The Wrecker



 PROLOGUE.


IN THE MARQUESAS.

It was about three o'clock of a winter's afternoon in
Tai-o-hae, the French capital and port of entry of the
Marquesas Islands.  The trades blew strong and squally;
the surf roared loud on the shingle beach; and the fifty-ton 
schooner of war, that carries the flag and influence of 
France about the islands of the cannibal group, rolled at 
her moorings under Prison Hill.  The clouds hung low and 
black on the surrounding amphitheatre of mountains; rain 
had fallen earlier in the day, real tropic rain, a waterspout 
for violence; and the green and gloomy brow of the mountain
was still seamed with many silver threads of torrent.

In these hot and healthy islands winter is but a name.  The 
rain had not refreshed, nor could the wind invigorate, the 
dwellers of Tai-o-hae: away at one end, indeed, the
commandant was directing some changes in the residency
garden beyond Prison Hill; and the gardeners, being all
convicts, had no choice but to continue to obey.  All other folks
slumbered and took their rest: Vaekehu, the native queen, in
her trim house under the rustling palms; the Tahitian
commissary, in his beflagged official residence; the merchants,
in their deserted stores; and even the club-servant in the club,
his head fallen forward on the bottle-counter, under the map of
the world and the cards of navy officers.  In the whole length of
the single shoreside street, with its scattered board houses
looking to the sea, its grateful shade of palms and green jungle
of puraos, no moving figure could be seen.  Only, at the end of
the rickety pier, that once (in the prosperous days of the
American rebellion) was used to groan under the cotton of John
Hart, there might have been spied upon a pile of lumber the
famous tattooed white man, the living curiosity of Tai-o-hae.


His eyes were open, staring down the bay.  He saw the
mountains droop, as they approached the entrance, and break
down in cliffs; the surf boil white round the two sentinel islets;
and between, on the narrow bight of blue horizon, Ua-pu
upraise the ghost of her pinnacled mountain tops.  But his mind
would take no account of these familiar features; as he dodged
in and out along the frontier line of sleep and waking, memory
would serve him with broken fragments of the past: brown
faces and white, of skipper and shipmate, king and chief,
would arise before his mind and vanish; he would recall old
voyages, old landfalls in the hour of dawn; he would hear again
the drums beat for a man-eating festival; perhaps he would
summon up the form of that island princess for the love of
whom he had submitted his body to the cruel hands of the
tattooer, and now sat on the lumber, at the pier-end of
Tai-o-hae, so strange a figure of a European.  Or perhaps from
yet further back, sounds and scents of England and his
childhood might assail him: the merry clamour of cathedral
bells, the broom upon the foreland, the song of the river on the
weir.

It is bold water at the mouth of the bay; you can steer a ship
about either sentinel, close enough to toss a biscuit on the
rocks.  Thus it chanced that, as the tattooed man sat dozing and
dreaming, he was startled into wakefulness and animation by
the appearance of a flying jib beyond the western islet.  Two
more headsails followed; and before the tattooed man had
scrambled to his feet, a topsail schooner, of some hundred tons,
had luffed about the sentinel and was standing up the bay,
close-hauled.

The sleeping city awakened by enchantment.  Natives appeared
upon all sides, hailing each other with the magic cry "Ehippy"
--ship; the Queen stepped forth on her verandah, shading her
eyes under a hand that was a miracle of the fine art of tattooing;
the commandant broke from his domestic convicts and ran into
the residency for his glass; the harbour master, who was also
the gaoler, came speeding down the Prison Hill; the seventeen
brown Kanakas and the French boatswain's mate, that make up
the complement of the war-schooner, crowded on the forward
deck; and the various English, Americans, Germans, Poles,
Corsicans, and Scots--the merchants and the clerks of
Tai-o-hae--deserted their places of business, and gathered,
according to invariable custom, on the road before the club.

So quickly did these dozen whites collect, so short are the
distances in Tai-o-hae, that they were already exchanging
guesses as to the nationality and business of the strange vessel,
before she had gone about upon her second board towards the
anchorage.  A moment after, English colours were broken out
at the main truck.

"I told you she was a Johnny Bull--knew it by her headsails,"
said an evergreen old salt, still qualified (if he could anywhere
have found an owner unacquainted with his story) to adorn
another quarter-deck and lose another ship.

"She has American lines, anyway," said the astute Scots
engineer of the gin-mill; "it's my belief she's a yacht."

"That's it," said the old salt, "a yacht! look at her davits, and the
boat over the stern."

"A yacht in your eye!" said a Glasgow voice.  "Look at her red
ensign!  A yacht! not much she isn't!"

"You can close the store, anyway, Tom," observed a
gentlemanly German.  "Bon jour, mon Prince!" he added, as a
dark, intelligent native cantered by on a neat chestnut.  "Vous
allez boire un verre de biere?"

But Prince Stanilas Moanatini, the only reasonably busy human
creature on the island, was riding hot-spur to view this
morning's landslip on the mountain road: the sun already
visibly declined; night was imminent; and if he would avoid
the perils of darkness and precipice, and the fear of the dead,
the haunters of the jungle, he must for once decline a hospitable
invitation.  Even had he been minded to alight, it presently
appeared there would be difficulty as to the refreshment
offered.

"Beer!" cried the Glasgow voice.  "No such a thing; I tell you
there's only eight bottles in the club! Here's the first time I've
seen British colours in this port! and the man that sails under
them has got to drink that beer."

The proposal struck the public mind as fair, though far from
cheering; for some time back, indeed, the very name of beer
had been a sound of sorrow in the club, and the evenings had
passed in dolorous computation.

"Here is Havens," said one, as if welcoming a fresh topic.  
"What do you think of her, Havens?"

"I don't think," replied Havens, a tall, bland, cool-looking,
leisurely Englishman, attired in spotless duck, and deliberately
dealing with a cigarette.  "I may say I know.  She's consigned
to me from Auckland by Donald & Edenborough.  I am on my
way aboard."

"What ship is she?" asked the ancient mariner.

"Haven't an idea," returned Havens.  "Some tramp they have
chartered."

With that he placidly resumed his walk, and was soon seated in
the stern-sheets of a whaleboat manned by uproarious Kanakas,
himself daintily perched out of the way of the least maculation,
giving his commands in an unobtrusive, dinner-table tone of
voice, and sweeping neatly enough alongside the schooner.

A weather-beaten captain received him at the gangway.

"You are consigned to us, I think," said he.  "I am Mr. Havens."

"That is right, sir," replied the captain, shaking hands.  "You
will find the owner, Mr. Dodd, below.  Mind the fresh paint on
the house."

Havens stepped along the alley-way, and descended the ladder
into the main cabin.

"Mr. Dodd, I believe," said he, addressing a smallish, bearded
gentleman, who sat writing at the table.  "Why," he cried, "it
isn't Loudon Dodd?"

"Myself, my dear fellow," replied Mr. Dodd, springing to his
feet with companionable alacrity.  "I had a half-hope it might
be you, when I found your name on the papers.  Well, there's no
change in you; still the same placid, fresh-looking Britisher."

"I can't return the compliment; for you seem to have become a
Britisher yourself," said Havens.

"I promise you, I am quite unchanged," returned Dodd.  "The
red tablecloth at the top of the stick is not my flag; it's my
partner's.  He is not dead, but sleepeth.  There he is," he added,
pointing to a bust which formed one of the numerous
unexpected ornaments of that unusual cabin.

Havens politely studied it.  "A fine bust," said he; "and a very
nice-looking fellow."

"Yes; he's a good fellow," said Dodd.  "He runs me now.  It's
all his money."

"He doesn't seem to be particularly short of it," added the other,
peering with growing wonder round the cabin.

"His money, my taste," said Dodd.  "The black-walnut
bookshelves are Old English; the books all mine,--mostly
Renaissance French.  You should see how the beach-combers
wilt away when they go round them looking for a change of
Seaside Library novels.  The mirrors are genuine Venice; that's
a good piece in the corner.  The daubs are mine--and his; the
mudding mine."

"Mudding? What is that?" asked Havens.

"These bronzes," replied Dodd.  "I began life as a sculptor."

"Yes; I remember something about that," said the other.  "I
think, too, you said you were interested in Californian real
estate."

"Surely, I never went so far as that," said Dodd.  "Interested? I
guess not.  Involved, perhaps.  I was born an artist; I never took
an interest in anything but art.  If I were to pile up this old
schooner to-morrow," he added, "I declare I believe I would try
the thing again!"

"Insured?" inquired Havens.

"Yes," responded Dodd.  "There's some fool in 'Frisco who
insures us, and comes down like a wolf on the fold on the
profits; but we'll get even with him some day."

"Well, I suppose it's all right about the cargo," said Havens.

"O, I suppose so!" replied Dodd.  "Shall we go into the
papers?"

"We'll have all to-morrow, you know," said Havens; "and
they'll be rather expecting you at the club.  C'est l'heure de
l'absinthe.  Of course, Loudon, you'll dine with me later on?"

Mr. Dodd signified his acquiescence; drew on his white coat,
not without a trifling difficulty, for he was a man of middle age,
and well-to-do; arranged his beard and moustaches at one of
the Venetian mirrors; and, taking a broad felt hat, led the way
through the trade-room into the ship's waist.

The stern boat was waiting alongside,--a boat of an elegant
model, with cushions and polished hard-wood fittings.

"You steer," observed Loudon.  "You know the best place to
land."

"I never like to steer another man's boat," replied Havens.

"Call it my partner's, and cry quits," returned Loudon, getting
nonchalantly down the side.

Havens followed and took the yoke lines without further
protest.  "I am sure I don't know how you make this pay," he
said.  "To begin with, she is too big for the trade, to my taste;
and then you carry so much style."

"I don't know that she does pay," returned Loudon.  "I never
pretend to be a business man.  My partner appears happy; and
the money is all his, as I told you--I only bring the want of
business habits."

"You rather like the berth, I suppose?" suggested Havens.

"Yes," said Loudon; "it seems odd, but I rather do."

While they were yet on board, the sun had dipped; the sunset
gun (a rifle) cracked from the war-schooner, and the colours
had been handed down.  Dusk was deepening as they came
ashore; and the Cercle Internationale (as the club is officially
and significantly named) began to shine, from under its low
verandas, with the light of many lamps.  The good hours of the
twenty-four drew on; the hateful, poisonous day-fly of
Nukahiva, was beginning to desist from its activity; the
land-breeze came in refreshing draughts; and the club men
gathered together for the hour of absinthe.  To the commandant
himself, to the man whom he was then contending with at
billiards--a trader from the next island, honorary member of the
club, and once carpenter's mate on board a Yankee war-ship--
to the doctor of the port, to the Brigadier of Gendarmerie, to the
opium farmer, and to all the white men whom the tide of
commerce, or the chances of shipwreck and desertion, had
stranded on the beach of Tai-o-hae, Mr. Loudon Dodd was
formally presented; by all (since he was a man of pleasing
exterior, smooth ways, and an unexceptionable flow of talk,
whether in French or English) he was excellently well received;
and presently, with one of the last eight bottles of beer on a
table at his elbow, found himself the rather silent centre-piece
of a voluble group on the verandah.

Talk in the South Seas is all upon one pattern; it is a wide
ocean, indeed, but a narrow world: you shall never talk long
and not hear the name of Bully Hayes, a naval hero whose
exploits and deserved extinction left Europe cold; commerce
will be touched on, copra, shell, perhaps cotton or fungus; but
in a far-away, dilettante fashion, as by men not deeply
interested; through all, the names of schooners and their
captains, will keep coming and going, thick as may-flies; and
news of the last shipwreck will be placidly exchanged and
debated.  To a stranger, this conversation will at first seem
scarcely brilliant; but he will soon catch the tone; and by the
time he shall have moved a year or so in the island world, and
come across a good number of the schooners so that every
captain's name calls up a figure in pyjamas or white duck, and
becomes used to a certain laxity of moral tone which prevails
(as in memory of Mr. Hayes) on smuggling, ship-scuttling,
barratry, piracy, the labour trade, and other kindred fields of
human activity, he will find Polynesia no less amusing and no
less instructive than Pall Mall or Paris.

Mr. Loudon Dodd, though he was new to the group of the
Marquesas, was already an old, salted trader; he knew the
ships and the captains; he had assisted, in other islands, at the
first steps of some career of which he now heard the
culmination, or (vice versa) he had brought with him from
further south the end of some story which had begun in
Tai-o-hae.  Among other matter of interest, like other arrivals in
the South Seas, he had a wreck to announce.  The John T.
Richards, it appeared, had met the fate of other island
schooners.

"Dickinson piled her up on Palmerston Island," Dodd
announced.

"Who were the owners?" inquired one of the club men.

"O, the usual parties!" returned Loudon,--"Capsicum & Co."

A smile and a glance of intelligence went round the group; and
perhaps Loudon gave voice to the general sentiment by
remarking, "Talk of good business! I know nothing better than
a schooner, a competent captain, and a sound, reliable reef."

"Good business! There's no such a thing!" said the Glasgow
man.  "Nobody makes anything but the missionaries--dash it!"

"I don't know," said another.  "There's a good deal in opium."

"It's a good job to strike a tabooed pearl-island, say, about the
fourth year," remarked a third; "skim the whole lagoon on the
sly, and up stick and away before the French get wind of you."

"A pig nokket of cold is good," observed a German.

"There's something in wrecks, too," said Havens.  "Look at that
man in Honolulu, and the ship that went ashore on Waikiki
Reef; it was blowing a kona, hard; and she began to break up
as soon as she touched.  Lloyd's agent had her sold inside an
hour; and before dark, when she went to pieces in earnest, the
man that bought her had feathered his nest.  Three more hours
of daylight, and he might have retired from business.  As it
was, he built a house on Beretania Street, and called it for the
ship."

"Yes, there's something in wrecks sometimes," said the
Glasgow voice; "but not often."

"As a general rule, there's deuced little in anything," said
Havens.

"Well, I believe that's a Christian fact," cried the other.  "What
I want is a secret; get hold of a rich man by the right place, and
make him squeal."

"I suppose you know it's not thought to be the ticket," returned
Havens.

"I don't care for that; it's good enough for me," cried the man
from Glasgow, stoutly.  "The only devil of it is, a fellow can
never find a secret in a place like the South Seas: only in
London and Paris."

"M'Gibbon's been reading some dime-novel, I suppose," said
one club man.

"He's been reading _Aurora Floyd_," remarked another.

"And what if I have?" cried M'Gibbon.  "It's all true.  Look at
the newspapers! It's just your confounded ignorance that sets
you snickering.  I tell you, it's as much a trade as underwriting,
and a dashed sight more honest."

The sudden acrimony of these remarks called Loudon (who
was a man of peace) from his reserve.  "It's rather singular,"
said he, "but I seem to have practised about all these means of
livelihood."

"Tit you effer vind a nokket?" inquired the inarticulate German,
eagerly.

"No.  I have been most kinds of fool in my time," returned
Loudon, "but not the gold-digging variety.  Every man has a
sane spot somewhere."

"Well, then," suggested some one, "did you ever smuggle
opium?"

"Yes, I did," said Loudon.

"Was there money in that?"

"All the way," responded Loudon.

"And perhaps you bought a wreck?" asked another.

"Yes, sir," said Loudon.

"How did that pan out?" pursued the questioner.

"Well, mine was a peculiar kind of wreck," replied Loudon.  "I
don't know, on the whole, that I can recommend that branch of
industry."

"Did she break up?" asked some one.

"I guess it was rather I that broke down," says Loudon.  "Head
not big enough."

"Ever try the blackmail?" inquired Havens.

"Simple as you see me sitting here!" responded Dodd.

"Good business?"

"Well, I'm not a lucky man, you see," returned the stranger.  "It
ought to have been good."

"You had a secret?" asked the Glasgow man.

"As big as the State of Texas."

"And the other man was rich?"

"He wasn't exactly Jay Gould, but I guess he could buy these
islands if he wanted."

"Why, what was wrong, then? Couldn't you get hands on him?"

"It took time, but I had him cornered at last; and then----"

"What then?"

"The speculation turned bottom up.  I became the man's bosom
friend."

"The deuce you did!"

"He couldn't have been particular, you mean?" asked Dodd
pleasantly.  "Well, no; he's a man of rather large sympathies."

"If you're done talking nonsense, Loudon," said Havens, "let's
be getting to my place for dinner."

Outside, the night was full of the roaring of the surf.  Scattered
lights glowed in the green thicket.  Native women came by
twos and threes out of the darkness, smiled and ogled the two
whites, perhaps wooed them with a strain of laughter, and went
by again, bequeathing to the air a heady perfume of palm-oil
and frangipani blossom.  From the club to Mr. Havens's
residence was but a step or two, and to any dweller in Europe
they must have seemed steps in fairyland.  If such an one could
but have followed our two friends into the wide-verandahed
house, sat down with them in the cool trellised room, where the
wine shone on the lamp-lighted tablecloth; tasted of their exotic
food--the raw fish, the breadfruit, the cooked bananas, the roast
pig served with the inimitable miti, and that king of delicacies,
palm-tree salad; seen and heard by fits and starts, now peering
round the corner of the door, now railing within against
invisible assistants, a certain comely young native lady in a
sacque, who seemed too modest to be a member of the family,
and too imperious to be less; and then if such an one were
whisked again through space to Upper Tooting, or wherever
else he honored the domestic gods, "I have had a dream," I
think he would say, as he sat up, rubbing his eyes, in the
familiar chimney-corner chair, "I have had a dream of a place,
and I declare I believe it must be heaven." But to Dodd and his
entertainer, all this amenity of the tropic night and all these
dainties of the island table, were grown things of custom; and
they fell to meat like men who were hungry, and drifted into
idle talk like men who were a trifle bored.

The scene in the club was referred to.

"I never heard you talk so much nonsense, Loudon," said the
host.

"Well, it seemed to me there was sulphur in the air, so I talked
for talking," returned the other.  "But it was none of it
nonsense."

"Do you mean to say it was true?" cried Havens,--"that about
the opium and the wreck, and the blackmailing and the man
who became your friend?"

"Every last word of it," said Loudon.

"You seem to have been seeing life," returned the other.

"Yes, it's a queer yarn," said his friend; "if you think you would
like, I'll tell it you."

Here follows the yarn of Loudon Dodd, not as he told it to his
friend, but as he subsequently wrote it.



THE YARN.



CHAPTER I.

A SOUND COMMERCIAL EDUCATION.


The beginning of this yarn is my poor father's character.  There
never was a better man, nor a handsomer, nor (in my view) a
more unhappy--unhappy in his business, in his pleasures, in his
place of residence, and (I am sorry to say it) in his son.  He had
begun life as a land-surveyor, soon became interested in real
estate, branched off into many other speculations, and had the
name of one of the smartest men in the State of Muskegon. 
"Dodd has a big head," people used to say; but I was never so
sure of his capacity.  His luck, at least, was beyond doubt for
long; his assiduity, always.  He fought in that daily battle of
money-grubbing, with a kind of sad-eyed loyalty like a
martyr's; rose early, ate fast, came home dispirited and over-
eary, even from success; grudged himself all pleasure, if his
nature was capable of taking any, which I sometimes
wondered; and laid out, upon some deal in wheat or corner in
aluminium, the essence of which was little better than highway
robbery, treasures of conscientiousness and self-denial.

Unluckily, I never cared a cent for anything but art, and never
shall.  My idea of man's chief end was to enrich the world with
things of beauty, and have a fairly good time myself while
doing so.  I do not think I mentioned that second part, which is
the only one I have managed to carry out; but my father must
have suspected the suppression, for he branded the whole affair
as self-indulgence.

"Well," I remember crying once, "and what is your life?  You
are only trying to get money, and to get it from other people at
that."

He sighed bitterly (which was very much his habit), and shook
his poor head at me.  "Ah, Loudon, Loudon!" said he, "you
boys think yourselves very smart.  But, struggle as you please,
a man has to work in this world.  He must be an honest man or
a thief, Loudon."

You can see for yourself how vain it was to argue with my
father.  The despair that seized upon me after such an interview
was, besides, embittered by remorse; for I was at times
petulant, but he invariably gentle; and I was fighting, after all,
for my own liberty and pleasure, he singly for what he thought
to be my good.  And all the time he never despaired.  "There is
good stuff in you, Loudon," he would say; "there is the right
stuff in you.  Blood will tell, and you will come right in time.  I
am not afraid my boy will ever disgrace me; I am only vexed he
should sometimes talk nonsense." And then he would pat my
shoulder or my hand with a kind of motherly way he had, very
affecting in a man so strong and beautiful.

As soon as I had graduated from the high school, he packed me
off to the Muskegon Commercial Academy.  You are a
foreigner, and you will have a difficulty in accepting the reality
of this seat of education.  I assure you before I begin that I am
wholly serious.  The place really existed, possibly exists to-day:
we were proud of it in the State, as something exceptionally
nineteenth century and civilized; and my father, when he saw
me to the cars, no doubt considered he was putting me in a
straight line for the Presidency and the New Jerusalem.

"Loudon," said he, "I am now giving you a chance that Julius
Caesar could not have given to his son--a chance to see life as
it is, before your own turn comes to start in earnest.  Avoid rash
speculation, try to behave like a gentleman; and if you will take
my advice, confine yourself to a safe, conservative business in
railroads.  Breadstuffs are tempting, but very dangerous; I
would not try breadstuffs at your time of life; but you may feel
your way a little in other commodities.  Take a pride to keep
your books posted, and never throw good money after bad. 
There, my dear boy, kiss me good-by; and never forget that
you are an only chick, and that your dad watches your career
with fond suspense."

The commercial college was a fine, roomy establishment,
pleasantly situate among woods.  The air was healthy, the food
excellent, the premium high.  Electric wires connected it (to use
the words of the prospectus) with "the various world centres."
The reading-room was well supplied with "commercial
organs." The talk was that of Wall Street; and the pupils (from
fifty to a hundred lads) were principally engaged in rooking or
trying to rook one another for nominal sums in what was called
"college paper." We had class hours, indeed, in the morning,
when we studied German, French, book-keeping, and the like
goodly matters; but the bulk of our day and the gist of the
education centred in the exchange, where we were taught to
gamble in produce and securities.  Since not one of the
participants possessed a bushel of wheat or a dollar's worth of
stock, legitimate business was of course impossible from the
beginning.  It was cold-drawn gambling, without colour or
disguise.  Just that which is the impediment and destruction of
all genuine commercial enterprise, just that we were taught
with every luxury of stage effect.  Our simulacrum of a market
was ruled by the real markets outside, so that we might
experience the course and vicissitude of prices.  We must keep
books, and our ledgers were overhauled at the month's end by
the principal or his assistants.  To add a spice of verisimilitude,
"college paper" (like poker chips) had an actual marketable
value.  It was bought for each pupil by anxious parents and
guardians at the rate of one cent for the dollar.  The same pupil,
when his education was complete, resold, at the same figure,
so much as was left him to the college; and even in the midst of
his curriculum, a successful operator would sometimes realize
a proportion of his holding, and stand a supper on the sly in the
neighbouring hamlet.  In short, if there was ever a worse
education, it must have been in that academy where Oliver met
Charlie Bates.

When I was first guided into the exchange to have my desk
pointed out by one of the assistant teachers, I was overwhelmed
by the clamour and confusion.  Certain blackboards at the other
end of the building were covered with figures continually
replaced.  As each new set appeared, the pupils swayed to and
fro, and roared out aloud with a formidable and to me quite
meaningless vociferation; leaping at the same time upon the
desks and benches, signalling with arms and heads, and
scribbling briskly in note-books.  I thought I had never beheld a
scene more disagreeable; and when I considered that the whole
traffic was illusory, and all the money then upon the market
would scarce have sufficed to buy a pair of skates, I was at first
astonished, although not for long.  Indeed, I had no sooner
called to mind how grown-up men and women of considerable
estate will lose their temper about half-penny points, than
(making an immediate allowance for my fellow-students) I
transferred the whole of my astonishment to the assistant
teacher, who--poor gentleman--had quite forgot to show me to
my desk, and stood in the midst of this hurly-burly, absorbed
and seemingly transported.

"Look, look," he shouted in my ear; "a falling market!  The
bears have had it all their own way since yesterday."

"It can't matter," I replied, making him hear with difficulty, for
I was unused to speak in such a babel, "since it is all fun."

"True," said he; "and you must always bear in mind that the
real profit is in the book-keeping.  I trust, Dodd, to be able to
congratulate you upon your books.  You are to start in with ten
thousand dollars of college paper, a very liberal figure, which
should see you through the whole curriculum, if you keep to a
safe, conservative business....  Why, what's that?" he broke off,
once more attracted by the changing figures on the board.
"Seven, four, three! Dodd, you are in luck: this is the most
spirited rally we have had this term.  And to think that the
same scene is now transpiring in New York, Chicago, St.
Louis, and rival business centres!  For two cents, I would try a
flutter with the boys myself," he cried, rubbing his hands; "only
it's against the regulations."

"What would you do, sir?" I asked.

"Do?" he cried, with glittering eyes.  "Buy for all I was worth!"

