sons and three or four
`clerks,' (yourselves, young gentlemen!) he would sail for that country
and no longer burden him. To this project the gentleman at length
acceded. The soda-fountains were bought, and I was to take oat the
whole expedition and land it safely in Buenos Ayres. Where or how
Mr. Bedrick got his `clerks' I never knew until subsequent to your
coming on board. What motive he had in deceiving you I can't imagine,
unless it was that he believed (what is true) that it would be
impossible for him to obtain four respectable, trustworthy young men
to embark ten thousand miles to a foreign country to `tend soda-shops.'
He, therefore, disguised the truth that he might get young men he
could confide his `commercial affairs to,' knowing you could not help
yourself after he had got you there!'

`But we will show him that we can help ourselves,' was our resolute
reply. `But how is it,' asked Hewitt `that the merchants in Boston
to whom he referred, sustained him in this deceit?'

`His relative was desirous of getting the old man off his hands and
out of the country, and so gave his name to recommend him; but I
question if he was aware that you were kept ignorant of the precise
nature of the business in which you were to engage when you got to
South America. He would not have been a party to such a deception
as that, much as he might wish to get the old man off. I have thought
it my duty to let you know the whole truth, young gentlemen,' continued
the Captain; `and all the recompense I ask is that you will not
say a word to any one of the matter while in the brig, whatever you
do after you get ashore. Let not the old man or his sons suspect that

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you know the truth, but try and let every thing go quietly on, until we
reach port.'

This we promised to do; and after thanking the Captain warmly
for making known the wicked deception which had been practiced
upon us, we went below, and, seated upon our trunks, began to talk
over together this new aspect of affairs.