"Would that be a safe, conservative business?" I inquired, as
innocent as a lamb.

He looked daggers at me.  "See that sandy-haired man in
glasses?" he asked, as if to change the subject.  "That's Billson,
our most prominent undergraduate.  We build confidently on
Billson's future.  You could not do better, Dodd, than follow
Billson."

Presently after, in the midst of a still growing tumult, the
figures coming and going more busily than ever on the board,
and the hall resounding like Pandemonium with the howls of
operators, the assistant teacher left me to my own resources at
my desk.  The next boy was posting up his ledger, figuring his
morning's loss, as I discovered later on; and from this ungenial
task he was readily diverted by the sight of a new face.

"Say, Freshman," he said, "what's your name? What?  Son of
Big Head Dodd?  What's your figure?  Ten thousand?  O,
you're away up!  What a soft-headed clam you must be to touch
your books!"

I asked him what else I could do, since the books were to be
examined once a month.

"Why, you galoot, you get a clerk!" cries he.  "One of our dead
beats--that's all they're here for.  If you're a successful operator,
you need never do a stroke of work in this old college."

The noise had now become deafening; and my new friend,
telling me that some one had certainly "gone down," that he
must know the news, and that he would bring me a clerk when
he returned, buttoned his coat and plunged into the tossing
throng.  It proved that he was right: some one had gone down;
a prince had fallen in Israel; the corner in lard had proved fatal
to the mighty; and the clerk who was brought back to keep my
books, spare me all work, and get all my share of the education,
at a thousand dollars a month, college paper (ten dollars,
United States currency) was no other than the prominent
Billson whom I could do no better than follow.  The poor lad
was very unhappy.  It's the only good thing I have to say for
Muskegon Commercial College, that we were all, even the
small fry, deeply mortified to be posted as defaulters; and the
collapse of a merchant prince like Billson, who had ridden
pretty high in his days of prosperity, was, of course, particularly
hard to bear.  But the spirit of make-believe conquered even the
bitterness of recent shame; and my clerk took his orders, and
fell to his new duties, with decorum and civility.

Such were my first impressions in this absurd place of
education; and, to be frank, they were far from disagreeable. 
As long as I was rich, my evenings and afternoons would be
my own; the clerk must keep my books, the clerk could do the
jostling and bawling in the exchange; and I could turn my mind
to landscape-painting and Balzac's novels, which were then my
two preoccupations.  To remain rich, then, became my
problem; or, in other words, to do a safe, conservative line of
business.  I am looking for that line still; and I believe the
nearest thing to it in this imperfect world is the sort of
speculation sometimes insidiously proposed to childhood, in
the formula, "Heads, I win; tails, you lose." Mindful of my
father's parting words, I turned my attention timidly to
railroads; and for a month or so maintained a position of
inglorious security, dealing for small amounts in the most inert
stocks, and bearing (as best I could) the scorn of my hired
clerk.  One day I had ventured a little further by way of
experiment; and, in the sure expectation they would continue to
go down, sold several thousand dollars of Pan-Handle
Preference (I think it was).  I had no sooner made this venture
than some fools in New York began to bull the market;
Pan-Handles rose like a balloon; and in the inside of half an
hour I saw my position compromised.  Blood will tell, as my
father said; and I stuck to it gallantly: all afternoon I continued
selling that infernal stock, all afternoon it continued skying.  I
suppose I had come (a frail cockle-shell) athwart the hawse of
Jay Gould; and, indeed, I think I remember that this vagary in
the market proved subsequently to be the first move in a
considerable deal.  That evening, at least, the name of H.
Loudon Dodd held the first rank in our collegiate gazette, and I
and Billson (once more thrown upon the world) were
competing for the same clerkship.  The present object takes the
present eye.  My disaster, for the moment, was the more
conspicuous; and it was I that got the situation.  So you see,
even in Muskegon Commercial College, there were lessons to
be learned.

For my own part, I cared very little whether I lost or won at a
game so random, so complex, and so dull; but it was sorry
news to write to my poor father, and I employed all the
resources of my eloquence.  I told him (what was the truth) that
the successful boys had none of the education; so that if he
wished me to learn, he should rejoice at my misfortune.  I went
on (not very consistently) to beg him to set me up again, when I
would solemnly promise to do a safe business in reliable
railroads.  Lastly (becoming somewhat carried away), I assured
him I was totally unfit for business, and implored him to take
me away from this abominable place, and let me go to Paris to
study art.  He answered briefly, gently, and sadly, telling me
the vacation was near at hand, when we could talk things over.

When the time came, he met me at the depot, and I was
shocked to see him looking older.  He seemed to have no
thought but to console me and restore (what he supposed I had
lost) my courage.  I must not be down-hearted; many of the
best men had made a failure in the beginning.  I told him I had
no head for business, and his kind face darkened.  "You must
not say that, Loudon," he replied; "I will never believe my son
to be a coward."

"But I don't like it," I pleaded.  "It hasn't got any interest for
me, and art has.  I know I could do more in art," and I
reminded him that a successful painter gains large sums; that a
picture of Meissonier's would sell for many thousand dollars.

"And do you think, Loudon," he replied, "that a man who can
paint a thousand dollar picture has not grit enough to keep his
end up in the stock market? No, sir; this Mason (of whom you
speak) or our own American Bierstadt--if you were to put them
down in a wheat pit to-morrow, they would show their mettle. 
Come, Loudon, my dear; heaven knows I have no thought but
your own good, and I will offer you a bargain.  I start you again
next term with ten thousand dollars; show yourself a man, and
double it, and then (if you still wish to go to Paris, which I
know you won't) I'll let you go.  But to let you run away as if
you were whipped, is what I am too proud to do."

My heart leaped at this proposal, and then sank again.  It
seemed easier to paint a Meissonier on the spot than to win ten
thousand dollars on that mimic stock exchange.  Nor could I
help reflecting on the singularity of such a test for a man's
capacity to be a painter.  I ventured even to comment on this.

He sighed deeply.  "You forget, my dear," said he, "I am a
judge of the one, and not of the other.  You might have the
genius of Bierstadt himself, and I would be none the wiser."

"And then," I continued, "it's scarcely fair.  The other boys are
helped by their people, who telegraph and give them pointers. 
There's Jim Costello, who never budges without a word from
his father in New York.  And then, don't you see, if anybody is
to win, somebody must lose?"

"I'll keep you posted," cried my father, with unusual animation;
"I did not know it was allowed.  I'll wire you in the office
cipher, and we'll make it a kind of partnership business,
Loudon:--Dodd & Son, eh?" and he patted my shoulder and
repeated, "Dodd & Son, Dodd & Son," with the kindliest
amusement.

If my father was to give me pointers, and the commercial
college was to be a stepping-stone to Paris, I could look my
future in the face.  The old boy, too, was so pleased at the idea
of our association in this foolery that he immediately plucked
up spirit.  Thus it befell that those who had met at the depot
like a pair of mutes, sat down to table with holiday faces.

And now I have to introduce a new character that never said a
word nor wagged a finger, and yet shaped my whole
subsequent career.  You have crossed the States, so that in all
likelihood you have seen the head of it, parcel-gilt and
curiously fluted, rising among trees from a wide plain; for this
new character was no other than the State capitol of Muskegon,
then first projected.  My father had embraced the idea with a
mixture of patriotism and commercial greed both perfectly
genuine.  He was of all the committees, he had subscribed a
great deal of money, and he was making arrangements to have
a finger in most of the contracts.  Competitive plans had been
sent in; at the time of my return from college my father was
deep in their consideration; and as the idea entirely occupied
his mind, the first evening did not pass away before he had
called me into council.  Here was a subject at last into which I
could throw myself with pleasurable zeal.  Architecture was
new to me, indeed; but it was at least an art; and for all the arts
I had a taste naturally classical and that capacity to take
delighted pains which some famous idiot has supposed to be
synonymous with genius.  I threw myself headlong into my
father's work, acquainted myself with all the plans, their merits
and defects, read besides in special books, made myself a
master of the theory of strains, studied the current prices of
materials, and (in one word) "devilled" the whole business so
thoroughly, that when the plans came up for consideration, Big
Head Dodd was supposed to have earned fresh laurels.  His
arguments carried the day, his choice was approved by the
committee, and I had the anonymous satisfaction to know that
arguments and choice were wholly mine.  In the recasting of
the plan which followed, my part was even larger; for I
designed and cast with my own hand a hot-air grating for the
offices, which had the luck or merit to be accepted.  The energy
and aptitude which I displayed throughout delighted and
surprised my father, and I believe, although I say it whose
tongue should be tied, that they alone prevented Muskegon
capitol from being the eyesore of my native State.

Altogether, I was in a cheery frame of mind when I returned to
the commercial college; and my earlier operations were
crowned with a full measure of success.  My father wrote and
wired to me continually.  "You are to exercise your own
judgment, Loudon," he would say.  "All that I do is to give you
the figures; but whatever operation you take up must be upon
your own responsibility, and whatever you earn will be entirely
due to your own dash and forethought." For all that, it was
always clear what he intended me to do, and I was always
careful to do it.  Inside of a month I was at the head of
seventeen or eighteen thousand dollars, college paper.  And
here I fell a victim to one of the vices of the system.  The paper
(I have already explained) had a real value of one per cent; and
cost, and could be sold for, currency.  Unsuccessful speculators
were thus always selling clothes, books, banjos, and sleeve-
links, in order to pay their differences; the successful, on the
other hand, were often tempted to realise, and enjoy some
return upon their profits.  Now I wanted thirty dollars' worth of
artist-truck, for I was always sketching in the woods; my
allowance was for the time exhausted; I had begun to regard
the exchange (with my father's help) as a place where money
was to be got for stooping; and in an evil hour I realised three
thousand dollars of the college paper and bought my easel.

It was a Wednesday morning when the things arrived, and set
me in the seventh heaven of satisfaction.  My father (for I can
scarcely say myself) was trying at this time a "straddle" in
wheat between Chicago and New York; the operation so called
is, as you know, one of the most tempting and least safe upon
the chess-board of finance.  On the Thursday, luck began to
turn against my father's calculations; and by the Friday
evening, I was posted on the boards as a defaulter for the
second time.  Here was a rude blow: my father would have
taken it ill enough in any case; for however much a man may
resent the incapacity of an only son, he will feel his own more
sensibly.  But it chanced that, in our bitter cup of failure, there
was one ingredient that might truly be called poisonous.  He
had been keeping the run of my position; he missed the three
thousand dollars, paper; and in his view, I had stolen thirty
dollars, currency.  It was an extreme view perhaps; but in some
senses, it was just: and my father, although (to my judgment)
quite reckless of honesty in the essence of his operations, was
the soul of honour as to their details.  I had one grieved letter
from him, dignified and tender; and during the rest of that
wretched term, working as a clerk, selling my clothes and
sketches to make futile speculations, my dream of Paris quite
vanished.  I was cheered by no word of kindness and helped by
no hint of counsel from my father.

All the time he was no doubt thinking of little else but his son,
and what to do with him.  I believe he had been really appalled
by what he regarded as my laxity of principle, and began to
think it might be well to preserve me from temptation; the
architect of the capitol had, besides, spoken obligingly of my
design; and while he was thus hanging between two minds,
Fortune suddenly stepped in, and Muskegon State capitol
reversed my destiny.

"Loudon," said my father, as he met me at the depot, with a
smiling countenance, "if you were to go to Paris, how long
would it take you to become an experienced sculptor?"

"How do you mean, father?" I cried.  "Experienced?"

"A man that could be entrusted with the highest styles," he
answered; "the nude, for instance; and the patriotic and
emblematical styles."

"It might take three years," I replied.

"You think Paris necessary?" he asked.  "There are great
advantages in our own country; and that man Prodgers appears
to be a very clever sculptor, though I suppose he stands too
high to go around giving lessons."

"Paris is the only place," I assured him.

"Well, I think myself it will sound better," he admitted.  "A
Young Man, a Native of this State, Son of a Leading Citizen,
Studies Prosecuted under the Most Experienced Masters in
Paris," he added, relishingly.

"But, my dear dad, what is it all about?" I interrupted.  "I never
even dreamed of being a sculptor."

"Well, here it is," said he.  "I took up the statuary contract on
our new capitol; I took it up at first as a deal; and then it
occurred to me it would be better to keep it in the family.  It
meets your idea; there's considerable money in the thing; and
it's patriotic.  So, if you say the word, you shall go to Paris, and 
come back in three years to decorate the capitol of your native
State.  It's a big chance for you, Loudon; and I'll tell you what--
every dollar you earn, I'll put another alongside of it.  But the
sooner you go, and the harder you work, the better; for if the
first half-dozen statues aren't in a line with public taste in
Muskegon, there will be trouble."



CHAPTER II.

ROUSSILLON WINE.


My mother's family was Scotch, and it was judged fitting I
should pay a visit on my way Paris-ward, to my Uncle Adam
Loudon, a wealthy retired grocer of Edinburgh.  He was very
stiff and very ironical; he fed me well, lodged me sumptuously,
and seemed to take it out of me all the time, cent per cent, in
secret entertainment which caused his spectacles to glitter and
his mouth to twitch.  The ground of this ill-suppressed mirth
(as well as I could make out) was simply the fact that I was an
American.  "Well," he would say, drawing out the word to
infinity, "and I suppose now in your country, things will be so
and so."  And the whole group of my cousins would titter
joyously.  Repeated receptions of this sort must be at the root, I
suppose, of what they call the Great American Jest; and I know
I was myself goaded into saying that my friends went naked in
the summer months, and that the Second Methodist Episcopal
Church in Muskegon was decorated with scalps.  I cannot say
that these flights had any great success; they seemed to awaken
little more surprise than the fact that my father was a
Republican or that I had been taught in school to spell
COLOUR without the U.  If I had told them (what was after all
the truth) that my father had paid a considerable annual sum to
have me brought up in a gambling hell, the tittering and
grinning of this dreadful family might perhaps have been
excused.

I cannot deny but I was sometimes tempted to knock my Uncle
Adam down; and indeed I believe it must have come to a
rupture at last, if they had not given a dinner party at which I
was the lion.  On this occasion, I learned (to my surprise and
relief) that the incivility to which I had been subjected was a
matter for the family circle and might be regarded almost in the
light of an endearment.  To strangers I was presented with
consideration; and the account given of "my American brother-
in-law, poor Janie's man, James K. Dodd, the well-known
millionnaire of Muskegon," was calculated to enlarge the heart
of a proud son.

An aged assistant of my grandfather's, a pleasant, humble
creature with a taste for whiskey, was at first deputed to be my
guide about the city.  With this harmless but hardly aristocratic
companion, I went to Arthur's Seat and the Calton Hill, heard
the band play in the Princes Street Gardens, inspected the
regalia and the blood of Rizzio, and fell in love with the great
castle on its cliff, the innumerable spires of churches, the
stately buildings, the broad prospects, and those narrow and
crowded lanes of the old town where my ancestors had lived
and died in the days before Columbus.

But there was another curiosity that interested me more deeply
--my grandfather, Alexander Loudon.  In his time, the old
gentleman had been a working mason, and had risen from the
ranks more, I think, by shrewdness than by merit.  In his
appearance, speech, and manners, he bore broad marks of his
origin, which were gall and wormwood to my Uncle Adam.
His nails, in spite of anxious supervision, were often in
conspicuous mourning; his clothes hung about him in bags and 
wrinkles like a ploughman's Sunday coat; his accent was rude,
broad, and dragging:  take him at his best, and even when he
could be induced to hold his tongue, his mere presence in a
corner of the drawing-room, with his open-air wrinkles, his
scanty hair, his battered hands, and the cheerful craftiness of
his expression, advertised the whole gang of us for a self-made
family.  My aunt might mince and my cousins bridle; but there 
was no getting over the solid, physical fact of the stonemason
in the chimney-corner.

That is one advantage of being an American:  it never occurred
to me to be ashamed of my grandfather, and the old gentleman
was quick to mark the difference.  He held my mother in tender
memory, perhaps because he was in the habit of daily
contrasting her with Uncle Adam, whom he detested to the
point of frenzy; and he set down to inheritance from his
favourite my own becoming treatment of himself.  On our
walks abroad, which soon became daily, he would sometimes
(after duly warning me to keep the matter dark from "Aadam")
skulk into some old familiar pot-house; and there (if he had the
luck to encounter any of his veteran cronies) he would present
me to the company with manifest pride, casting at the same
time a covert slur on the rest of his descendants.  "This is my
Jeannie's yin," he would say.  "He's a fine fallow, him." The
purpose of our excursions was not to seek antiquities or to
enjoy famous prospects, but to visit one after another a series of
doleful suburbs, for which it was the old gentleman's chief
claim to renown that he had been the sole contractor, and too
often the architect besides.  I have rarely seen a more shocking
exhibition:  the bricks seemed to be blushing in the walls, and
the slates on the roof to have turned pale with shame; but I was
careful not to communicate these impressions to the aged
artificer at my side; and when he would direct my attention to
some fresh monstrosity--perhaps with the comment, "There's an
idee of mine's:  it's cheap and tasty, and had a graand run; the
idee was soon stole, and there's whole deestricts near Glesgie
with the goathic adeetion and that plunth,"--I would civilly
make haste to admire and (what I found particularly delighted
him) to inquire into the cost of each adornment.  It will be
conceived that Muskegon capitol was a frequent and a
welcome ground of talk; I drew him all the plans from memory;
and he, with the aid of a narrow volume full of figures and
tables, which answered (I believe) to the name of Molesworth,
and was his constant pocket companion, would draw up rough
estimates and make imaginary offers on the various contracts. 
Our Muskegon builders he pronounced a pack of cormorants;
and the congenial subject, together with my knowledge of
architectural terms, the theory of strains, and the prices of
materials in the States, formed a strong bond of union between
what might have been otherwise an ill-assorted pair, and led
my grandfather to pronounce me, with emphasis, "a real
intalligent kind of a cheild." Thus a second time, as you will
presently see, the capitol of my native State had influentially
affected the current of my life.

I left Edinburgh, however, with not the least idea that I had
done a stroke of excellent business for myself, and singly
delighted to escape out of a somewhat dreary house and plunge
instead into the rainbow city of Paris.  Every man has his own
romance; mine clustered exclusively about the practice of the
arts, the life of Latin Quarter students, and the world of Paris as 
depicted by that grimy wizard, the author of the _Comedie
Humaine_.  I was not disappointed--I could not have been; for I
did not see the facts, I brought them with me ready-made.  Z.
Marcas lived next door to me in my ungainly, ill-smelling hotel
of the Rue Racine; I dined at my villainous restaurant with
Lousteau and with Rastignac:  if a curricle nearly ran me down
at a street-crossing, Maxime de Trailles would be the driver.  I
dined, I say, at a poor restaurant and lived in a poor hotel; and
this was not from need, but sentiment.  My father gave me a
profuse allowance, and I might have lived (had I chosen) in the
Quartier de l'Etoile and driven to my studies daily.  Had I done
so, the glamour must have fled:  I should still have been but
Loudon Dodd; whereas now I was a Latin Quarter student,
Murger's successor, living in flesh and blood the life of one of
those romances I had loved to read, to re-read, and to dream
over, among the woods of Muskegon.

At this time we were all a little Murger-mad in the Latin
Quarter.  The play of the _Vie de Boheme_ (a dreary, snivelling
piece) had been produced at the Odeon, had run an
unconscionable time--for Paris, and revived the freshness of the
legend.  The same business, you may say, or there and
thereabout, was being privately enacted in consequence in
every garret of the neighbourhood, and a good third of the
students were consciously impersonating Rodolphe or
Schaunard to their own incommunicable satisfaction.  Some of
us went far, and some farther.  I always looked with awful envy
(for instance) on a certain countryman of my own who had a
studio in the Rue Monsieur le Prince, wore boots, and long hair
in a net, and could be seen tramping off, in this guise, to the
worst eating-house of the quarter, followed by a Corsican
model, his mistress, in the conspicuous costume of her race and
calling.  It takes some greatness of soul to carry even folly to
such heights as these; and for my own part, I had to content
myself by pretending very arduously to be poor, by wearing a
smoking-cap on the streets, and by pursuing, through a series
of misadventures, that extinct mammal, the grisette.  The most
grievous part was the eating and the drinking.  I was born with
a dainty tooth and a palate for wine; and only a genuine
devotion to romance could have supported me under the cat-
civets that I had to swallow, and the red ink of Bercy I must
wash them down withal.  Every now and again, after a hard
day at the studio, where I was steadily and far from
unsuccessfully industrious, a wave of distaste would overbear
me; I would slink away from my haunts and companions,
indemnify myself for weeks of self-denial with fine wines and
dainty dishes; seated perhaps on a terrace, perhaps in an arbour
in a garden, with a volume of one of my favourite authors
propped open in front of me, and now consulted awhile, and
now forgotten:--so remain, relishing my situation, till night fell
and the lights of the city kindled; and thence stroll homeward
by the riverside, under the moon or stars, in a heaven of poetry
and digestion.

One such indulgence led me in the course of my second year
into an adventure which I must relate: indeed, it is the very
point I have been aiming for, since that was what brought me
in acquaintance with Jim Pinkerton.  I sat down alone to dinner
one October day when the rusty leaves were falling and
scuttling on the boulevard, and the minds of impressionable
men inclined in about an equal degree towards sadness and
conviviality.  The restaurant was no great place, but boasted a
considerable cellar and a long printed list of vintages.  This I
was perusing with the double zest of a man who is fond of
wine and a lover of beautiful names, when my eye fell (near the
end of the card) on that not very famous or familiar brand,
Roussillon.  I remembered it was a wine I had never tasted,
ordered a bottle, found it excellent, and when I had discussed
the contents, called (according to my habit) for a final pint.  It
appears they did not keep Roussillon in half-bottles.  "All
right," said I.  "Another bottle."  The tables at this eating-house
are close together; and the next thing I can remember, I was in
somewhat loud conversation with my nearest neighbours.  
From these I must have gradually extended my attentions; for I
have a clear recollection of gazing about a room in which every
chair was half turned round and every face turned smilingly to
mine.  I can even remember what I was saying at the moment;
but after twenty years, the embers of shame are still alive; and I
prefer to give your imagination the cue, by simply mentioning
that my muse was the patriotic.  It had been my design to
adjourn for coffee in the company of some of these new friends;
but I was no sooner on the sidewalk than I found myself
unaccountably alone.  The circumstance scarce surprised me at
the time, much less now; but I was somewhat chagrined a little
after to find I had walked into a kiosque.  I began to wonder if I
were any the worse for my last bottle, and decided to steady
myself with coffee and brandy.  In the Cafe de la Source, where
I went for this restorative, the fountain was playing, and (what
greatly surprised me) the mill and the various mechanical
figures on the rockery appeared to have been freshly repaired
and performed the most enchanting antics.  The cafe was
extraordinarily hot and bright, with every detail of a
conspicuous clearness, from the faces of the guests to the type
of the newspapers on the tables, and the whole apartment
swang to and fro like a hammock, with an exhilarating motion. 
For some while I was so extremely pleased with these
particulars that I thought I could never be weary of beholding
them:  then dropped of a sudden into a causeless sadness; and
then, with the same swiftness and spontaneity, arrived at the
conclusion that I was drunk and had better get to bed.

It was but a step or two to my hotel, where I got my lighted
candle from the porter and mounted the four flights to my own
room.  Although I could not deny that I was drunk, I was at the
same time lucidly rational and practical.  I had but one
preoccupation--to be up in time on the morrow for my work;
and when I observed the clock on my chimney-piece to have
stopped, I decided to go down stairs again and give directions
to the porter.  Leaving the candle burning and my door open, to
be a guide to me on my return, I set forth accordingly.  The
house was quite dark; but as there were only the three doors on
each landing, it was impossible to wander, and I had nothing to
do but descend the stairs until I saw the glimmer of the porter's
night light.  I counted four flights: no porter.  It was possible, of
course, that I had reckoned incorrectly; so I went down another
and another, and another, still counting as I went, until I had
reached the preposterous figure of nine flights.  It was now
quite clear that I had somehow passed the porter's lodge
without remarking it; indeed, I was, at the lowest figure, five
pairs of stairs below the street, and plunged in the very bowels
of the earth.  That my hotel should thus be founded upon
catacombs was a discovery of considerable interest; and if I had
not been in a frame of mind entirely businesslike, I might have
continued to explore all night this subterranean empire.  But I
was bound I must be up betimes on the next morning, and for
that end it was imperative that I should find the porter.  I faced
about accordingly, and counting with painful care, remounted
towards the level of the street.  Five, six, and seven flights I
climbed, and still there was no porter.  I began to be weary of
the job, and reflecting that I was now close to my own room,
decided I should go to bed.  Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve,
thirteen flights I mounted; and my open door seemed to be as
wholly lost to me as the porter and his floating dip.  I
remembered that the house stood but six stories at its highest
point, from which it appeared (on the most moderate
computation) I was now three stories higher than the roof.  My
original sense of amusement was succeeded by a not unnatural
irritation.  "My room has just GOT to be here," said I, and I
stepped towards the door with outspread arms.  There was no
door and no wall; in place of either there yawned before me a
dark corridor, in which I continued to advance for some time
without encountering the smallest opposition.  And this in a
house whose extreme area scantily contained three small
rooms, a narrow landing, and the stair!  The thing was
manifestly nonsense; and you will scarcely be surprised to learn
that I now began to lose my temper.  At this juncture I
perceived a filtering of light along the floor, stretched forth my
hand which encountered the knob of a door-handle, and
without further ceremony entered a room.  A young lady was
within; she was going to bed, and her toilet was far advanced,
or the other way about, if you prefer.

"I hope you will pardon this intrusion," said I; "but my room is
No. 12, and something has gone wrong with this blamed
house."

She looked at me a moment; and then, "If you will step outside
for a moment, I will take you there," says she.

Thus, with perfect composure on both sides, the matter was
arranged.  I waited a while outside her door.  Presently she
rejoined me, in a dressing-gown, took my hand, led me up
another flight, which made the fourth above the level of the
roof, and shut me into my own room, where (being quite weary
after these contraordinary explorations) I turned in, and
slumbered like a child.

I tell you the thing calmly, as it appeared to me to pass; but the
next day, when I awoke and put memory in the witness-box, I
could not conceal from myself that the tale presented a good
many improbable features.  I had no mind for the studio, after
all, and went instead to the Luxembourg gardens, there, among
the sparrows and the statues and the falling leaves, to cool and
clear my head.  It is a garden I have always loved.  You sit
there in a public place of history and fiction.  Barras and
Fouche have looked from these windows.  Lousteau and de
Banville (one as real as the other) have rhymed upon these
benches.  The city tramples by without the railings to a lively
measure; and within and about you, trees rustle, children and
sparrows utter their small cries, and the statues look on forever. 
Here, then, in a seat opposite the gallery entrance, I set to work
on the events of the last night, to disengage (if it were possible)
truth from fiction.

The house, by daylight, had proved to be six stories high, the
same as ever.  I could find, with all my architectural
experience, no room in its altitude for those interminable
stairways, no width between its walls for that long corridor,
where I had tramped at night.  And there was yet a greater
difficulty.  I had read somewhere an aphorism that everything
may be false to itself save human nature.  A house might
elongate or enlarge itself--or seem to do so to a gentleman who
had been dining.  The ocean might dry up, the rocks melt in the
sun, the stars fall from heaven like autumn apples; and there
was nothing in these incidents to boggle the philosopher.  But
the case of the young lady stood upon a different foundation. 
Girls were not good enough, or not good that way, or else they
were too good.  I was ready to accept any of these views: all
pointed to the same conclusion, which I was thus already on
the point of reaching, when a fresh argument occurred, and
instantly confirmed it.  I could remember the exact words we
had each said; and I had spoken, and she had replied, in
English.  Plainly, then, the whole affair was an illusion:
catacombs, and stairs, and charitable lady, all were equally the
stuff of dreams.

I had just come to this determination, when there blew a flaw
of wind through the autumnal gardens; the dead leaves
showered down, and a flight of sparrows, thick as a snowfall,
wheeled above my head with sudden pipings.  This agreeable
bustle was the affair of a moment, but it startled me from the
abstraction into which I had fallen like a summons.  I sat
briskly up, and as I did so, my eyes rested on the figure of a
lady in a brown jacket and carrying a paint-box.  By her side
walked a fellow some years older than myself, with an easel
under his arm; and alike by their course and cargo I might
judge they were bound for the gallery, where the lady was,
doubtless, engaged upon some copying.  You can imagine my
surprise when I recognized in her the heroine of my adventure. 
To put the matter beyond question, our eyes met, and she,
seeing herself remembered and recalling the trim in which I
had last beheld her, looked swiftly on the ground with just a
shadow of confusion.

I could not tell you to-day if she were plain or pretty; but she
had behaved with so much good sense, and I had cut so poor a
figure in her presence, that I became instantly fired with the
desire to display myself in a more favorable light.  The young
man besides was possibly her brother; brothers are apt to be
hasty, theirs being a part in which it is possible, at a
comparatively early age, to assume the dignity of manhood;
and it occurred to me it might be wise to forestall all possible
complications by an apology.

On this reasoning I drew near to the gallery door, and had
hardly got in position before the young man came out.  Thus it
was that I came face to face with my third destiny; for my
career has been entirely shaped by these three elements,--my
father, the capitol of Muskegon, and my friend, Jim Pinkerton. 
As for the young lady with whom my mind was at the moment
chiefly occupied, I was never to hear more of her from that day
forward:  an excellent example of the Blind Man's Buff that we
call life.



 CHAPTER III.

 TO INTRODUCE MR. PINKERTON.


The stranger, I have said, was some years older than myself: a
man of a good stature, a very lively face, cordial, agitated
manners, and a gray eye as active as a fowl's.

"May I have a word with you?" said I.

"My dear sir," he replied, "I don't know what it can be about,
but you may have a hundred if you like."

"You have just left the side of a young lady," I continued,
"towards whom I was led (very unintentionally) into the
appearance of an offence.  To speak to herself would be only to
renew her embarrassment, and I seize the occasion of making
my apology, and declaring my respect, to one of my own sex
who is her friend, and perhaps," I added, with a bow, "her
natural protector."

"You are a countryman of mine; I know it!" he cried:  "I am
sure of it by your delicacy to a lady.  You do her no more than
justice.  I was introduced to her the other night at tea, in the
apartment of some people, friends of mine; and meeting her
again this morning, I could not do less than carry her easel for
her.  My dear sir, what is your name?"

I was disappointed to find he had so little bond with my young
lady; and but that it was I who had sought the acquaintance,
might have been tempted to retreat.  At the same time,
something in the stranger's eye engaged me.

"My name," said I, "is Loudon Dodd; I am a student of
sculpture here from Muskegon."

"Of sculpture?" he cried, as though that would have been his
last conjecture.  "Mine is James Pinkerton; I am delighted to
have the pleasure of your acquaintance."

"Pinkerton!" it was now my turn to exclaim.  "Are you Broken-
Stool Pinkerton?"

He admitted his identity with a laugh of boyish delight; and
indeed any young man in the quarter might have been proud to
own a sobriquet thus gallantly acquired.

In order to explain the name, I must here digress into a chapter
of the history of manners in the nineteenth century, very well
worth commemoration for its own sake.  In some of the studios
at that date, the hazing of new pupils was both barbarous and
obscene.  Two incidents, following one on the heels of the other
tended to produce an advance in civilization by the means (as
so commonly happens) of a passing appeal to savage
standards.  The first was the arrival of a little gentleman from
Armenia.  He had a fez upon his head and (what nobody
counted on) a dagger in his pocket.  The hazing was set about
in the customary style, and, perhaps in virtue of the victim's
head-gear, even more boisterously than usual.  He bore it at
first with an inviting patience; but upon one of the students
proceeding to an unpardonable freedom, plucked out his knife
and suddenly plunged it in the belly of the jester.  This
gentleman, I am pleased to say, passed months upon a bed of
sickness, before he was in a position to resume his studies. 
The second incident was that which had earned Pinkerton his
reputation.  In a crowded studio, while some very filthy
brutalities were being practised on a trembling debutant, a tall,
pale fellow sprang from his stool and (without the smallest
preface or explanation) sang out, "All English and Americans
to clear the shop!" Our race is brutal, but not filthy; and the
summons was nobly responded to.  Every Anglo-Saxon student
seized his stool; in a moment the studio was full of bloody
coxcombs, the French fleeing in disorder for the door, the
victim liberated and amazed.  In this feat of arms, both English
-speaking nations covered themselves with glory; but I am
proud to claim the author of the whole for an American, and a
patriotic American at that, being the same gentleman who had
subsequently to be held down in the bottom of a box during a
performance of _L'Oncle Sam_, sobbing at intervals, "My
country! O my country!"  While yet another (my new
acquaintance, Pinkerton) was supposed to have made the most
conspicuous figure in the actual battle.  At one blow, he had
broken his own stool, and sent the largest of his opponents
back foremost through what we used to call a "conscientious
nude." It appears that, in the continuation of his flight, this
fallen warrior issued on the boulevard still framed in the burst
canvas.

It will be understood how much talk the incident aroused in the
students' quarter, and that I was highly gratified to make the
acquaintance of my famous countryman.  It chanced I was to
see more of the quixotic side of his character before the
morning was done; for as we continued to stroll together, I
found myself near the studio of a young Frenchman whose
work I had promised to examine, and in the fashion of the
quarter carried up Pinkerton along with me.  Some of my
comrades of this date were pretty obnoxious fellows.  I could
almost always admire and respect the grown-up practitioners of
art in Paris; but many of those who were still in a state of
pupilage were sorry specimens, so much so that I used often to
wonder where the painters came from, and where the brutes of
students went to.  A similar mystery hangs over the
intermediate stages of the medical profession, and must have
perplexed the least observant.  The ruffian, at least, whom I
now carried Pinkerton to visit, was one of the most crapulous in
the quarter.  He turned out for our delectation a huge "crust" (as
we used to call it) of St. Stephen, wallowing in red upon his
belly in an exhausted receiver, and a crowd of Hebrews in blue,
green, and yellow, pelting him--apparently with buns; and
while we gazed upon this contrivance, regaled us with a piece
of his own recent biography, of which his mind was still very
full, and which he seemed to fancy, represented him in a heroic
posture.  I was one of those cosmopolitan Americans, who
accept the world (whether at home or abroad) as they find it,
and whose favourite part is that of the spectator; yet even I was
listening with ill-suppressed disgust, when I was aware of a
violent plucking at my sleeve.

"Is he saying he kicked her down stairs?" asked Pinkerton,
white as St. Stephen.

"Yes," said I:  "his discarded mistress; and then he pelted her
with stones.  I suppose that's what gave him the idea for his
picture.  He has just been alleging the pathetic excuse that she
was old enough to be his mother."

Something like a sob broke from Pinkerton.  "Tell him," he
gasped--"I can't speak this language, though I understand a
little; I never had any proper education--tell him I'm going to
punch his head."

"For God's sake, do nothing of the sort!" I cried.  "They don't
understand that sort of thing here."  And I tried to bundle him
out.

"Tell him first what we think of him," he objected.  "Let me tell
him what he looks in the eyes of a pure-minded American"

"Leave that to me," said I, thrusting Pinkerton clear through the
door.

"Qu'est-ce qu'il a?"[1] inquired the student.

[1] "What's the matter with him?"

"Monsieur se sent mal au coeur d'avoir trop regarde votre
croute,"[2] said I, and made my escape, scarce with dignity, at
Pinkerton's heels.

[2] "The gentleman is sick at his stomach from having looked
too long at your daub."

"What did you say to him?" he asked.

"The only thing that he could feel," was my reply.

After this scene, the freedom with which I had ejected my new
acquaintance, and the precipitation with which I had followed
him, the least I could do was to propose luncheon.  I have
forgot the name of the place to which I led him, nothing loath;
it was on the far side of the Luxembourg at least, with a garden
behind, where we were speedily set face to face at table, and
began to dig into each other's history and character, like terriers
after rabbits, according to the approved fashion of youth.  

Pinkerton's parents were from the old country; there too, I
incidentally gathered, he had himself been born, though it was
a circumstance he seemed prone to forget.  Whether he had run
away, or his father had turned him out, I never fathomed; but
about the age of twelve, he was thrown upon his own
resources.  A travelling tin-type photographer picked him up,
like a haw out of a hedgerow, on a wayside in New Jersey; took
a fancy to the urchin; carried him on with him in his wandering
life; taught him all he knew himself--to take tin-types (as well
as I can make out) and doubt the Scriptures; and died at last in
Ohio at the corner of a road.  "He was a grand specimen," cried
Pinkerton; "I wish you could have seen him, Mr. Dodd.  He had
an appearance of magnanimity that used to remind me of the
patriarchs."  On the death of this random protector, the boy
inherited the plant and continued the business.  "It was a life I
could have chosen, Mr. Dodd!" he cried.  "I have been in all the
finest scenes of that magnificent continent that we were born to
be the heirs of.  I wish you could see my collection of tin-types;
I wish I had them here.  They were taken for my own pleasure 
and to be a memento; and they show Nature in her grandest as
well as her gentlest moments." As he tramped the Western
States and Territories, taking tin-types, the boy was continually
getting hold of books, good, bad, and indifferent, popular and
abstruse, from the novels of Sylvanus Cobb to Euclid's
Elements, both of which I found (to my almost equal wonder)
he had managed to peruse:  he was taking stock by the way, of
the people, the products, and the country, with an eye unusually
observant and a memory unusually retentive; and he was
collecting for himself a body of magnanimous and semi-
intellectual nonsense, which he supposed to be the natural
thoughts and to contain the whole duty of the born American. 
To be pure-minded, to be patriotic, to get culture and money
with both hands and with the same irrational fervour--these
appeared to be the chief articles of his creed.  In later days (not
of course upon this first occasion) I would sometimes ask him
why; and he had his answer pat.  "To build up the type!" he
would cry.  "We're all committed to that; we're all under bond
to fulfil the American Type!  Loudon, the hope of the world is
there.  If we fail, like these old feudal monarchies, what is
left?"

The trade of a tin-typer proved too narrow for the lad's
ambition; it was insusceptible of expansion, he explained, it
was not truly modern; and by a sudden conversion of front, he
became a railroad-scalper.  The principles of this trade I never
clearly understood; but its essence appears to be to cheat the
railroads out of their due fare.  "I threw my whole soul into it; I
grudged myself food and sleep while I was at it; the most
practised hands admitted I had caught on to the idea in a month
and revolutionised the practice inside of a year," he said.  "And
there's interest in it, too.  It's amusing to pick out some one
going by, make up your mind about his character and tastes,
dash out of the office and hit him flying with an offer of the
very place he wants to go to.  I don't think there was a scalper
on the continent made fewer blunders.  But I took it only as a
stage.  I was saving every dollar; I was looking ahead.  I knew
what I wanted--wealth, education, a refined home, and a
conscientious, cultured lady for a wife; for, Mr. Dodd"--this
with a formidable outcry--"every man is bound to marry above
him:  if the woman's not the man's superior, I brand it as mere
sensuality.  There was my idea, at least.  That was what I was
saving for; and enough, too!  But it isn't every man, I know that
--it's far from every man--could do what I did:  close up the
livest agency in Saint Jo, where he was coining dollars by the
pot, set out alone, without a friend or a word of French, and
settle down here to spend his capital learning art."

"Was it an old taste?" I asked him, "or a sudden fancy?"

"Neither, Mr. Dodd," he admitted.  "Of course I had learned in
my tin-typing excursions to glory and exult in the works of
God.  But it wasn't that.  I just said to myself, What is most
wanted in my age and country?  More culture and more art, I
said; and I chose the best place, saved my money, and came
here to get them."

The whole attitude of this young man warmed and shamed me. 
He had more fire in his little toe than I had in my whole
carcase; he was stuffed to bursting with the manly virtues;
thrift and courage glowed in him; and even if his artistic
vocation seemed (to one of my exclusive tenets) not quite clear,
who could predict what might be accomplished by a creature so
full-blooded and so inspired with animal and intellectual
energy?  So, when he proposed that I should come and see his
work (one of the regular stages of a Latin Quarter friendship), I
followed him with interest and hope.

He lodged parsimoniously at the top of a tall house near the
Observatory, in a bare room, principally furnished with his own
trunks and papered with his own despicable studies.  No man
has less taste for disagreeable duties than myself; perhaps there
is only one subject on which I cannot flatter a man without a
blush; but upon that, upon all that touches art, my sincerity is
Roman.  Once and twice I made the circuit of his walls in
silence, spying in every corner for some spark of merit; he,
meanwhile, following close at my heels, reading the verdict in
my face with furtive glances, presenting some fresh study for
my inspection with undisguised anxiety, and (after it had been
silently weighed in the balances and found wanting) whisking
it away with an open gesture of despair.  By the time the
second round was completed, we were both extremely
depressed.

"O!" he groaned, breaking the long silence, "it's quite
unnecessary you should speak!"

"Do you want me to be frank with you?  I think you are wasting
time," said I.

"You don't see any promise?" he inquired, beguiled by some
return of hope, and turning upon me the embarrassing
brightness of his eye.  "Not in this still-life here, of the melon?
One fellow thought it good."

It was the least I could do to give the melon a more particular
examination; which, when I had done, I could but shake my
head.  "I am truly sorry, Pinkerton," said I, "but I can't advise
you to persevere."

He seemed to recover his fortitude at the moment, rebounding
from disappointment like a man of india-rubber.  "Well," said
he stoutly, "I don't know that I'm surprised.  But I'll go on with
the course; and throw my whole soul into it, too.  You mustn't
think the time is lost.  It's all culture; it will help me to extend
my relations when I get back home; it may fit me for a position
on one of the illustrateds; and then I can always turn dealer," he
said, uttering the monstrous proposition, which was enough to
shake the Latin Quarter to the dust, with entire simplicity.  "It's
all experience, besides;" he continued, "and it seems to me
there's a tendency to underrate experience, both as net profit
and investment.  Never mind.  That's done with.  But it took
courage for you to say what you did, and I'll never forget it. 
Here's my hand, Mr. Dodd.  I'm not your equal in culture or
talent--"

"You know nothing about that," I interrupted.  "I have seen
your work, but you haven't seen mine.

"No more I have," he cried; "and let's go see it at once!  But I
know you are away up. I can feel it here."

To say truth, I was almost ashamed to introduce him to my
studio--my work, whether absolutely good or bad, being so
vastly superior to his.  But his spirits were now quite restored;
and he amazed me, on the way, with his light-hearted talk and
new projects.  So that I began at last to understand how matters
lay: that this was not an artist who had been deprived of the
practice of his single art; but only a business man of very
extended interests, informed (perhaps something of the most
suddenly) that one investment out of twenty had gone wrong.

As a matter of fact besides (although I never suspected it) he
was already seeking consolation with another of the muses, and
pleasing himself with the notion that he would repay me for my
sincerity, cement our friendship, and (at one and the same
blow) restore my estimation of his talents.  Several times
already, when I had been speaking of myself, he had pulled out
a writing-pad and scribbled a brief note; and now, when we
entered the studio, I saw it in his hand again, and the pencil go
to his mouth, as he cast a comprehensive glance round the
uncomfortable building.

"Are you going to make a sketch of it?" I could not help asking,
as I unveiled the Genius of Muskegon.

"Ah, that's my secret," said he.  "Never you mind.  A mouse
can help a lion."

He walked round my statue and had the design explained to
him.  I had represented Muskegon as a young, almost a
stripling, mother, with something of an Indian type; the babe
upon her knees was winged, to indicate our soaring future; and
her seat was a medley of sculptured fragments, Greek, Roman,
and Gothic, to remind us of the older worlds from which we
trace our generation.

"Now, does this satisfy you, Mr. Dodd?" he inquired, as soon
as I had explained to him the main features of the design.

"Well," I said, "the fellows seem to think it's not a bad bonne
femme for a beginner.  I don't think it's entirely bad myself.  
Here is the best point; it builds up best from here.  No, it seems
to me it has a kind of merit," I admitted; "but I mean to do
better."

"Ah, that's the word!" cried Pinkerton.  "There's the word I
love!" and he scribbled in his pad.

"What in creation ails you?" I inquired.  "It's the most
commonplace expression in the English language."

"Better and better!" chuckled Pinkerton.  "The unconsciousness
of genius.  Lord, but this is coming in beautiful!" and he
scribbled again.

"If you're going to be fulsome," said I, "I'll close the place of
entertainment."  And I threatened to replace the veil upon the
Genius.

"No, no," said he.  "Don't be in a hurry.  Give me a point or
two.  Show me what's particularly good."

"I would rather you found that out for yourself," said I.

"The trouble is," said he, "that I've never turned my attention to
sculpture, beyond, of course, admiring it, as everybody must
who has a soul.  So do just be a good fellow, and explain to me
what you like in it, and what you tried for, and where the merit
comes in.  It'll be all education for me."

"Well, in sculpture, you see, the first thing you have to consider
is the masses.  It's, after all, a kind of architecture," I began,
and delivered a lecture on that branch of art, with illustrations
from my own masterpiece there present, all of which, if you
don't mind, or whether you mind or not, I mean to
conscientiously omit.  Pinkerton listened with a fiery interest,
questioned me with a certain uncultivated shrewdness, and
continued to scratch down notes, and tear fresh sheets from his
pad.  I found it inspiring to have my words thus taken down
like a professor's lecture; and having had no previous
experience of the press, I was unaware that they were all being
taken down wrong.  For the same reason (incredible as it must
appear in an American) I never entertained the least suspicion
that they were destined to be dished up with a sauce of penny-
a-lining gossip; and myself, my person, and my works of art
butchered to make a holiday for the readers of a Sunday paper. 
Night had fallen over the Genius of Muskegon before the issue
of my theoretic eloquence was stayed, nor did I separate from
my new friend without an appointment for the morrow.

I was indeed greatly taken with this first view of my
countryman, and continued, on further acquaintance, to be
interested, amused, and attracted by him in about equal
proportions.  I must not say he had a fault, not only because my
mouth is sealed by gratitude, but because those he had sprang
merely from his education, and you could see he had cultivated
and improved them like virtues.  For all that, I can never deny
he was a troublous friend to me, and the trouble began early.

It may have been a fortnight later that I divined the secret of the
writing-pad.  My wretch (it leaked out) wrote letters for a paper
in the West, and had filled a part of one of them with
descriptions of myself.   I pointed out to him that he had no
right to do so without asking my permission.

"Why, this is just what I hoped!" he exclaimed.  "I thought you
didn't seem to catch on; only it seemed too good to be true."

"But, my good fellow, you were bound to warn me," I objected.

"I know it's generally considered etiquette," he admitted; "but
between friends, and when it was only with a view of serving
you, I thought it wouldn't matter.  I wanted it (if possible) to
come on you as a surprise; I wanted you just to waken, like
Lord Byron, and find the papers full of you.  You must admit it
was a natural thought.  And no man likes to boast of a favour
beforehand."

"But, heavens and earth! how do you know I think it a favour?"
I cried.

He became immediately plunged in despair.  "You think it a
liberty," said he; "I see that.  I would rather have cut off my
hand.  I would stop it now, only it's too late; it's published by
now.  And I wrote it with so much pride and pleasure!"

I could think of nothing but how to console him.  "O, I daresay
it's all right," said I.  "I know you meant it kindly, and you
would be sure to do it in good taste."

"That you may swear to," he cried.  "It's a pure, bright, A
number 1 paper; the St. Jo _Sunday Herald_. The idea of the
series was quite my own; I interviewed the editor, put it to him
straight; the freshness of the idea took him, and I walked out of
that office with the contract in my pocket, and did my first Paris
letter that evening in Saint Jo.  The editor did no more than
glance his eye down the headlines.  'You're the man for us,'
said he."

I was certainly far from reassured by this sketch of the class of
literature in which I was to make my first appearance; but I
said no more, and possessed my soul in patience, until the day
came when I received a copy of a newspaper marked in the
corner, "Compliments of J.P."  I opened it with sensible
shrinkings; and there, wedged between an account of a prize-
fight and a skittish article upon chiropody--think of chiropody
treated with a leer!--I came upon a column and a half in which
myself and my poor statue were embalmed.  Like the editor
with the first of the series, I did but glance my eye down the
head-lines and was more than satisfied.

          ANOTHER OF PINKERTON'S SPICY CHATS.
                         
              ART PRACTITIONERS IN PARIS.
                      
             MUSKEGON'S COLUMNED CAPITOL.
                          
               SON OF MILLIONAIRE DODD,
                          
                  PATRIOT AND ARTIST.
                        
               "HE MEANS TO DO BETTER."

In the body of the text, besides, my eye caught, as it passed,
some deadly expressions:  "Figure somewhat fleshy," "bright,
intellectual smile," "the unconsciousness of genius," "'Now,
Mr. Dodd,' resumed the reporter, 'what would be your idea of a
distinctively American quality in sculpture?'"  It was true the
question had been asked; it was true, alas! that I had answered;
and now here was my reply, or some strange hash of it,
gibbeted in the cold publicity of type.  I thanked God that my
French fellow-students were ignorant of English; but when I
thought of the British--of Myner (for instance) or the Stennises
--I think I could have fallen on Pinkerton and beat him.

To divert my thoughts (if it were possible) from this calamity, I
turned to a letter from my father which had arrived by the same
post.  The envelope contained a strip of newspaper-cutting; and
my eye caught again, "Son of Millionaire Dodd--Figure
somewhat fleshy," and the rest of the degrading nonsense. 
What would my father think of it? I wondered, and opened his
manuscript.  "My dearest boy," it began, "I send you a cutting
which has pleased me very much, from a St. Joseph paper of
high standing.  At last you seem to be coming fairly to the
front; and I cannot but reflect with delight and gratitude how
very few youths of your age occupy nearly two columns of
press-matter all to themselves.  I only wish your dear mother
had been here to read it over my shoulder; but we will hope she
shares my grateful emotion in a better place.  Of course I have
sent a copy to your grandfather and uncle in Edinburgh; so you
can keep the one I enclose.  This Jim Pinkerton seems a
valuable acquaintance; he has certainly great talent; and it is a
good general rule to keep in with pressmen."

I hope it will be set down to the right side of my account, but I
had no sooner read these words, so touchingly silly, than my
anger against Pinkerton was swallowed up in gratitude.  Of all
the circumstances of my career, my birth, perhaps, excepted,
not one had given my poor father so profound a pleasure as this
article in the _Sunday Herald_.  What a fool, then, was I, to be
lamenting! when I had at last, and for once, and at the cost of
only a few blushes, paid back a fraction of my debt of gratitude. 
So that, when I next met Pinkerton, I took things very lightly;
my father was pleased, and thought the letter very clever, I told
him; for my own part, I had no taste for publicity:  thought the
public had no concern with the artist, only with his art; and
though I owned he had handled it with great consideration, I
should take it as a favour if he never did it again.

"There it is," he said despondingly.  "I've hurt you.  You can't
deceive me, Loudon.  It's the want of tact, and it's incurable."
He sat down, and leaned his head upon his hand.  "I had no
advantages when I was young, you see," he added.

"Not in the least, my dear fellow," said I.  "Only the next time
you wish to do me a service, just speak about my work; leave
my wretched person out, and my still more wretched
conversation; and above all," I added, with an irrepressible
shudder, "don't tell them how I said it!  There's that phrase,
now:  'With a proud, glad smile.'  Who cares whether I smiled
or not?"

"Oh, there now, Loudon, you're entirely wrong," he broke in. 
"That's what the public likes; that's the merit of the thing, the
literary value.  It's to call up the scene before them; it's to
enable the humblest citizen to enjoy that afternoon the same as
I did.  Think what it would have been to me when I was
tramping around with my tin-types to find a column and a half
of real, cultured conversation--an artist, in his studio abroad,
talking of his art--and to know how he looked as he did it, and
what the room was like, and what he had for breakfast; and to
tell myself, eating tinned beans beside a creek, that if all went
well, the same sort of thing would, sooner or later, happen to
myself:  why, Loudon, it would have been like a peephole into
heaven!"

"Well, if it gives so much pleasure," I admitted, "the sufferers
shouldn't complain.  Only give the other fellows a turn."

The end of the matter was to bring myself and the journalist in
a more close relation.  If I know anything at all of human
nature--and the IF is no mere figure of speech, but stands for
honest doubt--no series of benefits conferred, or even dangers
shared, would have so rapidly confirmed our friendship as this
quarrel avoided, this fundamental difference of taste and
training accepted and condoned.



 CHAPTER IV.

 IN WHICH I EXPERIENCE EXTREMES OF FORTUNE.


Whether it came from my training and repeated bankruptcy at
the commercial college, or by direct inheritance from old
Loudon, the Edinburgh mason, there can be no doubt about the
fact that I was thrifty.  Looking myself impartially over, I
believe that is my only manly virtue.  During my first two years
in Paris I not only made it a point to keep well inside of my
allowance, but accumulated considerable savings in the bank. 
You will say, with my masquerade of living as a penniless
student, it must have been easy to do so:  I should have had no
difficulty, however, in doing the reverse.  Indeed, it is
wonderful I did not; and early in the third year, or soon after I
had known Pinkerton, a singular incident proved it to have
been equally wise.  Quarter-day came, and brought no
allowance.  A letter of remonstrance was despatched, and for
the first time in my experience, remained unanswered.  A
cablegram was more effectual; for it brought me at least a
promise of attention.  "Will write at once," my father
telegraphed; but I waited long for his letter.  I was puzzled,
angry, and alarmed; but thanks to my previous thrift, I cannot
say that I was ever practically embarrassed.  The
embarrassment, the distress, the agony, were all for my
unhappy father at home in Muskegon, struggling for life and
fortune against untoward chances, returning at night from a day
of ill-starred shifts and ventures, to read and perhaps to weep
over that last harsh letter from his only child, to which he
lacked the courage to reply.

Nearly three months after time, and when my economies were
beginning to run low, I received at last a letter with the
customary bills of exchange.

"My dearest boy," it ran, "I believe, in the press of anxious
business, your letters and even your allowance have been
somewhile neglected.  You must try to forgive your poor old
dad, for he has had a trying time; and now when it is over, the
doctor wants me to take my shotgun and go to the Adirondacks
for a change.  You must not fancy I am sick, only over-driven 
and under the weather.  Many of our foremost operators have
gone down:  John T. M'Brady skipped to Canada with a
trunkful of boodle; Billy Sandwith, Charlie Downs, Joe Kaiser,
and many others of our leading men in this city bit the dust. 
But Big-Head Dodd has again weathered the blizzard, and I
think I have fixed things so that we may be richer than ever
before autumn.

"Now I will tell you, my dear, what I propose.  You say you are
well advanced with your first statue; start in manfully and
finish it, and if your teacher--I can never remember how to spell
his name--will send me a certificate that it is up to market
standard, you shall have ten thousand dollars to do what you
like with, either at home or in Paris.  I suggest, since you say
the facilities for work are so much greater in that city, you
would do well to buy or build a little home; and the first thing
you know, your dad will be dropping in for a luncheon. 
Indeed, I would come now, for I am beginning to grow old, and
I long to see my dear boy; but there are still some operations
that want watching and nursing.  Tell your friend, Mr.
Pinkerton, that I read his letters every week; and though I have
looked in vain lately for my Loudon's name, still I learn
something of the life he is leading in that strange, old world,
depicted by an able pen."

Here was a letter that no young man could possibly digest in
solitude.  It marked one of those junctures when the confidant
is necessary; and the confidant selected was none other than
Jim Pinkerton.  My father's message may have had an influence
in this decision; but I scarce suppose so, for the intimacy was 
already far advanced.  I had a genuine and lively taste for my
compatriot; I laughed at, I scolded, and I loved him.  He, upon
his side, paid me a kind of doglike service of admiration,
gazing at me from afar off as at one who had liberally enjoyed
those "advantages" which he envied for himself.  He followed
at heel; his laugh was ready chorus; our friends gave him the
nickname of "The Henchman."  It was in this insidious form
that servitude approached me.

Pinkerton and I read and re-read the famous news:  he, I can
swear, with an enjoyment as unalloyed and far more vocal than
my own.  The statue was nearly done: a few days' work sufficed
to prepare it for exhibition; the master was approached; he gave
his consent; and one cloudless morning of May beheld us
gathered in my studio for the hour of trial.  The master wore his
many-hued rosette; he came attended by two of my French
fellow-pupils--friends of mine and both considerable sculptors
in Paris at this hour.  "Corporal John" (as we used to call him)
breaking for once those habits of study and reserve which have
since carried him so high in the opinion of the world, had left
his easel of a morning to countenance a fellow-countryman in
some suspense.  My dear old Romney was there by particular
request; for who that knew him would think a pleasure quite
complete unless he shared it, or not support a mortification
more easily if he were present to console?  The party was
completed by John Myner, the Englishman; by the brothers
Stennis,--Stennis-aine and Stennis-frere, as they used to figure
on their accounts at Barbizon--a pair of hare-brained Scots; and
by the inevitable Jim, as white as a sheet and bedewed with the
sweat of anxiety.

I suppose I was little better myself when I unveiled the Genius
of Muskegon.  The master walked about it seriously; then he
smiled.

"It is already not so bad," said he, in that funny English of
which he was so proud.  "No, already not so bad."

We all drew a deep breath of relief; and Corporal John (as the
most considerable junior present) explained to him it was
intended for a public building, a kind of prefecture--

"He!  Quoi?" cried he, relapsing into French.  "Qu'est-ce que
vous me chantez la?  O, in America," he added, on further
information being hastily furnished.  "That is anozer sing.  O,
very good, very good."

The idea of the required certificate had to be introduced to his
mind in the light of a pleasantry--the fancy of a nabob little
more advanced than the red Indians of "Fennimore Cooperr";
and it took all our talents combined to conceive a form of words
that would be acceptable on both sides.  One was found,
however:  Corporal John engrossed it in his undecipherable
hand, the master lent it the sanction of his name and flourish, I
slipped it into an envelope along with one of the two letters I
had ready prepared in my pocket, and as the rest of us moved
off along the boulevard to breakfast, Pinkerton was detached in
a cab and duly committed it to the post.

The breakfast was ordered at Lavenue's, where no one need be
ashamed to entertain even the master; the table was laid in the
garden; I had chosen the bill of fare myself; on the wine
question we held a council of war with the most fortunate
results; and the talk, as soon as the master laid aside his painful
English, became fast and furious.  There were a few
interruptions, indeed, in the way of toasts.  The master's health
had to be drunk, and he responded in a little well-turned
speech, full of neat allusions to my future and to the United
States; my health followed; and then my father's must not only
be proposed and drunk, but a full report must be despatched to
him at once by cablegram--an extravagance which was almost
the means of the master's dissolution.  Choosing Corporal John
to be his confidant (on the ground, I presume, that he was
already too good an artist to be any longer an American except
in name) he summed up his amazement in one oft-repeated
formula--"C'est barbare!"  Apart from these genial formalities,
we talked, talked of art, and talked of it as only artists can. 
Here in the South Seas we talk schooners most of the time; in
the Quarter we talked art with the like unflagging interest, and
perhaps as much result.

Before very long, the master went away; Corporal John (who
was already a sort of young master) followed on his heels; and
the rank and file were naturally relieved by their departure.  We
were now among equals; the bottle passed, the conversation
sped.  I think I can still hear the Stennis brothers pour forth
their copious tirades; Dijon, my portly French fellow-student,
drop witticisms well-conditioned like himself; and another
(who was weak in foreign languages) dash hotly into the
current of talk with some "Je trove que pore oon sontimong de 
delicacy, Corot ...," or some "Pour moi Corot est le plou ...,"
and then, his little raft of French foundering at once, scramble
silently to shore again.  He at least could understand; but to
Pinkerton, I think the noise, the wine, the sun, the shadows of
the leaves, and the esoteric glory of being seated at a foreign
festival, made up the whole available means of entertainment.

We sat down about half past eleven; I suppose it was two
when, some point arising and some particular picture being
instanced, an adjournment to the Louvre was proposed.  I paid
the score, and in a moment we were trooping down the Rue de
Renne.  It was smoking hot; Paris glittered with that superficial
brilliancy which is so agreeable to the man in high spirits, and
in moods of dejection so depressing; the wine sang in my ears,
it danced and brightened in my eyes.  The pictures that we saw
that afternoon, as we sped briskly and loquaciously through the
immortal galleries, appear to me, upon a retrospect, the
loveliest of all; the comments we exchanged to have touched
the highest mark of criticism, grave or gay.

It was only when we issued again from the museum that a
difference of race broke up the party.  Dijon proposed an
adjournment to a cafe, there to finish the afternoon on beer; the
elder Stennis, revolted at the thought, moved for the country, a
forest if possible, and a long walk.  At once the English
speakers rallied to the name of any exercise:  even to me, who
have been often twitted with my sedentary habits, the thought
of country air and stillness proved invincibly attractive.  It
appeared, upon investigation, we had just time to hail a cab
and catch one of the fast trains for Fontainebleau.  Beyond the
clothes we stood in, all were destitute of what is called (with
dainty vagueness) personal effects; and it was earnestly
mooted, on the other side, whether we had not time to call upon
the way and pack a satchel?  But the Stennis boys exclaimed
upon our effeminacy.  They had come from London, it
appeared, a week before with nothing but greatcoats and tooth
-brushes.  No baggage--there was the secret of existence.  It
was expensive, to be sure; for every time you had to comb your
hair, a barber must be paid, and every time you changed your
linen, one shirt must be bought and another thrown away; but
anything was better (argued these young gentlemen) than to be
the slaves of haversacks.  "A fellow has to get rid gradually of
all material attachments; that was manhood" (said they); "and
as long as you were bound down to anything,--house, umbrella,
or portmanteau,--you were still tethered by the umbilical cord." 
Something engaging in this theory carried the most of us away. 
The two Frenchmen, indeed, retired, scoffing, to their bock; and
Romney, being too poor to join the excursion on his own
resources and too proud to borrow, melted unobtrusively away. 
Meanwhile the remainder of the company crowded the benches
of a cab; the horse was urged (as horses have to be) by an
appeal to the pocket of the driver; the train caught by the inside
of a minute; and in less than an hour and a half we were
breathing deep of the sweet air of the forest and stretching our
legs up the hill from Fontainebleau octroi, bound for Barbizon. 
That the leading members of our party covered the distance in
fifty-one minutes and a half is (I believe) one of the historic
landmarks of the colony; but you will scarce be surprised to
learn that I was somewhat in the rear.  Myner, a comparatively
philosophic Briton, kept me company in my deliberate advance; 
the glory of the sun's going down, the fall of the long shadows,
the inimitable scent and the inspiration of the woods, attuned
me more and more to walk in a silence which progressively
infected my companion; and I remember that, when at last he
spoke, I was startled from a deep abstraction.

"Your father seems to be a pretty good kind of a father," said
he.  "Why don't he come to see you?"  I was ready with some
dozen of reasons, and had more in stock; but Myner, with that
shrewdness which made him feared and admired, suddenly
fixed me with his eye-glass and asked, "Ever press him?"

The blood came in my face.  No; I had never pressed him; I had
never even encouraged him to come.  I was proud of him;
proud of his handsome looks, of his kind, gentle ways, of that
bright face he could show when others were happy; proud, too
(meanly proud, if you like) of his great wealth and startling
liberalities.  And yet he would have been in the way of my
Paris life, of much of which he would have disapproved.  I had
feared to expose to criticism his innocent remarks on art; I had
told myself, I had even partly believed, he did not want to
come; I had been (and still am) convinced that he was sure to
be unhappy out of Muskegon; in short, I had a thousand
reasons, good and bad, not all of which could alter one iota of
the fact that I knew he only waited for my invitation.

"Thank you, Myner," said I; "you're a much better fellow than
ever I supposed.  I'll write to-night."

"O, you're a pretty decent sort yourself," returned Myner, with
more than his usual flippancy of manner, but (as I was
gratefully aware) not a trace of his occasional irony of meaning.

Well, these were brave days, on which I could dwell forever. 
Brave, too, were those that followed, when Pinkerton and I
walked Paris and the suburbs, viewing and pricing houses for
my new establishment, or covered ourselves with dust and
returned laden with Chinese gods and brass warming-pans
from the dealers in antiquities.  I found Pinkerton well up in the
situation of these establishments as well as in the current
prices, and with quite a smattering of critical judgment; it
turned out he was investing capital in pictures and curiosities
for the States, and the superficial thoroughness of the creature
appeared in the fact, that although he would never be a
connoisseur, he was already something of an expert.  The
things themselves left him as near as may be cold; but he had a
joy of his own in understanding how to buy and sell them.

In such engagements the time passed until I might very well
expect an answer from my father.  Two mails followed each
other, and brought nothing.  By the third I received a long and
almost incoherent letter of remorse, encouragement,
consolation, and despair.  From this pitiful document, which
(with a movement of piety) I burned as soon as I had read it, I
gathered that the bubble of my father's wealth was burst, that
he was now both penniless and sick; and that I, so far from
expecting ten thousand dollars to throw away in juvenile
extravagance, must look no longer for the quarterly remittances
on which I lived.  My case was hard enough; but I had sense
enough to perceive, and decency enough to do my duty.  I sold
my curiosities, or rather I sent Pinkerton to sell them; and he
had previously bought and now disposed of them so wisely that
the loss was trifling.  This, with what remained of my last
allowance, left me at the head of no less than five thousand
francs.  Five hundred I reserved for my own immediate
necessities; the rest I mailed inside of the week to my father at
Muskegon, where they came in time to pay his funeral
expenses.

The news of his death was scarcely a surprise and scarce a grief
to me.  I could not conceive my father a poor man.  He had led
too long a life of thoughtless and generous profusion to endure
the change; and though I grieved for myself, I was able to
rejoice that my father had been taken from the battle.  I grieved,
I say, for myself; and it is probable there were at the same date
many thousands of persons grieving with less cause.  I had lost
my father; I had lost the allowance; my whole fortune
(including what had been returned from Muskegon) scarce
amounted to a thousand francs; and to crown my sorrows, the
statuary contract had changed hands.  The new contractor had a
son of his own, or else a nephew; and it was signified to me,
with business-like plainness, that I must find another market
for my pigs.  In the meanwhile I had given up my room, and
slept on a truckle-bed in the corner of the studio, where as I
read myself to sleep at night, and when I awoke in the morning,
that now useless bulk, the Genius of Muskegon, was ever
present to my eyes.  Poor stone lady! born to be enthroned
under the gilded, echoing dome of the new capitol, whither was
she now to drift? for what base purposes be ultimately broken
up, like an unseaworthy ship? and what should befall her ill-
starred artificer, standing, with his thousand francs, on the
threshold of a life so hard as that of the unbefriended sculptor?  

It was a subject often and earnestly debated by myself and
Pinkerton.  In his opinion, I should instantly discard my
profession.  "Just drop it, here and now," he would say.  "Come
back home with me, and let's throw our whole soul into
business.  I have the capital; you bring the culture.  Dodd & 
Pinkerton--I never saw a better name for an advertisement; and
you can't think, Loudon, how much depends upon a name."  On
my side, I would admit that a sculptor should possess one of
three things--capital, influence, or an energy only to be
qualified as hellish.  The first two I had now lost; to the third I
never had the smallest claim; and yet I wanted the cowardice
(or perhaps it was the courage) to turn my back on my career
without a fight.  I told him, besides, that however poor my
chances were in sculpture, I was convinced they were yet worse
in business, for which I equally lacked taste and aptitude.  But
upon this head, he was my father over again; assured me that I
spoke in ignorance; that any intelligent and cultured person
was Bound to succeed; that I must, besides, have inherited
some of my father's fitness; and, at any rate, that I had been
regularly trained for that career in the commercial college.


"Pinkerton," I said, "can't you understand that, as long as I was
there, I never took the smallest interest in any stricken thing?
The whole affair was poison to me."

"It's not possible," he would cry; "it can't be; you couldn't live
in the midst of it and not feel the charm; with all your poetry of
soul, you couldn't help!  Loudon," he would go on, "you drive
me crazy.  You expect a man to be all broken up about the
sunset, and not to care a dime for a place where fortunes are
fought for and made and lost all day; or for a career that
consists in studying up life till you have it at your finger-ends,
spying out every cranny where you can get your hand in and a
dollar out, and standing there in the midst--one foot on
bankruptcy, the other on a borrowed dollar, and the whole thing
spinning round you like a mill--raking in the stamps, in spite of
fate and fortune."

To this romance of dickering I would reply with the romance
(which is also the virtue) of art:  reminding him of those
examples of constancy through many tribulations, with which
the role of Apollo is illustrated; from the case of Millet, to those
of many of our friends and comrades, who had chosen this
agreeable mountain path through life, and were now bravely
clambering among rocks and brambles, penniless and hopeful.

"You will never understand it, Pinkerton," I would say.  "You
look to the result, you want to see some profit of your
endeavours:  that is why you could never learn to paint, if you
lived to be Methusalem.  The result is always a fizzle:  the eyes
of the artist are turned in; he lives for a frame of mind.  Look at
Romney, now.  There is the nature of the artist.  He hasn't a
cent; and if you offered him to-morrow the command of an
army, or the presidentship of the United States, he wouldn't
take it, and you know he wouldn't."

"I suppose not," Pinkerton would cry, scouring his hair with
both his hands; "and I can't see why; I can't see what in fits he
would be after, not to; I don't seem to rise to these views.  Of
course, it's the fault of not having had advantages in early life;
but, Loudon, I'm so miserably low that it seems to me silly. 
The fact is," he might add with a smile, "I don't seem to have
the least use for a frame of mind without square meals; and you
can't get it out of my head that it's a man's duty to die rich, if he
can."

"What for?" I asked him once.

"O, I don't know," he replied.  "Why in snakes should anybody
want to be a sculptor, if you come to that?  I would love to
sculp myself.  But what I can't see is why you should want to
do nothing else.  It seems to argue a poverty of nature."

Whether or not he ever came to understand me--and I have
been so tossed about since then that I am not very sure I
understand myself--he soon perceived that I was perfectly in
earnest; and after about ten days of argument, suddenly
dropped the subject, and announced that he was wasting
capital, and must go home at once.  No doubt he should have
gone long before, and had already lingered over his intended
time for the sake of our companionship and my misfortune; but
man is so unjustly minded that the very fact, which ought to
have disarmed, only embittered my vexation.  I resented his
departure in the light of a desertion; I would not say, but
doubtless I betrayed it; and something hang-dog in the man's
face and bearing led me to believe he was himself remorseful. 
It is certain at least that, during the time of his preparations, we
drew sensibly apart--a circumstance that I recall with shame. 
On the last day, he had me to dinner at a restaurant which he
knew I had formerly frequented, and had only forsworn of late
from considerations of economy.  He seemed ill at ease; I was
myself both sorry and sulky; and the meal passed with little
conversation.

"Now, Loudon," said he, with a visible effort, after the coffee
was come and our pipes lighted, "you can never understand the
gratitude and loyalty I bear you.  You don't know what a boon
it is to be taken up by a man that stands on the pinnacle of
civilization; you can't think how it's refined and purified me,
how it's appealed to my spiritual nature; and I want to tell you
that I would die at your door like a dog."

I don't know what answer I tried to make, but he cut me short.

"Let me say it out!" he cried.  "I revere you for your whole-
souled devotion to art; I can't rise to it, but there's a strain of
poetry in my nature, Loudon, that responds to it.  I want you to
carry it out, and I mean to help you."

"Pinkerton, what nonsense is this?" I interrupted.

"Now don't get mad, Loudon; this is a plain piece of business,"
said he; "it's done every day; it's even typical.  How are all
those fellows over here in Paris, Henderson, Sumner, Long?
--it's all the same story:  a young man just plum full of artistic
genius on the one side, a man of business on the other who
doesn't know what to do with his dollars--"

"But, you fool, you're as poor as a rat," I cried.

"You wait till I get my irons in the fire!" returned Pinkerton.
"I'm bound to be rich; and I tell you I mean to have some of the
fun as I go along.  Here's your first allowance; take it at the
hand of a friend; I'm one that holds friendship sacred as you do
yourself.  It's only a hundred francs; you'll get the same every
month, and as soon as my business begins to expand we'll
increase it to something fitting.  And so far from it's being a
favour, just let me handle your statuary for the American
market, and I'll call it one of the smartest strokes of business in
my life."

It took me a long time, and it had cost us both much grateful
and painful emotion, before I had finally managed to refuse his
offer and compounded for a bottle of particular wine.  He
dropped the subject at last suddenly with a "Never mind; that's
all done with," nor did he again refer to the subject, though we
passed together the rest of the afternoon, and I accompanied
him, on his departure; to the doors of the waiting-room at St.
Lazare.  I felt myself strangely alone; a voice told me that I had
rejected both the counsels of wisdom and the helping hand of
friendship; and as I passed through the great bright city on my
homeward way, I measured it for the first time with the eye of
an adversary.



 CHAPTER V.

IN WHICH I AM DOWN ON MY LUCK IN PARIS.


In no part of the world is starvation an agreeable business; but I
believe it is admitted there is no worse place to starve in than
this city of Paris.  The appearances of life are there so
especially gay, it is so much a magnified beer-garden, the
houses are so ornate, the theatres so numerous, the very pace of
the vehicles is so brisk, that a man in any deep concern of mind
or pain of body is constantly driven in upon himself.  In his
own eyes, he seems the one serious creature moving in a world
of horrible unreality; voluble people issuing from a cafe, the
queue at theatre doors, Sunday cabfuls of second-rate pleasure-
seekers, the bedizened ladies of the pavement, the show in the
jewellers' windows--all the familiar sights contributing to flout
his own unhappiness, want, and isolation.  At the same time, if
he be at all after my pattern, he is perhaps supported by a
childish satisfaction:  this is life at last, he may tell himself, this
is the real thing; the bladders on which I was set swimming are
now empty, my own weight depends upon the ocean; by my
own exertions I must perish or succeed; and I am now enduring
in the vivid fact, what I so much delighted to read of in the case
of Lonsteau or Lucien, Rodolphe or Schaunard.

Of the steps of my misery, I cannot tell at length.  In ordinary
times what were politically called "loans" (although they were
never meant to be repaid) were matters of constant course
among the students, and many a man has partly lived on them
for years.  But my misfortune befell me at an awkward
juncture.  Many of my friends were gone; others were
themselves in a precarious situation.  Romney (for instance)
was reduced to tramping Paris in a pair of country sabots, his
only suit of clothes so imperfect (in spite of cunningly adjusted
pins) that the authorities at the Luxembourg suggested his
withdrawal from the gallery.  Dijon, too, was on a leeshore,
designing clocks and gas-brackets for a dealer; and the most he
could do was to offer me a corner of his studio where I might
work.  My own studio (it will be gathered) I had by that time
lost; and in the course of my expulsion the Genius of
Muskegon was finally separated from her author.  To continue
to possess a full-sized statue, a man must have a studio, a
gallery, or at least the freedom of a back garden.  He cannot
carry it about with him, like a satchel, in the bottom of a cab,
nor can he cohabit in a garret, ten by fifteen, with so
momentous a companion. It was my first idea to leave her
behind at my departure.  There, in her birthplace, she might
lend an inspiration, methought, to my successor.  But the
proprietor, with whom I had unhappily quarrelled, seized the
occasion to be disagreeable, and called upon me to remove my
property.  For a man in such straits as I now found myself, the
hire of a lorry was a consideration; and yet even that I could
have faced, if I had had anywhere to drive to after it was hired. 
Hysterical laughter seized upon me as I beheld (in imagination)
myself, the waggoner, and the Genius of Muskegon, standing
in the public view of Paris, without the shadow of a
destination; perhaps driving at last to the nearest rubbish heap,
and dumping there, among the ordures of a city, the beloved
child of my invention.  From these extremities I was relieved by
a seasonable offer, and I parted from the Genius of Muskegon
for thirty francs.  Where she now stands, under what name she
is admired or criticised, history does not inform us; but I like to
think she may adorn the shrubbery of some suburban tea-
garden, where holiday shop-girls hang their hats upon the
mother, and their swains (by way of an approach of gallantry)
identify the winged infant with the god of love.

In a certain cabman's eating-house on the outer boulevard I got
credit for my midday meal.  Supper I was supposed not to
require, sitting down nightly to the delicate table of some rich
acquaintances.  This arrangement was extremely ill-considered. 
My fable, credible enough at first, and so long as my clothes
were in good order, must have seemed worse than doubtful
after my coat became frayed about the edges, and my boots
began to squelch and pipe along the restaurant floors.  The
allowance of one meal a day besides, though suitable enough to
the state of my finances, agreed poorly with my stomach.  The
restaurant was a place I had often visited experimentally, to
taste the life of students then more unfortunate than myself; and
I had never in those days entered it without disgust, or left it
without nausea. It was strange to find myself sitting down with
avidity, rising up with satisfaction, and counting the hours that
divided me from my return to such a table.  But hunger is a
great magician; and so soon as I had spent my ready cash, and
could no longer fill up on bowls of chocolate or hunks of bread,
I must depend entirely on that cabman's eating-house, and upon
certain rare, long-expected, long-remembered windfalls.  Dijon
(for instance) might get paid for some of his pot-boiling work,
or else an old friend would pass through Paris; and then I
would be entertained to a meal after my own soul, and contract
a Latin Quarter loan, which would keep me in tobacco and my
morning coffee for a fortnight.  It might be thought the latter
would appear the more important.  It might be supposed that a
life, led so near the confines of actual famine, should have
dulled the nicety of my palate.  On the contrary, the poorer a
man's diet, the more sharply is he set on dainties.  The last of
my ready cash, about thirty francs, was deliberately squandered
on a single dinner; and a great part of my time when I was
alone was passed upon the details of imaginary feasts.

One gleam of hope visited me--an order for a bust from a rich
Southerner.  He was free-handed, jolly of speech, merry of
countenance; kept me in good humour through the sittings, and
when they were over, carried me off with him to dinner and the
sights of Paris.  I ate well; I laid on flesh; by all accounts, I
made a favourable likeness of the being, and I confess I thought
my future was assured.  But when the bust was done, and I had
despatched it across the Atlantic, I could never so much as
learn of its arrival.  The blow felled me; I should have lain
down and tried no stroke to right myself, had not the honour of
my country been involved.  For Dijon improved the opportunity
in the European style; informing me (for the first time) of the
manners of America:  how it was a den of banditti without the
smallest rudiment of law or order, and debts could be there
only collected with a shotgun.  "The whole world knows it," he
would say; "you are alone, mon petit Loudon, you are alone to
be in ignorance of these facts.  The judges of the Supreme
Court fought but the other day with stilettos on the bench at
Cincinnati.  You should read the little book of one of my
friends:  _Le Touriste dans le Far-West_; you will see it all
there in good French."  At last, incensed by days of such
discussion, I undertook to prove to him the contrary, and put
the affair in the hands of my late father's lawyer.  From him I
had the gratification of hearing, after a due interval, that my
debtor was dead of the yellow fever in Key West, and had left
his affairs in some confusion.  I suppress his name; for though
he treated me with cruel nonchalance, it is probable he meant
to deal fairly in the end.

Soon after this a shade of change in my reception at the
cabman's eating-house marked the beginning of a new phase in
my distress.  The first day, I told myself it was but fancy; the
next, I made quite sure it was a fact; the third, in mere panic I
stayed away, and went for forty-eight hours fasting.  This was
an act of great unreason; for the debtor who stays away is but
the more remarked, and the boarder who misses a meal is sure
to be accused of infidelity.  On the fourth day, therefore, I
returned, inwardly quaking.  The proprietor looked askance
upon my entrance; the waitresses (who were his daughters)
neglected my wants and sniffed at the affected joviality of my
salutations; last and most plain, when I called for a suisse
(such as was being served to all the other diners) I was bluntly
told there were no more.  It was obvious I was near the end of
my tether; one plank divided me from want, and now I felt it
tremble.  I passed a sleepless night, and the first thing in the 
morning took my way to Myner's studio.  It was a step I had
long meditated and long refrained from; for I was scarce
intimate with the Englishman; and though I knew him to
possess plenty of money, neither his manner nor his reputation
were the least encouraging to beggars.


I found him at work on a picture, which I was able
conscientiously to praise, dressed in his usual tweeds, plain,
but pretty fresh, and standing out in disagreeable contrast to my
own withered and degraded outfit.  As we talked, he continued
to shift his eyes watchfully between his handiwork and the fat
model, who sat at the far end of the studio in a state of nature,
with one arm gallantly arched above her head.  My errand
would have been difficult enough under the best of
circumstances:  placed between Myner, immersed in his art,
and the white, fat, naked female in a ridiculous attitude, I found
it quite impossible.  Again and again I attempted to approach
the point, again and again fell back on commendations of the
picture; and it was not until the model had enjoyed an interval
of repose, during which she took the conversation in her own
hands and regaled us (in a soft, weak voice) with details as to
her husband's prosperity, her sister's lamented decline from the
paths of virtue, and the consequent wrath of her father, a
peasant of stern principles, in the vicinity of Chalons on the
Marne;--it was not, I say, until after this was over, and I had
once more cleared my throat for the attack, and once more
dropped aside into some commonplace about the picture, that
Myner himself brought me suddenly and vigorously to the
point.

"You didn't come here to talk this rot," said he.

"No," I replied sullenly; "I came to borrow money."

He painted awhile in silence.

"I don't think we were ever very intimate?" he asked.

"Thank you," said I.  "I can take my answer," and I made as if
to go, rage boiling in my heart.

"Of course you can go if you like," said Myner; "but I advise
you to stay and have it out."

"What more is there to say?" I cried.  "You don't want to keep
me here for a needless humiliation?"

"Look here, Dodd, you must try and command your temper,"
said he.  "This interview is of your own seeking, and not mine;
if you suppose it's not disagreeable to me, you're wrong; and if
you think I will give you money without knowing thoroughly
about your prospects, you take me for a fool.  Besides," he 
added, "if you come to look at it, you've got over the worst of it
by now:  you have done the asking, and you have every reason
to know I mean to refuse.  I hold out no false hopes, but it may
be worth your while to let me judge."

Thus--I was going to say--encouraged, I stumbled through my
story; told him I had credit at the cabman's eating-house, but
began to think it was drawing to a close; how Dijon lent me a
corner of his studio, where I tried to model ornaments, figures
for clocks, Time with the scythe, Leda and the swan,
musketeers for candlesticks, and other kickshaws, which had
never (up to that day) been honoured with the least approval.

"And your room?" asked Myner.

"O, my room is all right, I think," said I.  "She is a very good
old lady, and has never even mentioned her bill."

"Because she is a very good old lady, I don't see why she
should be fined," observed Myner.

"What do you mean by that?" I cried.

"I mean this," said he.  "The French give a great deal of credit
amongst themselves; they find it pays on the whole, or the
system would hardly be continued; but I can't see where WE
come in; I can't see that it's honest of us Anglo-Saxons to profit
by their easy ways, and then skip over the Channel or (as you
Yankees do) across the Atlantic."

"But I'm not proposing to skip," I objected.

"Exactly," he replied.  "And shouldn't you? There's the problem. 
You seem to me to have a lack of sympathy for the proprietors
of cabmen's eating-houses.  By your own account you're not
getting on:  the longer you stay, it'll only be the more out of the
pocket of the dear old lady at your lodgings.  Now, I'll tell you
what I'll do:  if you consent to go, I'll pay your passage to New
York, and your railway fare and expenses to Muskegon (if I
have the name right) where your father lived, where he must
have left friends, and where, no doubt, you'll find an opening.  I
don't seek any gratitude, for of course you'll think me a beast;
but I do ask you to pay it back when you are able.  At any rate,
that's all I can do.  It might be different if I thought you a
genius, Dodd; but I don't, and I advise you not to."


"I think that was uncalled for, at least," said I.

"I daresay it was," he returned, with the same steadiness.  "It
seemed to me pertinent; and, besides, when you ask me for
money upon no security, you treat me with the liberty of a
friend, and it's to be presumed that I can do the like.  But the
point is, do you accept?"

"No, thank you," said I; "I have another string to my bow."

"All right," says Myner.  "Be sure it's honest."

"Honest? honest?" I cried.  "What do you mean by calling my
honesty in question?"

"I won't, if you don't like it," he replied.  "You seem to think
honesty as easy as Blind Man's Buff: I don't.  It's some
difference of definition."

I went straight from this irritating interview, during which
Myner had never discontinued painting, to the studio of my old
master.  Only one card remained for me to play, and I was now
resolved to play it: I must drop the gentleman and the frock
-coat, and approach art in the workman's tunic.

"Tiens, this little Dodd!" cried the master; and then, as his eye
fell on my dilapidated clothing, I thought I could perceive his
countenance to darken.

I made my plea in English; for I knew, if he were vain of
anything, it was of his achievement of the island tongue. 
"Master," said I, "will you take me in your studio again? but
this time as a workman."

"I sought your fazer was immensely reech," said he.

I explained to him that I was now an orphan and penniless.

He shook his head.  "I have betterr workmen waiting at my
door," said he, "far betterr workmen.

"You used to think something of my work, sir," I pleaded.

"Somesing, somesing--yes!" he cried; "enough for a son of a
reech man--not enough for an orphan.  Besides, I sought you
might learn to be an artist; I did not sink you might learn to be
a workman."

On a certain bench on the outer boulevard, not far from the
tomb of Napoleon, a bench shaded at that date by a shabby
tree, and commanding a view of muddy roadway and blank
wall, I sat down to wrestle with my misery.  The weather was
cheerless and dark; in three days I had eaten but once; I had no
tobacco; my shoes were soaked, my trousers horrid with mire;
my humour and all the circumstances of the time and place
lugubriously attuned.  Here were two men who had both
spoken fairly of my work while I was rich and wanted nothing;
now that I was poor and lacked all:  "no genius," said the one;
"not enough for an orphan," the other; and the first offered me
my passage like a pauper immigrant, and the second refused
me a day's wage as a hewer of stone--plain dealing for an
empty belly.  They had not been insincere in the past; they were
not insincere to-day:  change of circumstance had introduced a
new criterion:  that was all.

But if I acquitted my two Job's comforters of insincerity, I was
yet far from admitting them infallible.  Artists had been
contemned before, and had lived to turn the laugh on their
contemners.  How old was Corot before he struck the vein of
his own precious metal?  When had a young man been more
derided (or more justly so) than the god of my admiration,
Balzac?  Or if I required a bolder inspiration, what had I to do
but turn my head to where the gold dome of the Invalides
glittered against inky squalls, and recall the tale of him
sleeping there:  from the day when a young artillery-sub could
be giggled at and nicknamed Puss-in-Boots by frisky misses;
on to the days of so many crowns and so many victories, and so
many hundred mouths of cannon, and so many thousand war-
hoofs trampling the roadways of astonished Europe eighty
miles in front of the grand army?  To go back, to give up, to
proclaim myself a failure, an ambitious failure, first a rocket,
then a stick!  I, Loudon Dodd, who had refused all other
livelihoods with scorn, and been advertised in the Saint Joseph
_Sunday Herald_ as a patriot and an artist, to be returned upon
my native Muskegon like damaged goods, and go the circuit of
my father's acquaintance, cap in hand, and begging to sweep
offices!  No, by Napoleon!  I would die at my chosen trade; and
the two who had that day flouted me should live to envy my
success, or to weep tears of unavailing penitence behind my
pauper coffin.

Meantime, if my courage was still undiminished, I was none
the nearer to a meal.  At no great distance my cabman's eating-
house stood, at the tail of a muddy cab-rank, on the shores of a
wide thoroughfare of mud, offering (to fancy) a face of
ambiguous invitation.  I might be received, I might once more
fill my belly there; on the other hand, it was perhaps this day
the bolt was destined to fall, and I might be expelled instead,
with vulgar hubbub.  It was policy to make the attempt, and I
knew it was policy; but I had already, in the course of that one
morning, endured too many affronts, and I felt I could rather
starve than face another.  I had courage and to spare for the
future, none left for that day; courage for the main campaign,
but not a spark of it for that preliminary skirmish of the
cabman's restaurant.  I continued accordingly to sit upon my
bench, not far from the ashes of Napoleon, now drowsy, now
light-headed, now in complete mental obstruction, or only
conscious of an animal pleasure in quiescence; and now
thinking, planning, and remembering with unexampled
clearness, telling myself tales of sudden wealth, and gustfully
ordering and greedily consuming imaginary meals:  in the
course of which I must have dropped asleep.

It was towards dark that I was suddenly recalled to famine by a
cold souse of rain, and sprang shivering to my feet.  For a
moment I stood bewildered:  the whole train of my reasoning
and dreaming passed afresh through my mind; I was again
tempted, drawn as if with cords, by the image of the cabman's
eating-house, and again recoiled from the possibility of insult. 
"Qui dort dine," thought I to myself; and took my  homeward
way with wavering footsteps, through rainy streets in which the
lamps and the shop-windows now began to gleam; still
marshalling imaginary dinners as I went. 

"Ah, Monsieur Dodd," said the porter, "there has been a
registered letter for you.  The facteur will bring it again
to-morrow."

A registered letter for me, who had been so long without one?
Of what it could possibly contain, I had no vestige of a guess;
nor did I delay myself guessing; far less form any conscious
plan of dishonesty:  the lies flowed from me like a natural
secretion.

"O," said I, "my remittance at last!  What a bother I should
have missed it!  Can you lend me a hundred francs until
to-morrow?"


I had never attempted to borrow from the porter till that
moment:  the registered letter was, besides, my warranty; and
he gave me what he had--three napoleons and some francs in
silver.  I pocketed the money carelessly, lingered a while
chaffing, strolled leisurely to the door; and then (fast as my
trembling legs could carry me) round the corner to the Cafe de
Cluny.  French waiters are deft and speedy; they were not deft
enough for me; and I had scarce decency to let the man set the
wine upon the table or put the butter alongside the bread,
before my glass and my mouth were filled.  Exquisite bread of
the Cafe Cluny, exquisite first glass of old Pomard tingling to
my wet feet, indescribable first olive culled from the hors
d'oeuvre--I suppose, when I come to lie dying, and the lamp
begins to grow dim, I shall still recall your savour.  Over the
rest of that meal, and the rest of the evening, clouds lie thick;
clouds perhaps of Burgundy; perhaps, more properly, of famine
and repletion.

I remember clearly, at least, the shame, the despair, of the next
morning, when I reviewed what I had done, and how I had
swindled the poor honest porter; and, as if that were not
enough, fairly burnt my ships, and brought bankruptcy home to
that last refuge, my garret.  The porter would expect his money;
I could not pay him; here was scandal in the house; and I knew
right well the cause of scandal would have to pack.  "What do
you mean by calling my honesty in question?" I had cried the
day before, turning upon Myner.  Ah, that day before! the day
before Waterloo, the day before the Flood; the day before I had 
sold the roof over my head, my future, and my self-respect, for
a dinner at the Cafe Cluny!

In the midst of these lamentations the famous registered letter
came to my door, with healing under its seals.  It bore the
postmark of San Francisco, where Pinkerton was already
struggling to the neck in multifarious affairs:  it renewed the
offer of an allowance, which his improved estate permitted him
to announce at the figure of two hundred francs a month; and in
case I was in some immediate pinch, it enclosed an
introductory draft for forty dollars.  There are a thousand
excellent reasons why a man, in this self-helpful epoch, should
decline to be dependent on another; but the most numerous and
cogent considerations all bow to a necessity as stern as mine;
and the banks were scarce open ere the draft was cashed.

It was early in December that I thus sold myself into slavery;
and for six months I dragged a slowly lengthening chain of
gratitude and uneasiness.  At the cost of some debt I managed
to excel myself and eclipse the Genius of Muskegon, in a small
but highly patriotic Standard Bearer for the Salon; whither it
was duly admitted, where it stood the proper length of days
entirely unremarked, and whence it came back to me as
patriotic as before.  I threw my whole soul (as Pinkerton would
have phrased it) into clocks and candlesticks; the devil a
candlestick-maker would have anything to say to my designs. 
Even when Dijon, with his infinite good humour and infinite
scorn for all such journey-work, consented to peddle them in 
indiscriminately with his own, the dealers still detected and
rejected mine.  Home they returned to me, true as the Standard
Bearer; who now, at the head of quite a regiment of lesser
idols, began to grow an eyesore in the scanty studio of my
friend.  Dijon and I have sat by the hour, and gazed upon that
company of images.  The severe, the frisky, the classical, the
Louis Quinze, were there--from Joan of Arc in her soldierly
cuirass to Leda with the swan; nay, and God forgive me for a
man that knew better! the humorous was represented also.  We
sat and gazed, I say; we criticised, we turned them hither and
thither; even upon the closest inspection they looked quite like
statuettes; and yet nobody would have a gift of them!  

Vanity dies hard; in some obstinate cases it outlives the man:
but about the sixth month, when I already owed near two
hundred dollars to Pinkerton, and half as much again in debts
scattered about Paris, I awoke one morning with a horrid
sentiment of oppression, and found I was alone:  my vanity had
breathed her last during the night.  I dared not plunge deeper in
the bog; I saw no hope in my poor statuary; I owned myself
beaten at last; and sitting down in my nightshirt beside the
window, whence I had a glimpse of the tree-tops at the corner
of the boulevard, and where the music of its early traffic fell
agreeably upon my ear, I penned my farewell to Paris, to art, to
my whole past life, and my whole former self.  "I give in," I
wrote.  "When the next allowance arrives, I shall go straight
out West, where you can do what you like with me."

It is to be understood that Pinkerton had been, in a sense,
pressing me to come from the beginning; depicting his isolation
among new acquaintances, "who have none of them your
culture," he wrote; expressing his friendship in terms so warm
that it sometimes embarrassed me to think how poorly I could
echo them; dwelling upon his need for assistance; and the next
moment turning about to commend my resolution and press me
to remain in Paris.  "Only remember, Loudon," he would write,
"if you ever DO tire of it, there's plenty of work here for you
--honest, hard, well-paid work, developing the resources of this
practically virgin State.  And of course I needn't say what a
pleasure it would be to me if we were going at it SHOULDER
TO SHOULDER."  I marvel (looking back) that I could so long
have resisted these appeals, and continue to sink my friend's
money in a manner that I knew him to dislike.  At least, when I
did awake to any sense of my position, I awoke to it entirely;
and determined not only to follow his counsel for the future, but
even as regards the past, to rectify his losses.  For in this
juncture of affairs I called to mind that I was not without a
possible resource, and resolved, at whatever cost of
mortification, to beard the Loudon family in their historic city.

In the excellent Scots' phrase, I made a moonlight flitting, a
thing never dignified, but in my case unusually easy.  As I had
scarce a pair of boots worth portage, I deserted the whole of my
effects without a pang.  Dijon fell heir to Joan of Arc, the
Standard Bearer, and the Musketeers.  He was present when I
bought and frugally stocked my new portmanteau; and it was at
the door of the trunk shop that I took my leave of him, for my
last few hours in Paris must be spent alone.  It was alone (and
at a far higher figure than my finances warranted) that I
discussed my dinner; alone that I took my ticket at Saint
Lazare; all alone, though in a carriage full of people, that I
watched the moon shine on the Seine flood with its tufted
islets, on Rouen with her spires, and on the shipping in the
harbour of Dieppe.  When the first light of the morning called
me from troubled slumbers on the deck, I beheld the dawn at
first with pleasure; I watched with pleasure the green shores of
England rising out of rosy haze; I took the salt air with delight
into my nostrils; and then all came back to me; that I was no
longer an artist, no longer myself; that I was leaving all I cared
for, and returning to all that I detested, the slave of debt and
gratitude, a public and a branded failure.

From this picture of my own disgrace and wretchedness, it is
not wonderful if my mind turned with relief to the thought of
Pinkerton, waiting for me, as I knew, with unwearied affection,
and regarding me with a respect that I had never deserved, and
might therefore fairly hope that I should never forfeit.  The
inequality of our relation struck me rudely.  I must have been
stupid, indeed, if I could have considered the history of that
friendship without shame--I, who had given so little, who had
accepted and profited by so much.  I had the whole day before
me in London, and I determined (at least in words) to set the
balance somewhat straighter.  Seated in the corner of a public
place, and calling for sheet after sheet of paper, I poured forth
the expression of my gratitude, my penitence for the past, my
resolutions for the future.  Till now, I told him, my course had
been mere selfishness.  I had been selfish to my father and to
my friend, taking their help, and denying them (which was all
they asked) the poor gratification of my company and
countenance.

Wonderful are the consolations of literature! As soon as that
letter was written and posted, the consciousness of virtue
glowed in my veins like some rare vintage. 



 CHAPTER VI.

 IN WHICH I GO WEST.


I reached my uncle's door next morning in time to sit down
with the family to breakfast.  More than three years had
intervened almost without mutation in that stationary
household, since I had sat there first, a young American
freshman, bewildered among unfamiliar dainties, Finnan
haddock, kippered salmon, baps and mutton ham, and had
wearied my mind in vain to guess what should be under the
tea-cosey.  If there were any change at all, it seemed that I had
risen in the family esteem.  My father's death once fittingly
referred to, with a ceremonial lengthening of Scotch upper lips
and wagging of the female head, the party launched at once
(God help me) into the more cheerful topic of my own
successes.  They had been so pleased to hear such good
accounts of me; I was quite a great man now; where was that
beautiful statue of the Genius of Something or other?  "You
haven't it here? not here?  Really?" asks the sprightliest of my
cousins, shaking curls at me; as though it were likely I had
brought it in a cab, or kept it concealed about my person like a
birthday surprise.  In the bosom of this family, unaccustomed
to the tropical nonsense of the West, it became plain the
_Sunday Herald_ and poor, blethering Pinkerton had been
accepted for their face.  It is not possible to invent a
circumstance that could have more depressed me; and I am
conscious that I behaved all through that breakfast like a whipt
schoolboy.

At length, the meal and family prayers being both happily over,
I requested the favour of an interview with Uncle Adam on "the
state of my affairs."  At sound of this ominous expression, the
good man's face conspicuously lengthened; and when my
grandfather, having had the proposition repeated to him (for he
was hard of hearing) announced his intention of being present
at the interview, I could not but think that Uncle Adam's
sorrow kindled into momentary irritation.  Nothing, however,
but the usual grim cordiality appeared upon the surface; and we
all three passed ceremoniously to the adjoining library, a
gloomy theatre for a depressing piece of business.  My
grandfather charged a clay pipe, and sat tremulously smoking
in a corner of the fireless chimney; behind him, although the
morning was both chill and dark, the window was partly open
and the blind partly down:  I cannot depict what an air he had
of being out of place, like a man shipwrecked there.  Uncle
Adam had his station at the business table in the midst. 
Valuable rows of books looked down upon the place of torture;
and I could hear sparrows chirping in the garden, and my
sprightly cousin already banging the piano and pouring forth an
acid stream of song from the drawing-room overhead.

It was in these circumstances that, with all brevity of speech
and a certain boyish sullenness of manner, looking the while
upon the floor, I informed my relatives of my financial
situation:  the amount I owed Pinkerton; the hopelessness of
any maintenance from sculpture; the career offered me in the
States; and how, before becoming more beholden to a stranger,
I had judged it right to lay the case before my family.

"I am only sorry you did not come to me at first," said Uncle
Adam.  "I take the liberty to say it would have been more
decent."

"I think so too, Uncle Adam," I replied; "but you must bear in
mind I was ignorant in what light you might regard my
application."

"I hope I would never turn my back on my own flesh and
blood," he returned with emphasis; but to my anxious ear, with
more of temper than affection.  "I could never forget you were
my sister's son.  I regard this as a manifest duty.  I have no
choice but to accept the entire responsibility of the position you
have made."

I did not know what else to do but murmur "thank you."


"Yes," he pursued, "and there is something providential in the
circumstance that you come at the right time.  In my old firm
there is a vacancy; they call themselves Italian Warehousemen
now," he continued, regarding me with a twinkle of humour;
"so you may think yourself in luck: we were only grocers in my
day.  I shall place you there to-morrow."

"Stop a moment, Uncle Adam," I broke in.  "This is not at all
what I am asking.  I ask you to pay Pinkerton, who is a poor
man.  I ask you to clear my feet of debt, not to arrange my life
or any part of it."

"If I wished to be harsh, I might remind you that beggars
cannot be choosers," said my uncle; "and as to managing your
life, you have tried your own way already, and you see what
you have made of it.  You must now accept the guidance of
those older and (whatever you may think of it) wiser than
yourself.  All these schemes of your friend (of whom I know
nothing, by the by) and talk of openings in the West, I simply
disregard.  I have no idea whatever of your going troking across
a continent on a wild-goose chase.  In this situation, which I
am fortunately able to place at your disposal, and which many a
well-conducted young man would be glad to jump at, you will
receive, to begin with, eighteen shillings a week."

"Eighteen shillings a week!" I cried.  "Why, my poor friend
gave me more than that for nothing!"

"And I think it is this very friend you are now trying to repay?"
observed my uncle, with an air of one advancing a strong
argument.

"Aadam!" said my grandfather.

"I'm vexed you should be present at this business," quoth Uncle
Adam, swinging rather obsequiously towards the stonemason;
"but I must remind you it is of your own seeking."

"Aadam!" repeated the old man.

"Well, sir, I am listening," says my uncle.

My grandfather took a puff or two in silence; and then, "Ye're
makin' an awfu' poor appearance, Aadam," said he.

My uncle visibly reared at the affront.  "I'm sorry you should
think so," said he, "and still more sorry you should say so
before present company."

"A believe that; A ken that, Aadam," returned old Loudon,
dryly; "and the curiis thing is, I'm no very carin'.  See here, ma
man," he continued, addressing himself to me.  "A'm your
grandfaither, amn't I not?  Never you mind what Aadam says. 
A'll see justice din ye.  A'm rich."

"Father," said Uncle Adam, "I would like one word with you in
private."

I rose to go.

"Set down upon your hinderlands," cried my grandfather,
almost savagely.  "If Aadam has anything to say, let him say it. 
It's me that has the money here; and by Gravy! I'm goin' to be
obeyed."

Upon this scurvy encouragement, it appeared that my uncle had
no remark to offer:  twice challenged to "speak out and be done
with it," he twice sullenly declined; and I may mention that
about this period of the engagement, I began to be sorry for
him.

"See here, then, Jeannie's yin!" resumed my grandfather.  "A'm
goin' to give ye a set-off.  Your mither was always my fav'rite,
for A never could agree with Aadam.  A like ye fine yoursel';
there's nae noansense aboot ye; ye've a fine nayteral idee of
builder's work; ye've been to France, where they tell me they're
grand at the stuccy.  A splendid thing for ceilin's, the stuccy!
and it's a vailyable disguise, too; A don't believe there's a
builder in Scotland has used more stuccy than me.  But as A
was sayin', if ye'll follie that trade, with the capital that A'm
goin' to give ye, ye may live yet to be as rich as mysel'.  Ye see,
ye would have always had a share of it when A was gone; it
appears ye're needin' it now; well, ye'll get the less, as is only
just and proper."

Uncle Adam cleared his throat.  "This is very handsome,
father," said he; "and I am sure Loudon feels it so.  Very
handsome, and as you say, very just; but will you allow me to
say that it had better, perhaps, be put in black and white?"

The enmity always smouldering between the two men at this
ill-judged interruption almost burst in flame.  The stonemason
turned upon his offspring, his long upper lip pulled down, for
all the world, like a monkey's.  He stared a while in virulent
silence; and then "Get Gregg!" said he.

The effect of these words was very visible.  "He will be gone to
his office," stammered my uncle. 

"Get Gregg!" repeated my grandfather.

"I tell you, he will be gone to his office," reiterated Adam.

"And I tell ye, he's takin' his smoke," retorted the old man.

"Very well, then," cried my uncle, getting to his feet with some
alacrity, as upon a sudden change of thought, "I will get him
myself."

"Ye will not!" cried my grandfather.  "Ye will sit there upon
your hinderland."

"Then how the devil am I to get him?" my uncle broke forth,
with not unnatural petulance.

My grandfather (having no possible answer) grinned at his son
with the malice of a schoolboy; then he rang the bell.

"Take the garden key," said Uncle Adam to the servant; "go
over to the garden, and if Mr. Gregg the lawyer is there (he
generally sits under the red hawthorn), give him old Mr.
Loudon's compliments, and will he step in here for a moment?"

"Mr. Gregg the lawyer!"  At once I understood (what had been
puzzling me) the significance of my grandfather and the alarm
of my poor uncle: the stonemason's will, it was supposed, hung
trembling in the balance.

"Look here, grandfather," I said, "I didn't want any of this.  All
I wanted was a loan of (say) two hundred pounds.  I can take
care of myself; I have prospects and opportunities, good friends
in the States----"

The old man waved me down.  "It's me that speaks here," he
said curtly; and we waited the coming of the lawyer in a triple
silence.  He appeared at last, the maid ushering him in--a
spectacled, dry, but not ungenial looking man.


"Here, Gregg," cried my grandfather.  "Just a question: What
has Aadam got to do with my will?"

"I'm afraid I don't quite understand," said the lawyer, staring.

"What has he got to do with it?" repeated the old man, smiting
with his fist upon the arm of his chair.  "Is my money mine's, or
is it Aadam's?  Can Aadam interfere?"

"O, I see," said Mr. Gregg.  "Certainly not.  On the marriage of
both of your children a certain sum was paid down and
accepted in full of legitim.  You have surely not forgotten the
circumstance, Mr. Loudon?"

"So that, if I like," concluded my grandfather, hammering out
his words, "I can leave every doit I die possessed of to the Great
Magunn?"--meaning probably the Great Mogul.

"No doubt of it," replied Gregg, with a shadow of a smile.

"Ye hear that, Aadam?" asked my grandfather.

"I may be allowed to say I had no need to hear it," said my
uncle.

"Very well," says my grandfather.  "You and Jeannie's yin can
go for a bit walk.  Me and Gregg has business."

When once I was in the hall alone with Uncle Adam, I turned
to him, sick at heart.  "Uncle Adam," I said, "you can
understand, better than I can say, how very painful all this is to
me."

"Yes, I am sorry you have seen your grandfather in so
unamiable a light," replied this extraordinary man.  "You
shouldn't allow it to affect your mind though.  He has sterling
qualities, quite an extraordinary character; and I have no fear
but he means to behave handsomely to you."

His composure was beyond my imitation:  the house could not
contain me, nor could I even promise to return to it:  in
concession to which weakness, it was agreed that I should call
in about an hour at the office of the lawyer, whom (as he left
the library) Uncle Adam should waylay and inform of the
arrangement.  I suppose there was never a more topsy-turvy
situation:  you would have thought it was I who had suffered
some rebuff, and that iron-sided Adam was a generous
conqueror who scorned to take advantage. 

It was plain enough that I was to be endowed:  to what extent
and upon what conditions I was now left for an hour to
meditate in the wide and solitary thoroughfares of the new
town, taking counsel with street-corner statues of George IV.
and William Pitt, improving my mind with the pictures in the
window of a music-shop, and renewing my acquaintance with
Edinburgh east wind.  By the end of the hour I made my way to
Mr. Gregg's office, where I was placed, with a few appropriate
words, in possession of a cheque for two thousand pounds and
a small parcel of architectural works.

"Mr. Loudon bids me add," continued the lawyer, consulting a
little sheet of notes, "that although these volumes are very
valuable to the practical builder, you must be careful not to lose
originality.  He tells you also not to be 'hadden doun'--his own
expression--by the theory of strains, and that Portland cement,
properly sanded, will go a long way."

I smiled, and remarked that I supposed it would.

"I once lived in one of my excellent client's houses," observed
the lawyer; "and I was tempted, in that case, to think it had
gone far enough."

"Under these circumstances, sir," said I, "you will be rather
relieved to hear that I have no intention of becoming a builder."

At this, he fairly laughed; and, the ice being broken, I was able
to consult him as to my conduct.  He insisted I must return to
the house, at least, for luncheon, and one of my walks with Mr.
Loudon.  "For the evening, I will furnish you with an excuse, if
you please," said he, "by asking you to a bachelor dinner with
myself.  But the luncheon and the walk are unavoidable.  He is
an old man, and, I believe, really fond of you; he would
naturally feel aggrieved if there were any appearance of
avoiding him; and as for Mr. Adam, do you know, I think your
delicacy out of place.... And now, Mr. Dodd, what are you to
do with this money?"

Ay, there was the question.  With two thousand pounds--fifty
thousand francs--I might return to Paris and the arts, and be a
prince and millionaire in that thrifty Latin Quarter.  I think I
had the grace, with one corner of my mind, to be glad that I had
sent the London letter:  I know very well that with the rest and
worst of me, I repented bitterly of that precipitate act.  On one
point, however, my whole multiplex estate of man was
unanimous:  the letter being gone, there was no help but I must
follow.  The money was accordingly divided in two unequal
shares:  for the first, Mr. Gregg got me a bill in the name of
Dijon to meet my liabilities in Paris; for the second, as I had
already cash in hand for the expenses of my journey, he
supplied me with drafts on San Francisco.

The rest of my business in Edinburgh, not to dwell on a very
agreeable dinner with the lawyer or the horrors of the family
luncheon, took the form of an excursion with the stonemason,
who led me this time to no suburb or work of his old hands, but
with an impulse both natural and pretty, to that more enduring
home which he had chosen for his clay.  It was in a cemetery,
by some strange chance, immured within the bulwarks of a
prison; standing, besides, on the margin of a cliff, crowded
with elderly stone memorials, and green with turf and ivy.  The
east wind (which I thought too harsh for the old man)
continually shook the boughs, and the thin sun of a Scottish
summer drew their dancing shadows.

"I wanted ye to see the place," said he.  "Yon's the stane. 
Euphemia Ross: that was my goodwife, your grandmither
--hoots! I'm wrong; that was my first yin; I had no bairns by
her;--yours is the second, Mary Murray, Born 1819, Died 1850:
that's her--a fine, plain, decent sort of a creature, tak' her
athegether.  Alexander Loudon, Born Seventeen Ninety-Twa,
Died--and then a hole in the ballant:  that's me.  Alexander's
my name.  They ca'd me Ecky when I was a boy.  Eh, Ecky!
ye're an awfu' auld man!"

I had a second and sadder experience of graveyards at my next
alighting-place, the city of Muskegon, now rendered
conspicuous by the dome of the new capitol encaged in
scaffolding.  It was late in the afternoon when I arrived, and
raining; and as I walked in great streets, of the very name of
which I was quite ignorant--double, treble, and quadruple lines
of horse-cars jingling by--hundred-fold wires of telegraph and
telephone matting heaven above my head--huge, staring
houses, garish and gloomy, flanking me from either hand--the
thought of the Rue Racine, ay, and of the cabman's eating
-house, brought tears to my eyes.  The whole monotonous
Babel had grown, or I should rather say swelled, with such a
leap since my departure, that I must continually inquire my
way; and the very cemetery was brand new.  Death, however,
had been active; the graves were already numerous, and I must
pick my way in the rain, among the tawdry sepulchres of
millionnaires, and past the plain black crosses of Hungarian
labourers, till chance or instinct led me to the place that was my
father's.  The stone had been erected (I knew already) "by
admiring friends"; I could now judge their taste in monuments;
their taste in literature, methought, I could imagine, and I
refrained from drawing near enough to read the terms of the
inscription.  But the name was in larger letters and stared at
me--JAMES K. DODD.  What a singular thing is a name, I
thought; how it clings to a man, and continually misrepresents,
and then survives him; and it flashed across my mind, with a
mixture of regret and bitter mirth, that I had never known, and
now probably never should know, what the K had represented. 
King, Kilter, Kay, Kaiser, I went, running over names at
random, and then stumbled with ludicrous misspelling on
Kornelius, and had nearly laughed aloud.  I have never been
more childish; I suppose (although the deeper voices of my
nature seemed all dumb) because I have never been more
moved.  And at this last incongruous antic of my nerves, I was
seized with a panic of remorse and fled the cemetery.

Scarce less funereal was the rest of my experience in
Muskegon, where, nevertheless, I lingered, visiting my father's
circle, for some days.  It was in piety to him I lingered; and I
might have spared myself the pain. His memory was already
quite gone out.  For his sake, indeed, I was made welcome; and
for mine the conversation rolled awhile with laborious effort on
the virtues of the deceased.  His former comrades dwelt, in my
company, upon his business talents or his generosity for public
purposes; when my back was turned, they remembered him no
more.  My father had loved me; I had left him alone to live and
die among the indifferent; now I returned to find him dead and
buried and forgotten.  Unavailing penitence translated itself in
my thoughts to fresh resolve.  There was another poor soul who
loved me:  Pinkerton.  I must not be guilty twice of the same
error.

A week perhaps had been thus wasted, nor had I prepared my
friend for the delay.  Accordingly, when I had changed trains at
Council Bluffs, I was aware of a man appearing at the end of
the car with a telegram in his hand and inquiring whether there
were any one aboard "of the name of LONDON Dodd?"  I
thought the name near enough, claimed the despatch, and
found it was from Pinkerton:  "What day do you arrive?
Awfully important."  I sent him an answer giving day and hour,
and at Ogden found a fresh despatch awaiting me:  "That will
do.  Unspeakable relief.  Meet you at Sacramento."  In Paris
days I had a private name for Pinkerton:  "The Irrepressible"
was what I had called him in hours of bitterness, and the name
rose once more on my lips.  What mischief was he up to now?
What new bowl was my benignant monster brewing for his
Frankenstein?  In what new imbroglio should I alight on the
Pacific coast?  My trust in the man was entire, and my distrust
perfect.  I knew he would never mean amiss; but I was
convinced he would almost never (in my sense) do aright.

I suppose these vague anticipations added a shade of gloom to
that already gloomy place of travel:  Nebraska, Wyoming,
Utah, Nevada, scowled in my face at least, and seemed to point
me back again to that other native land of mine, the Latin
Quarter.  But when the Sierras had been climbed, and the train,
after so long beating and panting, stretched itself upon the
downward track--when I beheld that vast extent of prosperous
country rolling seaward from the woods and the blue
mountains, that illimitable spread of rippling corn, the trees
growing and blowing in the merry weather, the country boys
thronging aboard the train with figs and peaches, and the
conductors, and the very darky stewards, visibly exulting in the
change--up went my soul like a balloon; Care fell from his
perch upon my shoulders; and when I spied my Pinkerton
among the crowd at Sacramento, I thought of nothing but to
shout and wave for him, and grasp him by the hand, like what
he was--my dearest friend.

"O Loudon!" he cried.  "Man, how I've pined for you!  And you
haven't come an hour too soon.  You're known here and waited
for; I've been booming you already; you're billed for a lecture
to-morrow night:  _Student Life in Paris, Grave and Gay_:
twelve hundred places booked at the last stock!  Tut, man,
you're looking thin!  Here, try a drop of this."  And he produced
a case bottle, staringly labelled PINKERTON'S THIRTEEN
STAR GOLDEN STATE BRANDY, WARRANTED
ENTIRE.

"God bless me!" said I, gasping and winking after my first
plunge into this fiery fluid.  "And what does 'Warranted Entire'
mean?"

"Why, Loudon! you ought to know that!" cried Pinkerton.  "It's
real, copper-bottomed English; you see it on all the old-time
wayside hostelries over there."

"But if I'm not mistaken, it means something Warranted
Entirely different," said I, "and applies to the public house, and
not the beverages sold."

"It's very possible," said Jim, quite unabashed.  "It's effective,
anyway; and I can tell you, sir, it has boomed that spirit:  it
goes now by the gross of cases.  By the way, I hope you won't
mind; I've got your portrait all over San Francisco for the
lecture,  enlarged from that carte de visite: H. Loudon Dodd,
the Americo-Parisienne Sculptor.  Here's a proof of the small
handbills; the posters are the same, only in red and blue, and
the letters fourteen by one."

I looked at the handbill, and my head turned.  What was the
use of words? why seek to explain to Pinkerton the knotted
horrors of "Americo-Parisienne"?  He took an early occasion to
point it out as "rather a good phrase; gives the two sides at a
glance:  I wanted the lecture written up to that."  Even after we
had reached San Francisco, and at the actual physical shock of
my own effigy placarded on the streets I had broken forth in
petulant words, he never comprehended in the least the ground
of my aversion.

"If I had only known you disliked red lettering!" was as high as
he could rise.  "You are perfectly right: a clear-cut black is
preferable, and shows a great deal further.  The only thing that
pains me is the portrait:  I own I thought that a success.  I'm
dreadfully and truly sorry, my dear fellow:  I see now it's not
what you had a right to expect; but I did it, Loudon, for the
best; and the press is all delighted."

At the moment, sweeping through green tule swamps, I fell
direct on the essential.  "But, Pinkerton," I cried, "this lecture is
the maddest of your madnesses.  How can I prepare a lecture in
thirty hours?"

"All done, Loudon!" he exclaimed in triumph.  "All ready. 
Trust me to pull a piece of business through.  You'll find it all
type-written in my desk at home.  I put the best talent of San
Francisco on the job:  Harry Miller, the brightest pressman in
the city."

And so he rattled on, beyond reach of my modest protestations,
blurting out his complicated interests, crying up his new
acquaintances, and ever and again hungering to introduce me
to some "whole-souled, grand fellow, as sharp as a needle,"
from whom, and the very thought of whom, my spirit shrank
instinctively.

Well, I was in for it:  in for Pinkerton, in for the portrait, in for
the type-written lecture.  One promise I extorted--that I was
never again to be committed in ignorance; even for that, when I
saw how its extortion puzzled and depressed the Irrepressible,
my soul repented me; and in all else I suffered myself to be led
uncomplaining at his chariot wheels.  The Irrepressible, did I
say?  The Irresistible were nigher truth.

But the time to have seen me was when I sat down to Harry
Miller's lecture.  He was a facetious dog, this Harry Miller; he
had a gallant way of skirting the indecent which (in my case)
produced physical nausea; and he could be sentimental and
even melodramatic about grisettes and starving genius.  I found
he had enjoyed the benefit of my correspondence with
Pinkerton:  adventures of my own were here and there horridly
misrepresented, sentiments of my own echoed and exaggerated
till I blushed to recognise them.  I will do Harry Miller justice:
he must have had a kind of talent, almost of genius; all
attempts to lower his tone proving fruitless, and the Harry-
Millerism ineradicable.  Nay, the monster had a certain key of
style, or want of style, so that certain milder passages, which I
sought to introduce, discorded horribly, and impoverished (if
that were possible) the general effect.

By an early hour of the numbered evening I might have been
observed at the sign of the Poodle Dog, dining with my agent:
so Pinkerton delighted to describe himself.  Thence, like an ox
to the slaughter, he led me to the hall, where I stood presently
alone, confronting assembled San Francisco, with no better
allies than a table, a glass of water, and a mass of manuscript
and typework, representing Harry Miller and myself.   I read
the lecture; for I had lacked both time and will to get the trash
by heart--read it hurriedly, humbly, and with visible shame. 
Now and then I would catch in the auditorium an eye of some
intelligence, now and then, in the manuscript, would stumble
on a richer vein of Harry Miller, and my heart would fail me,
and I gabbled.  The audience yawned, it stirred uneasily, it
muttered, grumbled, and broke forth at last in articulate cries of
"Speak up!" and "Nobody can hear!"  I took to skipping, and
being extremely ill-acquainted with the country, almost
invariably cut in again in the unintelligible midst of some new
topic.  What struck me as extremely ominous, these
misfortunes were allowed to pass without a laugh.  Indeed, I
was beginning to fear the worst, and even personal indignity,
when all at once the humour of the thing broke upon me
strongly.  I could have laughed aloud; and being again
summoned to speak up, I faced my patrons for the first time
with a smile.  "Very well," I said, "I will try, though I don't
suppose anybody wants to hear, and I can't see why anybody
should."  Audience and lecturer laughed together till the tears
ran down; vociferous and repeated applause hailed my
impromptu sally.  Another hit which I made but a little after, as
I turned three pages of the copy:  "You see, I am leaving out as
much as I possibly can," increased the esteem with which my
patrons had begun to regard me; and when I left the stage at
last, my departing form was cheered with laughter, stamping,
shouting, and the waving of hats.

Pinkerton was in the waiting-room, feverishly jotting in his
pocket-book.  As he saw me enter, he sprang up, and I declare
the tears were trickling on his cheeks.

"My dear boy," he cried, "I can never forgive myself, and you
can never forgive me.  Never mind:  I did it for the best.  And
how nobly you clung on!  I dreaded we should have had to
return the money at the doors."

"It would have been more honest if we had," said I.

The pressmen followed me, Harry Miller in the front ranks; and
I was amazed to find them, on the whole, a pleasant set of lads,
probably more sinned against than sinning, and even Harry
Miller apparently a gentleman.  I had in oysters and
champagne--for the receipts were excellent--and being in a
high state of nervous tension, kept the table in a roar.  Indeed, I
was never in my life so well inspired as when I described my
vigil over Harry Miller's literature or the series of my emotions
as I faced the audience.  The lads vowed I was the soul of good
company and the prince of lecturers; and--so wonderful an
institution is the popular press--if you had seen the notices next
day in all the papers, you must have supposed my evening's
entertainment an unqualified success.

I was in excellent spirits when I returned home that night, but
the miserable Pinkerton sorrowed for us both.

"O, Loudon," he said, "I shall never forgive myself.  When I
saw you didn't catch on to the idea of the lecture, I should have
given it myself!"



 CHAPTER VII.

 IRONS IN THE FIRE.


   Opes Strepitumque.

The food of the body differs not so greatly for the fool or the
sage, the elephant or the cock-sparrow; and similar chemical
elements, variously disguised, support all mortals.  A brief
study of Pinkerton in his new setting convinced me of a kindred
truth about that other and mental digestion, by which we
extract what is called "fun for our money" out of life.  In the
same spirit as a schoolboy, deep in Mayne Reid, handles a
dummy gun and crawls among imaginary forests, Pinkerton
sped through Kearney Street upon his daily business,
representing to himself a highly coloured part in life's
performance, and happy for hours if he should have chanced to
brush against a millionnaire.  Reality was his romance; he
gloried to be thus engaged; he wallowed in his business. 
Suppose a man to dig up a galleon on the Coromandel coast,
his rakish schooner keeping the while an offing under easy sail,
and he, by the blaze of a great fire of wreckwood, to measure
ingots by the bucketful on the uproarious beach:  such an one
might realise a greater material spoil; he should have no more
profit of romance than Pinkerton when he cast up his weekly
balance-sheet in a bald office.  Every dollar gained was like
something brought ashore from a mysterious deep; every
venture made was like a diver's plunge; and as he thrust his
bold hand into the plexus of the money-market, he was
delightedly aware of how he shook the pillars of existence,
turned out men (as at a battle-cry) to labour in far countries,
and set the gold twitching in the drawers of millionnaires.

I could never fathom the full extent of his speculations; but
there were five separate businesses which he avowed and
carried like a banner.  The Thirteen Star Golden State Brandy,
Warranted Entire (a very flagrant distillation) filled a great part
of his thoughts, and was kept before the public in an eloquent
but misleading treatise:  _Why Drink French Brandy?  A Word
to the Wise._  He kept an office for advertisers, counselling,
designing, acting as middleman with printers and bill-stickers,
for the inexperienced or the uninspired:  the dull haberdasher
came to him for ideas, the smart theatrical agent for his local
knowledge; and one and all departed with a copy of his
pamphlet:  _How, When, and Where; or, the Advertiser's
Vade-Mecum._  He had a tug chartered every Saturday
afternoon and night, carried people outside the Heads, and
provided them with lines and bait for six hours' fishing, at the
rate of five dollars a person.  I am told that some of them
(doubtless adroit anglers) made a profit on the transaction. 
Occasionally he bought wrecks and condemned vessels; these
latter (I cannot tell you how) found their way to sea again under
aliases, and continued to stem the waves triumphantly enough
under the colours of Bolivia or Nicaragua.  Lastly, there was a
certain agricultural engine, glorying in a great deal of vermilion
and blue paint, and filling (it appeared) a "long-felt want," in
which his interest was something like a tenth.

This for the face or front of his concerns.  "On the outside," as
he phrased it, he was variously and mysteriously engaged.  No
dollar slept in his possession; rather he kept all simultaneously
flying like a conjurer with oranges.  My own earnings, when I
began to have a share, he would but show me for a moment,
and disperse again, like those illusive money gifts which are
flashed in the eyes of childhood only to be entombed in the
missionary box.  And he would come down radiant from a
weekly balance-sheet, clap me on the shoulder, declare himself
a winner by Gargantuan figures, and prove destitute of a
quarter for a drink.

"What on earth have you done with it?" I would ask.

"Into the mill again; all re-invested!" he would cry, with infinite
delight.  Investment was ever his word.  He could not bear
what he called gambling.  "Never touch stocks, Loudon," he
would say; "nothing but legitimate business."  And yet, Heaven
knows, many an indurated gambler might have drawn back
appalled at the first hint of some of Pinkerton's investments!
One, which I succeeded in tracking home, and instance for a
specimen, was a seventh share in the charter of a certain ill-
starred schooner bound for Mexico, to smuggle weapons on the
one trip, and cigars upon the other.  The latter end of this
enterprise, involving (as it did) shipwreck, confiscation, and a
lawsuit with the underwriters, was too painful to be dwelt upon
at length.  "It's proved a disappointment," was as far as my
friend would go with me in words; but I knew, from
observation, that the fabric of his fortunes tottered.  For the rest,
it was only by accident I got wind of the transaction; for
Pinkerton, after a time, was shy of introducing me to his
arcana:  the reason you are to hear presently.

The office which was (or should have been) the point of rest for
so many evolving dollars stood in the heart of the city:  a high
and spacious room, with many plate-glass windows.  A glazed
cabinet of polished redwood offered to the eye a regiment of
some two hundred bottles, conspicuously labelled.  These were
all charged with Pinkerton's Thirteen Star, although from
across the room it would have required an expert to distinguish
them from the same number of bottles of Courvoisier.  I used to
twit my friend with this resemblance, and propose a new
edition of the pamphlet, with the title thus improved:  _Why
Drink French Brandy, when we give you the same labels?_ 
The doors of the cabinet revolved all day upon their hinges; and
if there entered any one who was a stranger to the merits of the
brand, he departed laden with a bottle.  When I used to protest
at this extravagance, "My dear Loudon," Pinkerton would cry,
"you don't seem to catch on to business principles!  The prime
cost of the spirit is literally nothing.  I couldn't find a cheaper
advertisement if I tried."  Against the side post of the cabinet
there leaned a gaudy umbrella, preserved there as a relic.  It
appears that when Pinkerton was about to place Thirteen Star
upon the market, the rainy season was at hand.  He lay dark,
almost in penury, awaiting the first shower, at which, as upon a
signal, the main thoroughfares became dotted with his agents,
vendors of advertisements; and the whole world of San
Francisco, from the businessman fleeing for the ferry-boat, to
the lady waiting at the corner for her car, sheltered itself under
umbrellas with this strange device:  Are you wet? Try Thirteen
Star.  "It was a mammoth boom," said Pinkerton, with a sigh of
delighted recollection.  "There wasn't another umbrella to be
seen.  I stood at this window, Loudon, feasting my eyes; and I
declare, I felt like Vanderbilt."  And it was to this neat
application of the local climate that he owed, not only much of
the sale of Thirteen Star, but the whole business of his
advertising agency.

The large desk (to resume our survey of the office) stood about
the middle, knee-deep in stacks of handbills and posters, of
_Why Drink French Brandy?_ and _The Advertiser's Vade-
Mecum._  It was flanked upon the one hand by two female
type-writers, who rested not between the hours of nine and
four, and upon the other by a model of the agricultural
machine.  The walls, where they were not broken by telephone
boxes and a couple of photographs--one representing the wreck
of the James L. Moody on a bold and broken coast, the other
the Saturday tug alive with amateur fishers--almost
disappeared under oil-paintings gaudily framed.  Many of these
were relics of the Latin Quarter, and I must do Pinkerton the
justice to say that none of them were bad, and some had
remarkable merit.  They went off slowly but for handsome
figures; and their places were progressively supplied with the
work of local artists.  These last it was one of my first duties to
review and criticise.  Some of them were villainous, yet all
were saleable.  I said so; and the next moment saw myself, the
figure of a miserable renegade, bearing arms in the wrong
camp.  I was to look at pictures thenceforward, not with the eye
of the artist, but the dealer; and I saw the stream widen that
divided me from all I loved.

"Now, Loudon," Pinkerton had said, the morning after the
lecture, "now Loudon, we can go at it shoulder to shoulder. 
This is what I have longed for:  I wanted two heads and four
arms; and now I have 'em.  You'll find it's just the same as
art--all observation and imagination; only more movement. 
Just wait till you begin to feel the charm!"

I might have waited long.  Perhaps I lack a sense; for our whole
existence seemed to me one dreary bustle, and the place we
bustled in fitly to be called the Place of Yawning.  I slept in a
little den behind the office; Pinkerton, in the office itself,
stretched on a patent sofa which sometimes collapsed, his
slumbers still further menaced by an imminent clock with an
alarm.  Roused by this diabolical contrivance, we rose early,
went forth early to breakfast, and returned by nine to what
Pinkerton called work, and I distraction.  Masses of letters
must be opened, read, and answered; some by me at a
subsidiary desk which had been introduced on the morning of
my arrival; others by my bright-eyed friend, pacing the room
like a caged lion as he dictated to the tinkling type-writers. 
Masses of wet proof had to be overhauled and scrawled upon
with a blue pencil--"rustic"--"six-inch caps"--"bold spacing
here"--or sometimes terms more fervid, as for instance this,
which I remember Pinkerton to have spirted on the margin of
an advertisement of Soothing Syrup:  "Throw this all down. 
Have you never printed an advertisement?  I'll be round in half
an hour."  The ledger and sale-book, besides, we had always
with us.  Such was the backbone of our occupation, and
tolerable enough; but the far greater proportion of our time was
consumed by visitors, whole-souled, grand fellows no doubt,
and as sharp as a needle, but to me unfortunately not diverting. 
Some were apparently half-witted, and must be talked over by
the hour before they could reach the humblest decision, which
they only left the office to return again (ten minutes later) and
rescind.  Others came with a vast show of hurry and despatch,
but I observed it to be principally show.  The agricultural
model for instance, which was practicable, proved a kind of
flypaper for these busybodies.  I have seen them blankly turn
the crank of it for five minutes at a time, simulating (to
nobody's deception) business interest:  "Good thing this,
Pinkerton?  Sell much of it?  Ha!  Couldn't use it, I suppose, as
a medium of advertisement for my article?"--which was
perhaps toilet soap.  Others (a still worse variety) carried us to
neighbouring saloons to dice for cocktails and (after the
cocktails were paid) for dollars on a corner of the counter.  The
attraction of dice for all these people was indeed extraordinary: 
at a certain club, where I once dined in the character of "my
partner, Mr. Dodd," the dice-box came on the table with the
wine, an artless substitute for after-dinner wit.

Of all our visitors, I believe I preferred Emperor Norton; the
very mention of whose name reminds me I am doing scanty
justice to the folks of San Francisco.  In what other city would a
harmless madman who supposed himself emperor of the two
Americas have been so fostered and encouraged?  Where else
would even the people of the streets have respected the poor
soul's illusion?  Where else would bankers and merchants have
received his visits, cashed his cheques, and submitted to his
small assessments?  Where else would he have been suffered to
attend and address the exhibition days of schools and colleges?
where else, in God's green earth, have taken his pick of
restaurants, ransacked the bill of fare, and departed scathless?
They tell me he was even an exacting patron, threatening to
withdraw his custom when dissatisfied; and I can believe it, for
his face wore an expression distinctly gastronomical.  Pinkerton
had received from this monarch a cabinet appointment; I have
seen the brevet, wondering mainly at the good nature of the
printer who had executed the forms, and I think my friend was
at the head either of foreign affairs or education:  it mattered,
indeed, nothing, the prestation being in all offices identical.  It
was at a comparatively early date that I saw Jim in the exercise
of his public functions.  His Majesty entered the office--a
portly, rather flabby man, with the face of a gentleman,
rendered unspeakably pathetic and absurd by the great sabre at
his side and the peacock's feather in his hat.


"I have called to remind you, Mr. Pinkerton, that you are
somewhat in arrear of taxes," he said, with old-fashioned,
stately courtesy.

"Well, your Majesty, what is the amount?" asked Jim; and
when the figure was named (it was generally two or three
dollars), paid upon the nail and offered a bonus in the shape of
Thirteen Star.

"I am always delighted to patronise native industries," said
Norton the First.  "San Francisco is public-spirited in what
concerns its Emperor; and indeed, sir, of all my domains, it is
my favourite city."

"Come," said I, when he was gone, "I prefer that customer to
the lot."

"It's really rather a distinction," Jim admitted.  "I think it must
have been the umbrella racket that attracted him."

We were distinguished under the rose by the notice of other and
greater men.  There were days when Jim wore an air of unusual
capacity and resolve, spoke with more brevity like one pressed
for time, and took often on his tongue such phrases as
"Longhurst told me so this morning," or "I had it straight from
Longhurst himself."  It was no wonder, I used to think, that
Pinkerton was called to council with such Titans; for the
creature's quickness and resource were beyond praise.  In the
early days when he consulted me without reserve, pacing the
room, projecting, ciphering, extending hypothetical interests,
trebling imaginary capital, his "engine" (to renew an excellent
old word) labouring full steam ahead, I could never decide
whether my sense of respect or entertainment were the stronger. 
But these good hours were destined to curtailment.

"Yes, it's smart enough," I once observed.  "But, Pinkerton, do
you think it's honest?"

"You don't think it's honest!" he wailed.  "O dear me, that ever I
should have heard such an expression on your lips!"

At sight of his distress, I plagiarised unblushingly from Myner. 
"You seem to think honesty as simple as Blind Man's Buff,"
said I.  "It's a more delicate affair than that: delicate as any art."

"O well! at that rate!" he exclaimed, with complete relief. 
"That's casuistry."

"I am perfectly certain of one thing:  that what you propose is
dishonest," I returned.

"Well, say no more about it.  That's settled," he replied.

Thus, almost at a word, my point was carried.  But the trouble
was that such differences continued to recur, until we began to
regard each other with alarm.  If there were one thing Pinkerton
valued himself upon, it was his honesty; if there were one thing
he clung to, it was my good opinion; and when both were
involved, as was the case in these commercial cruces, the man
was on the rack.  My own position, if you consider how much I 
owed him, how hateful is the trade of fault-finder, and that yet I
lived and fattened on these questionable operations, was
perhaps equally distressing.  If I had been more sterling or
more combative things might have gone extremely far.  But, in
truth, I was just base enough to profit by what was not forced
on my attention, rather than seek scenes:  Pinkerton quite
cunning enough to avail himself of my weakness; and it was a
relief to both when he began to involve his proceedings in a
decent mystery.

Our last dispute, which had a most unlooked-for consequence,
turned on the refitting of condemned ships.  He had bought a
miserable hulk, and came, rubbing his hands, to inform me she
was already on the slip, under a new name, to be repaired. 
When first I had heard of this industry I suppose I scarcely
comprehended; but much discussion had sharpened my
faculties, and now my brow became heavy.

"I can be no party to that, Pinkerton," said I.

He leaped like a man shot.  "What next?" he cried.  "What ails
you, anyway?  You seem to me to dislike everything that's
profitable."

"This ship has been condemned by Lloyd's agent," said I.

"But I tell you it's a deal.  The ship's in splendid condition;
there's next to nothing wrong with her but the garboard streak
and the sternpost.  I tell you Lloyd's is a ring like everybody
else; only it's an English ring, and that's what deceives you.  If
it was American, you would be crying it down all day.  It's 
Anglomania, common Anglomania," he cried, with growing 
irritation.

"I will not make money by risking men's lives," was my
ultimatum.

"Great Caesar! isn't all speculation a risk?  Isn't the fairest kind
of shipowning to risk men's lives?  And mining--how's that for
risk?  And look at the elevator business--there's danger, if you
like!  Didn't I take my risk when I bought her?  She might have
been too far gone; and where would I have been?  Loudon," he
cried, "I tell you the truth:  you're too full of refinement for this
world!"

"I condemn you out of your own lips," I replied.  "'The fairest
kind of shipowning,' says you.  If you please, let us only do the
fairest kind of business."

The shot told; the Irrepressible was silenced; and I profited by
the chance to pour in a broadside of another sort.  He was all
sunk in money-getting, I pointed out; he never dreamed of
anything but dollars.   Where were all his generous, progressive
sentiments?  Where was his culture? I asked.  And where was
the American Type?

"It's true, Loudon," he cried, striding up and down the room,
and wildly scouring at his hair.  "You're perfectly right.  I'm
becoming materialised.  O, what a thing to have to say, what a
confession to make!  Materialised!  Me!  Loudon, this must go
on no longer.  You've been a loyal friend to me once more; give
me your hand!--you've saved me again.  I must do something to
rouse the spiritual side; something desperate; study something,
something dry and tough.  What shall it be?  Theology?
Algebra?  What's Algebra?"

"It's dry and tough enough," said I; "a squared + 2ab + b
squared."

"It's stimulating, though?" he inquired.

I told him I believed so, and that it was considered fortifying to
Types.

"Then that's the thing for me.  I'll study Algebra," he concluded.

The next day, by application to one of his type-writing women,
he got word of a young lady, one Miss Mamie McBride, who
was willing and able to conduct him in these bloomless
meadows; and, her circumstances being lean, and terms
consequently moderate, he and Mamie were soon in agreement
for two lessons in the week.  He took fire with unexampled
rapidity; he seemed unable to tear himself away from the
symbolic art; an hour's lesson occupied the whole evening; and
the original two was soon increased to four, and then to five.  I
bade him beware of female blandishments.  "The first thing you
know, you'll be falling in love with the algebraist," said I. 

"Don't say it even in jest," he cried.  "She's a lady I revere.  I
could no more lay a hand upon her than I could upon a spirit.
Loudon, I don't believe God ever made a purer-minded
woman."

Which appeared to me too fervent to be reassuring.

Meanwhile I had been long expostulating with my friend upon
a different matter.  "I'm the fifth wheel," I kept telling him. 
"For any use I am, I might as well be in Senegambia.  The
letters you give me to attend to might be answered by a sucking
child.  And I tell you what it is, Pinkerton:  either you've got to
find me some employment, or I'll have to start in and find it for
myself."

This I said with a corner of my eye in the usual quarter, toward
the arts, little dreaming what destiny was to provide.

"I've got it, Loudon," Pinkerton at last replied.  "Got the idea on
the Potrero cars.  Found I hadn't a pencil, borrowed one from
the conductor, and figured on it roughly all the way in town.  I
saw it was the thing at last; gives you a real show.  All your
talents and accomplishments come in.  Here's a sketch
advertisement.  Just run your eye over it.  "Sun, Ozone, and
Music!  PINKERTON'S HEBDOMADARY PICNICS!" 
(That's a good, catching phrase, "hebdomadary," though it's
hard to say.  I made a note of it when I was looking in the
dictionary how to spell hectagonal.  'Well, you're a boss word,'
I said.  'Before you're very much older, I'll have you in type as
long as yourself.'  And here it is, you see.)  'Five dollars a head,
and ladies free.  MONSTER OLIO OF ATTRACTIONS.' 
(How does that strike you?)  'Free luncheon under the
greenwood tree.  Dance on the elastic sward.  Home again in
the Bright Evening Hours.  Manager and Honorary Steward, H.
Loudon Dodd, Esq., the well-known connoisseur.'"


Singular how a man runs from Scylla to Charybdis!  I was so
intent on securing the disappearance of a single epithet that I
accepted the rest of the advertisement and all that it involved
without discussion.  So it befell that the words "well-known
connoisseur" were deleted; but that H. Loudon Dodd became
manager and honorary steward of Pinkerton's Hebdomadary
Picnics, soon shortened, by popular consent, to the Dromedary.

By eight o'clock, any Sunday morning, I was to be observed by
an admiring public on the wharf.  The garb and attributes of
sacrifice consisted of a black frock coat, rosetted, its pockets
bulging with sweetmeats and inferior cigars, trousers of light
blue, a silk hat like a reflector, and a varnished wand.  A
goodly steamer guarded my one flank, panting and throbbing,
flags fluttering fore and aft of her, illustrative of the Dromedary
and patriotism.  My other flank was covered by the ticket-
office, strongly held by a trusty character of the Scots
persuasion, rosetted like his superior and smoking a cigar to
mark the occasion festive.  At half-past, having assured myself
that all was well with the free luncheons, I lit a cigar myself,
and awaited the strains of the "Pioneer Band."  I had never to
wait long--they were German and punctual--and by a few
minutes after the half-hour, I would hear them booming down
street with a long military roll of drums, some score of
gratuitous asses prancing at the head in bearskin hats and
buckskin aprons, and conspicuous with resplendent axes.  The
band, of course, we paid for; but so strong is the San
Franciscan passion for public masquerade, that the asses (as I
say) were all gratuitous, pranced for the love of it, and cost us
nothing but their luncheon.

The musicians formed up in the bows of my steamer, and
struck into a skittish polka; the asses mounted guard upon the
gangway and the ticket-office; and presently after, in family
parties of father, mother, and children, in the form of duplicate
lovers or in that of solitary youth, the public began to descend
upon us by the carful at a time; four to six hundred perhaps,
with a strong German flavour, and all merry as children.  When
these had been shepherded on board, and the inevitable belated
two or three had gained the deck amidst the cheering of the
public, the hawser was cast off, and we plunged into the bay.

And now behold the honorary steward in hour of duty and
glory; see me circulate amid crowd, radiating affability and
laughter, liberal with my sweetmeats and cigars.  I say
unblushing things to hobbledehoy girls, tell shy young persons
this is the married people's boat, roguishly ask the abstracted if
they are thinking of their sweethearts, offer Paterfamilias a
cigar, am struck with the beauty and grow curious about the
age of mamma's youngest who (I assure her gaily) will be a
man before his mother; or perhaps it may occur to me, from the 
sensible expression of her face, that she is a person of good
counsel, and I ask her earnestly if she knows any particularly
pleasant place on the Saucelito or San Rafael coast, for the
scene of our picnic is always supposed to be uncertain.  The
next moment I am back at my giddy badinage with the young
ladies, wakening laughter as I go, and leaving in my wake
applausive comments of "Isn't Mr. Dodd a funny gentleman?" 
and "O, I think he's just too nice!"

An hour having passed in this airy manner, I start upon my
rounds afresh, with a bag full of coloured tickets, all with pins
attached, and all with legible inscriptions: "Old Germany,"
"California," "True Love," "Old Fogies," "La Belle France,"
"Green Erin," "The Land of Cakes," "Washington," "Blue Jay,"
"Robin Red-Breast,"--twenty of each denomination; for when it
comes  to the luncheon, we sit down by twenties.  These are
distributed with anxious tact--for, indeed, this is the most
delicate part of my functions--but outwardly with reckless
unconcern, amidst the gayest flutter and confusion; and are
immediately after sported upon hats and bonnets, to the
extreme diffusion of cordiality, total strangers hailing each
other by "the number of their mess"--so we humorously name
it--and the deck ringing with cries of, "Here, all Blue Jays to
the rescue!" or, "I say, am I alone in this blame' ship?  Ain't
there no more Californians?"

By this time we are drawing near to the appointed spot.  I
mount upon the bridge, the observed of all observers.

"Captain," I say, in clear, emphatic tones, heard far and wide,
"the majority of the company appear to be in favour of the little
cove beyond One Tree Point."

"All right, Mr. Dodd," responds the captain, heartily; "all one to
me.  I am not exactly sure of the place you mean; but just you
stay here and pilot me."

I do, pointing with my wand.  I do pilot him, to the
inexpressible entertainment of the picnic; for I am (why should
I deny it?) the popular man.  We slow down off the mouth of a
grassy valley, watered by a brook, and set in pines and
redwoods.  The anchor is let go; the boats are lowered, two of
them already packed with the materials of an impromptu bar;
and the Pioneer Band, accompanied by the resplendent asses,
fill the other, and move shoreward to the inviting strains of
Buffalo Gals, won't you come out to-night?  It is a part of our
programme that one of the asses shall, from sheer clumsiness,
in the course of this embarkation, drop a dummy axe into the
water, whereupon the mirth of the picnic can hardly be
assuaged.  Upon one occasion, the dummy axe floated, and the
laugh turned rather the wrong way.

In from ten to twenty minutes the boats are along-side again,
the messes are marshalled separately on the deck, and the
picnic goes ashore, to find the band and the impromptu bar
awaiting them.  Then come the hampers, which are piled upon
the beach, and surrounded by a stern guard of stalwart asses,
axe on shoulder.  It is here I take my place, note-book in hand,
under a banner bearing the legend, "Come here for hampers."
Each hamper contains a complete outfit for a separate twenty, 
cold provender, plates, glasses, knives, forks, and spoons:  an
agonized printed appeal from the fevered pen of Pinkerton,
pasted on the inside of the lid, beseeches that care be taken of
the glass and silver.  Beer, wine, and lemonade are flowing
already from the bar, and the various clans of twenty file away
into the woods, with bottles under their arms, and the hampers
strung upon a stick.  Till one they feast there, in a very
moderate seclusion, all being within earshot of the band.  From
one till four, dancing takes place upon the grass; the bar does a
roaring business; and the honorary steward, who has already
exhausted himself to bring life into the dullest of the messes,
must now indefatigably dance with the plainest of the women. 
At four a bugle-call is sounded; and by half-past behold us on
board again, pioneers, corrugated iron bar, empty bottles, and
all; while the honorary steward, free at last, subsides into the
captain's cabin over a brandy and soda and a book.  Free at last,
I say; yet there remains before him the frantic leavetakings at
the pier, and a sober journey up to Pinkerton's office with two
policemen and the day's takings in a bag.

What I have here sketched was the routine.  But we appealed to
the taste of San Francisco more distinctly in particular fetes. 
"Ye Olde Time Pycke-Nycke," largely advertised in hand-bills
beginning "Oyez, Oyez!" and largely frequented by knights,
monks, and cavaliers, was drowned out by unseasonable rain,
and returned to the city one of the saddest spectacles I ever
remember to have witnessed.  In pleasing contrast, and
certainly our chief success, was "The Gathering of the Clans,"
or Scottish picnic.  So many milk-white knees were never
before simultaneously exhibited in public, and to judge by the
prevalence of "Royal Stewart" and the number of eagle's
feathers, we were a high-born company.  I threw forward the
Scottish flank of my own ancestry, and passed muster as a
clansman with applause.  There was, indeed, but one small
cloud on this red-letter day.  I had laid in a large supply of the
national beverage, in the shape of The "Rob Roy MacGregor
O" Blend, Warranted Old and Vatted; and this must certainly
have been a generous spirit, for I had some anxious work
between four and half-past, conveying on board the inanimate
forms of chieftains.

To one of our ordinary festivities, where he was the life and
soul of his own mess, Pinkerton himself came incognito,
bringing the algebraist on his arm.  Miss Mamie proved to be a
well-enough-looking mouse, with a large, limpid eye, very
good manners, and a flow of the most correct expressions I
have ever heard upon the human lip.  As Pinkerton's incognito
was strict, I had little opportunity to cultivate the lady's
acquaintance; but I was informed afterwards that she
considered me "the wittiest gentleman she had ever met."  "The
Lord mend your taste in wit!" thought I; but I cannot conceal
that such was the general impression.  One of my pleasantries
even went the round of San Francisco, and I have heard it
(myself all unknown) bandied in saloons.  To be unknown
began at last to be a rare experience; a bustle woke upon my
passage; above all, in humble neighbourhoods.  "Who's that?"
one would ask, and the other would cry, "That! Why,
Dromedary Dodd!" or, with withering scorn, "Not know Mr.
Dodd of the Picnics?  Well!" and indeed I think it marked a
rather barren destiny; for our picnics, if a trifle vulgar, were as
gay and innocent as the age of gold; I am sure no people divert
themselves so easily and so well:  and even with the cares of
my stewardship, I was often happy to be there.

Indeed, there were but two drawbacks in the least considerable. 
The first was my terror of the hobbledehoy girls, to whom
(from the demands of my situation) I was obliged to lay myself
so open.  The other, if less momentous, was more mortifying. 
In early days, at my mother's knee, as a man may say, I had
acquired the unenviable accomplishment (which I have never
since been able to lose) of singing _Just before the Battle._  I
have what the French call a fillet of voice, my best notes scarce
audible about a dinner-table, and the upper register rather to be
regarded as a higher power of silence:  experts tell me besides
that I sing flat; nor, if I were the best singer in the world, does
_Just before the Battle_ occur to my mature taste as the song
that I would choose to sing.  In spite of all which
considerations, at one picnic, memorably dull, and after I had
exhausted every other art of pleasing, I gave, in desperation, my
one song.  From that hour my doom was gone forth.  Either we
had a chronic passenger (though I could never detect him), or
the very wood and iron of the steamer must have retained the
tradition.  At every successive picnic word went round that Mr.
Dodd was a singer; that Mr. Dodd sang _Just before the
Battle_, and finally that now was the time when Mr. Dodd
sang _Just before the Battle;_  so that the thing became a
fixture like the dropping of the dummy axe, and you are to
conceive me, Sunday after Sunday, piping up my lamentable
ditty and covered, when it was done, with gratuitous applause. 
It is a beautiful trait in human nature that I was invariably
offered an encore.

I was well paid, however, even to sing.  Pinkerton and I, after
an average Sunday, had five hundred dollars to divide.  Nay,
and the picnics were the means, although indirectly, of bringing
me a singular windfall.  This was at the end of the season, after
the "Grand Farewell Fancy Dress Gala."  Many of the hampers
had suffered severely; and it was judged wiser to save storage, 
dispose of them, and lay in a fresh stock when the campaign re-
opened.  Among my purchasers was a workingman of the name
of Speedy, to whose house, after several unavailing letters, I
must proceed in person, wondering to find myself once again
on the wrong side, and playing the creditor to some one else's
debtor.  Speedy was in the belligerent stage of fear.  He could
not pay.  It appeared he had already resold the hampers, and he
defied me to do my worst.  I did not like to lose my own
money; I hated to lose Pinkerton's; and the bearing of my
creditor incensed me.

"Do you know, Mr. Speedy, that I can send you to the
penitentiary?" said I, willing to read him a lesson.

The dire expression was overheard in the next room.  A large,
fresh, motherly Irishwoman ran forth upon the instant, and fell
to besiege me with caresses and appeals.  "Sure now, and ye
couldn't have the heart to ut, Mr. Dodd, you, that's so well
known to be a pleasant gentleman; and it's a pleasant face ye
have, and the picture of me own brother that's dead and gone. 
It's a truth that he's been drinking.  Ye can smell it off of him,
more blame to him.  But, indade, and there's nothing in the
house beyont the furnicher, and Thim Stock.  It's the stock that
ye'll be taking, dear.  A sore penny it has cost me, first and last,
and by all tales, not worth an owld tobacco pipe." Thus
adjured, and somewhat embarrassed by the stern attitude I had
adopted, I suffered myself to be invested with a considerable
quantity of what is called wild-cat stock, in which this excellent
if illogical female had been squandering her hard-earned gold. 
It could scarce be said to better my position, but the step
quieted the woman; and, on the other hand, I could not think I
was taking much risk, for the shares in question (they were
those of what I will call the Catamount Silver Mine) had fallen
some time before to the bed-rock quotation, and now lay
perfectly inert, or were only kicked (like other waste paper)
about the kennel of the exchange by bankrupt speculators.

A month or two after, I perceived by the stock-list that
Catamount had taken a bound; before afternoon, "thim stock"
were worth a quite considerable pot of money; and I learned,
upon inquiry, that a bonanza had been found in a condemned
lead, and the mine was now expected to do wonders. 
Remarkable to philosophers how bonanzas are found in
condemned leads, and how the stock is always at freezing-point
immediately before!  By some stroke of chance the, Speedys
had held on to the right thing; they had escaped the syndicate;
yet a little more, if I had not come to dun them, and Mrs.
Speedy would have been buying a silk dress.  I could not bear,
of course, to profit by the accident, and returned to offer
restitution.  The house was in a bustle; the neighbours (all
stock-gamblers themselves) had crowded to condole; and Mrs.
Speedy sat with streaming tears, the centre of a sympathetic
group.  "For fifteen year I've been at ut," she was lamenting, as
I entered, "and grudging the babes the very milk, more shame
to me! to pay their dhirty assessments.  And now, my dears, I
should be a lady, and driving in my coach, if all had their
rights; and a sorrow on that man Dodd!  As soon as I set eyes
on him, I seen the divil was in the house."

It was upon these words that I made my entrance, which was
therefore dramatic enough, though nothing to what followed. 
For when it appeared that I was come to restore the lost fortune,
and when Mrs. Speedy (after copiously weeping on my bosom)
had refused the restitution, and when Mr. Speedy (summoned
to that end from a camp of the Grand Army of the Republic)
had added his refusal, and when I had insisted, and they had
insisted, and the neighbours had applauded and supported each
of us in turn; and when at last it was agreed we were to hold
the stock together, and share the proceeds in three parts--one
for me, one for Mr. Speedy, and one for his spouse--I will leave
you to conceive the enthusiasm that reigned in that small, bare
apartment, with the sewing-machine in the one corner, and the
babes asleep in the other, and pictures of Garfield and the
Battle of Gettysburg on the yellow walls.  Port wine was had in
by a sympathiser, and we drank it mingled with tears.

"And I dhrink to your health, my dear," sobbed Mrs. Speedy,
especially affected by my gallantry in the matter of the third
share; "and I'm sure we all dhrink to his health--Mr. Dodd of
the picnics, no gentleman better known than him; and it's my
prayer, dear, the good God may be long spared to see ye in
health and happiness!"

In the end I was the chief gainer; for I sold my third while it
was worth five thousand dollars, but the Speedys more
adventurously held on until the syndicate reversed the process,
when they were happy to escape with perhaps a quarter of that
sum.  It was just as well; for the bulk of the money was (in
Pinkerton's phrase) reinvested; and when next I saw Mrs.
Speedy, she was still gorgeously dressed from the proceeds of
the late success, but was already moist with tears over the new
catastrophe.  "We're froze out, me darlin'!  All the money we
had, dear, and the sewing-machine, and Jim's uniform, was in
the Golden West; and the vipers has put on a new assessment."

By the end of the year, therefore, this is how I stood.  I had
made

     By Catamount Silver Mine.......... $5,000
     By the picnics..............................   3,000
     By the lecture...............................      600
     By profit and loss on capital 
         in Pinkerton's business.............   1,350
                                                              ------
                                                            $9,950

to which must be added

     What remained of my grandfather's
          donation..................................    8,500
                                                               ------
                                                          $18,450

It appears, on the other hand, that

     I had spent....................................  4,000
                                                              ------
Which thus left me to the good....... $14,450

A result on which I am not ashamed to say I looked with
gratitude and pride.  Some eight thousand (being late conquest)
was liquid and actually tractile in the bank; the rest whirled
beyond reach and even sight (save in the mirror of a balance-
sheet) under the compelling spell of wizard Pinkerton.  Dollars
of mine were tacking off the shores of Mexico, in peril of the
deep and the guarda-costas; they rang on saloon-counters in the
city of Tombstone, Arizona; they shone in faro-tents among the
mountain diggings; the imagination flagged in following them,
so wide were they diffused, so briskly they span to the turning
of the wizard's crank.  But here, there, or everywhere I could
still tell myself it was all mine, and what was more convincing,
draw substantial dividends.  My fortune, I called it; and it
represented, when expressed in dollars, or even British pounds,
an honest pot of money; when extended into francs, a veritable
fortune.  Perhaps I have let the cat out of the bag; perhaps you
see already where my hopes were pointing, and begin to blame
my inconsistency.  But I must first tell you my excuse, and the
change that had befallen Pinkerton.

About a week after the picnic to which he escorted Mamie,
Pinkerton avowed the state of his affections. From what I had
observed on board the steamer, where methought Mamie
waited on him with her limpid eyes, I encouraged the bashful
lover to proceed; and the very next evening he was carrying me
to call on his affianced.

"You must befriend her, Loudon, as you have always
befriended me," he said, pathetically.

"By saying disagreeable things?  I doubt if that be the way to a
young lady's favour," I replied; "and since this picnicking I
begin to be a man of some experience."

"Yes, you do nobly there; I can't describe how I admire you," he
cried.  "Not that she will ever need it; she has had every
advantage.  God knows what I have done to deserve her.  O
man, what a responsibility this is for a rough fellow and not
always truthful!"

"Brace up, old man, brace up!" said I.

But when we reached Mamie's boarding-house, it was almost
with tears that he presented me.  "Here is Loudon, Mamie,"
were his words.  "I want you to love him; he has a grand
nature."

"You are certainly no stranger to me, Mr. Dodd," was her
gracious expression.  "James is never weary of descanting on
your goodness."

"My dear lady," said I, "when you know our friend a little
better, you will make a large allowance for his warm heart.  My
goodness has consisted in allowing him to feed and clothe and
toil for me when he could ill afford it.  If I am now alive, it is to
him I owe it; no man had a kinder friend.  You must take good
care of him," I added, laying my hand on his shoulder, "and
keep him in good order, for he needs it."

Pinkerton was much affected by this speech, and so, I fear, was
Mamie.  I admit it was a tactless performance.  "When you
know our friend a little better," was not happily said; and even
"keep him in good order, for he needs it" might be construed
into matter of offence; but I lay it before you in all confidence of
your acquittal: was the general tone of it "patronising"?  Even if
such was the verdict of the lady, I cannot but suppose the
blame was neither wholly hers nor wholly mine; I cannot but
suppose that Pinkerton had already sickened the poor woman
of my very name; so that if I had come with the songs of
Apollo, she must still have been disgusted.

Here, however, were two finger-posts to Paris.  Jim was going
to be married, and so had the less need of my society.  I had not
pleased his bride, and so was, perhaps, better absent.  Late one
evening I broached the idea to my friend.  It had been a great
day for me; I had just banked my five thousand catamountain
dollars; and as Jim had refused to lay a finger on the stock, risk
and profit were both wholly mine, and I was celebrating the
event with stout and crackers.  I began by telling him that if it
caused him any pain or any anxiety about his affairs, he had but
to say the word, and he should hear no more of my proposal. 
He was the truest and best friend I ever had or was ever like to
have; and it would be a strange thing if I refused him any
favour he was sure he wanted.  At the same time I wished him
to be sure; for my life was wasting in my hands.  I was like one
from home; all my true interests summoned me away.  I must
remind him, besides, that he was now about to marry and
assume new interests, and that our extreme familiarity might be
even painful to his wife.--"O no, Loudon; I feel you are wrong
there," he interjected warmly; "she DOES appreciate your
nature."--So much the better, then, I continued; and went on to
point out that our separation need not be for long; that, in the
way affairs were going, he might join me in two years with a
fortune, small, indeed, for the States, but in France almost
conspicuous; that we might unite our resources, and have one
house in Paris for the winter and a second near Fontainebleau
for summer, where we could be as happy as the day was long,
and bring up little Pinkertons as practical artistic workmen, far
from the money-hunger of the West.  "Let me go then," I
concluded; "not as a deserter, but as the vanguard, to lead the
march of the Pinkerton men."

So I argued and pleaded, not without emotion; my friend sitting
opposite, resting his chin upon his hand and (but for that single
interjection) silent.  "I have been looking for this, Loudon," said
he, when I had done.  "It does pain me, and that's the fact--I'm
so miserably selfish.  And I believe it's a death blow to the
picnics; for it's idle to deny that you were the heart and soul of
them with your wand and your gallant bearing, and wit and
humour and chivalry, and throwing that kind of society
atmosphere about the thing.  But for all that, you're right, and
you ought to go.  You may count on forty dollars a week; and if
Depew City--one of nature's centres for this State--pan out the
least as I expect, it may be double.  But it's forty dollars
anyway; and to think that two years ago you were almost
reduced to beggary!"

"I WAS reduced to it," said I.

"Well, the brutes gave you nothing, and I'm glad of it now!"
cried Jim.  "It's the triumphant return I glory in!  Think of the
master, and that cold-blooded Myner too! Yes, just let the
Depew City boom get on its legs, and you shall go; and two
years later, day for day, I'll shake hands with you in Paris, with
Mamie on my arm, God bless her!"

We talked in this vein far into the night.  I was myself so
exultant in my new-found liberty, and Pinkerton so proud of my
triumph, so happy in my happiness, in so warm a glow about
the gallant little woman of his choice, and the very room so
filled with castles in the air and cottages at Fontainebleau, that
it was little wonder if sleep fled our eyelids, and three had
followed two upon the office clock before Pinkerton unfolded
the mechanism of his patent sofa.



 CHAPTER VIII.

 FACES ON THE CITY FRONT.


It is very much the custom to view life as if it were exactly
ruled in two, like sleep and waking; the provinces of play and
business standing separate.  The business side of my career in
San Francisco has been now disposed of; I approach the
chapter of diversion; and it will be found they had about an
equal share in building up the story of the Wrecker--a
gentleman whose appearance may be presently expected. 

With all my occupations, some six afternoons and two or three
odd evenings remained at my disposal every week: a
circumstance the more agreeable as I was a stranger in a city
singularly picturesque.  From what I had once called myself,
The Amateur Parisian, I grew (or declined) into a waterside
prowler, a lingerer on wharves, a frequenter of shy
neighbourhoods, a scraper of acquaintance with eccentric
characters.  I visited Chinese and Mexican gambling-hells,
German secret societies, sailors' boarding-houses, and "dives"
of every complexion of the disreputable and dangerous.  I have
seen greasy Mexican hands pinned to the table with a knife for
cheating, seamen (when blood-money ran high) knocked down
upon the public street and carried insensible on board short-
handed ships, shots exchanged, and the smoke (and the
company) dispersing from the doors of the saloon.  I have heard
cold-minded Polacks debate upon the readiest method of
burning San Francisco to the ground, hot-headed working men
and women bawl and swear in the tribune at the Sandlot, and
Kearney himself open his subscription for a gallows, name the
manufacturers who were to grace it with their dangling bodies,
and read aloud to the delighted multitude a telegram of
adhesion from a member of the State legislature: all which
preparations of proletarian war were (in a moment) breathed
upon and abolished by the mere name and fame of Mr.
Coleman.  That lion of the Vigilantes had but to rouse himself
and shake his ears, and the whole brawling mob was silenced. 
I could not but reflect what a strange manner of man this was,
to be living unremarked there as a private merchant, and to be
so feared by a whole city; and if I was disappointed, in my
character of looker-on, to have the matter end ingloriously
without the firing of a shot or the hanging of a single
millionnaire, philosophy tried to tell me that this sight was
truly the more picturesque.  In a thousand towns and different
epochs I might have had occasion to behold the cowardice and
carnage of street fighting; where else, but only there and then,
could I have enjoyed a view of Coleman (the intermittent
despot) walking meditatively up hill in a quiet part of town,
with a very rolling gait, and slapping gently his great thigh? 

Minora Canamus.  This historic figure stalks silently through a
corner of the San Francisco of my memory:  the rest is bric-a-
brac, the reminiscences of a vagrant sketcher.  My delight was
much in slums.  Little Italy was a haunt of mine; there I would
look in at the windows of small eating-shops, transported
bodily from Genoa or Naples, with their macaroni, and chianti
flasks, and portraits of Garibaldi, and coloured political
caricatures; or (entering in) hold high debate with some
ear-ringed fisher of the bay as to the designs of "Mr. Owstria"
and "Mr. Rooshia."  I was often to be observed (had there been
any to observe me) in that dis-peopled, hill-side solitude of
Little Mexico, with its crazy wooden houses, endless crazy
wooden stairs, and perilous mountain goat-paths in the sand. 
Chinatown by a thousand eccentricities drew and held me; I
could never have enough of its ambiguous, interracial
atmosphere, as of a vitalised museum; never wonder enough at
its outlandish, necromantic-looking vegetables set forth to sell
in commonplace American shop-windows, its temple doors
open and the scent of the joss-stick streaming forth on the
American air, its kites of Oriental fashion hanging fouled in
Western telegraph-wires, its flights of paper prayers which the
trade-wind hunts and dissipates along Western gutters.  I was a
frequent wanderer on North Beach, gazing at the straits, and
the huge Cape-Horners creeping out to sea, and imminent
Tamalpais.  Thence, on my homeward way, I might visit that
strange and filthy shed, earth-paved and walled with the cages
of wild animals and birds, where at a ramshackle counter, amid
the yells of monkeys, and a poignant atmosphere of menagerie,
forty-rod whiskey was administered by a proprietor as dirty as
his beasts.  Nor did I even neglect Nob Hill, which is itself a
kind of slum, being the habitat of the mere millionnaire.  There
they dwell upon the hill-top, high raised above man's clamour,
and the trade-wind blows between their palaces about deserted
streets.

But San Francisco is not herself only.  She is not only the most
interesting city in the Union, and the hugest smelting-pot of
races and the precious metals.  She keeps, besides, the doors of
the Pacific, and is the port of entry to another world and an
earlier epoch in man's history.  Nowhere else shall you observe
(in the ancient phrase) so many tall ships as here convene from
round the Horn, from China, from Sydney, and the Indies; but 
scarce remarked amid that crowd of deep-sea giants, another
class of craft, the Island schooner, circulates:  low in the water,
with lofty spars and dainty lines, rigged and fashioned like a
yacht, manned with brown-skinned, soft-spoken, sweet-eyed
native sailors, and equipped with their great double-ender boats
that tell a tale of boisterous sea-beaches.  These steal out and in
again, unnoted by the world or even the newspaper press, save
for the line in the clearing column, "Schooner So-and-so for
Yap and South Sea Islands"--steal out with nondescript cargoes
of tinned salmon, gin, bolts of gaudy cotton stuff, women's
hats, and Waterbury watches, to return, after a year, piled as
high as to the eaves of the house with copra, or wallowing deep
with the shells of the tortoise or the pearl oyster.  To me, in my
character of the Amateur Parisian, this island traffic, and even
the island world, were beyond the bounds of curiosity, and how
much more of knowledge.  I stood there on the extreme shore of
the West and of to-day.  Seventeen hundred years ago, and
seven thousand miles to the east, a legionary stood, perhaps,
upon the wall of Antoninus, and looked northward toward the
mountains of the Picts.  For all the interval of time and space, I,
when I looked from the cliff-house on the broad Pacific, was
that man's heir and analogue:  each of us standing on the verge
of the Roman Empire (or, as we now call it, Western
civilization), each of us gazing onward into zones unromanised. 
But I was dull.  I looked rather backward, keeping a kind eye
on Paris; and it required a series of converging incidents to
change my attitude of nonchalance for one of interest, and even
longing, which I little dreamed that I should live to gratify.

The first of these incidents brought me in acquaintance with a
certain San Francisco character, who had something of a name
beyond the limits of the city, and was known to many lovers of
good English.  I had discovered a new slum, a place of
precarious, sandy cliffs, deep, sandy cuttings, solitary, ancient
houses, and the butt-ends of streets.  It was already environed. 
The ranks of the street-lamps threaded it unbroken.  The city,
upon all sides of it, was tightly packed, and growled with
traffic.  To-day, I do not doubt the very landmarks are all swept
away; but it offered then, within narrow limits, a delightful
peace, and (in the morning, when I chiefly went there) a
seclusion almost rural.  On a steep sand-hill, in this
neighbourhood, toppled, on the most insecure foundation, a
certain row of houses, each with a bit of garden, and all (I have
to presume) inhabited.  Thither I used to mount by a crumbling
footpath, and in front of the last of the houses, would sit down
to sketch.  The very first day I saw I was observed, out of the
ground-floor window by a youngish, good-looking fellow,
prematurely bald, and with an expression both lively and
engaging.  The second, as we were still the only figures in the
landscape, it was no more than natural that we should nod. 
The third, he came out fairly from his intrenchments, praised
my sketch, and with the impromptu cordiality of artists carried
me into his apartment; where I sat presently in the midst of a
museum of strange objects,--paddles and battle-clubs and
baskets, rough-hewn stone images, ornaments of threaded
shell, cocoanut bowls, snowy cocoanut plumes--evidences and
examples of another earth, another climate, another race, and
another (if a ruder) culture.  Nor did these objects lack a fitting
commentary in the conversation of my new acquaintance. 
Doubtless you have read his book.  You know already how he
tramped and starved, and had so fine a profit of living, in his
days among the islands; and meeting him, as I did, one artist
with another, after months of offices and picnics, you can
imagine with what charm he would speak, and with what
pleasure I would hear.  It was in such talks, which we were
both eager to repeat, that I first heard the names--first fell under
the spell--of the islands; and it was from one of the first of them
that I returned (a happy man) with _Omoo_ under one arm, and
my friend's own adventures under the other.

The second incident was more dramatic, and had, besides, a
bearing on my future.  I was standing, one day, near a boat-
landing under Telegraph Hill.  A large barque, perhaps of
eighteen hundred tons, was coming more than usually close
about the point to reach her moorings; and I was observing her
with languid inattention, when I observed two men to stride
across the bulwarks, drop into a shore boat, and, violently
dispossessing the boatman of his oars, pull toward the landing
where I stood.  In a surprisingly short time they came tearing
up the steps; and I could see that both were too well dressed to
be foremast hands--the first even with research, and both, and
specially the first, appeared under the empire of some strong
emotion.

"Nearest police office!" cried the leader.

"This way," said I, immediately falling in with their precipitate
pace.  "What's wrong?  What ship is that?"

"That's the Gleaner," he replied.  "I am chief officer, this
gentleman's third; and we've to get in our depositions before the
crew.  You see they might corral us with the captain; and that's
no kind of berth for me.  I've sailed with some hard cases in my
time, and seen pins flying like sand on a squally day--but never
a match to our old man.  It never let up from the Hook to the
Farallones; and the last man was dropped not sixteen hours
ago.  Packet rats our men were, and as tough a crowd as ever
sand-bagged a man's head in; but they looked sick enough
when the captain started in with his fancy shooting."

"O, he's done up," observed the other.  "He won't go to sea no
more."

"You make me tired," retorted his superior.  "If he gets ashore
in one piece and isn't lynched in the next ten minutes, he'll do
yet.  The owners have a longer memory than the public; they'll
stand by him; they don't find as smart a captain every day in the
year."

"O, he's a son of a gun of a fine captain; there ain't no doubt of
that," concurred the other, heartily.  "Why, I don't suppose
there's been no wages paid aboard that Gleaner for three trips."

"No wages?" I exclaimed, for I was still a novice in maritime
affairs.

"Not to sailor-men before the mast," agreed the mate.  "Men
cleared out; wasn't the soft job they maybe took it for.  She isn'
the first ship that never paid wages."

I could not but observe that our pace was progressively
relaxing; and indeed I have often wondered since whether the
hurry of the start were not intended for the gallery alone. 
Certain it is at least, that when we had reached the police
office, and the mates had made their deposition, and told their
horrid tale of five men murdered, some with savage passion,
some with cold brutality, between Sandy Hook and San
Francisco, the police were despatched in time to be too late. 
Before we arrived, the ruffian had slipped out upon the dock,
had mingled with the crowd, and found a refuge in the house of
an acquaintance; and the ship was only tenanted by his late
victims.  Well for him that he had been thus speedy.  For when
word began to go abroad among the shore-side characters,
when the last victim was carried by to the hospital, when those
who had escaped (as by miracle) from that floating shambles,
began to circulate and show their wounds in the crowd, it was
strange to witness the agitation that seized and shook that
portion of the city.  Men shed tears in public; bosses of
lodging-houses, long inured to brutality, and above all,
brutality to sailors, shook their fists at heaven:  if hands could
have been laid on the captain of the Gleaner, his shrift would
have been short.  That night (so gossip reports) he was headed
up in a barrel and smuggled across the bay:  in two ships
already he had braved the penitentiary and the gallows; and yet,
by last accounts, he now commands another on the Western
Ocean.

As I have said, I was never quite certain whether Mr. Nares
(the mate) did not intend that his superior should escape.  It
would have been like his preference of loyalty to law; it would
have been like his prejudice, which was all in favour of the
after-guard.  But it must remain a matter of conjecture only. 
Well as I came to know him in the sequel, he was never
communicative on that point, nor indeed on any that concerned
the voyage of the Gleaner.  Doubtless he had some reason for
his reticence.  Even during our walk to the police office, he
debated several times with Johnson, the third officer, whether
he ought not to give up himself, as well as to denounce the
captain.  He had decided in the negative, arguing that "it would
probably come to nothing; and even if there was a stink, he had
plenty good friends in San Francisco."  And to nothing it came;
though it must have very nearly come to something, for Mr.
Nares disappeared immediately from view and was scarce less
closely hidden than his captain.

Johnson, on the other hand, I often met.  I could never learn
this man's country; and though he himself claimed to be
American, neither his English nor his education warranted the
claim.  In all likelihood he was of Scandinavian birth and
blood, long pickled in the forecastles of English and American
ships.  It is possible that, like so many of his race in similar
positions, he had already lost his native tongue.  In mind, at
least, he was quite denationalised; thought only in English--to
call it so; and though by nature one of the mildest, kindest, and
most feebly playful of mankind, he had been so long
accustomed to the cruelty of sea discipline, that his stories (told
perhaps with a giggle) would sometimes turn me chill.  In
appearance, he was tall, light of weight, bold and high-bred of
feature, dusky-haired, and with a face of a clean even brown:
the ornament of outdoor men.  Seated in a chair, you might
have passed him off for a baronet or a military officer; but let
him rise, and it was Fo'c's'le Jack that came rolling toward you,
crab-like; let him but open his lips, and it was Fo'c's'le Jack
that piped and drawled his ungrammatical gibberish.  He had
sailed (among other places) much among the islands; and after
a Cape Horn passage with its snow-squalls and its frozen
sheets, he announced his intention of "taking a turn among
them Kanakas."  I thought I should have lost him soon; but
according to the unwritten usage of mariners, he had first to
dissipate his wages.  "Guess I'll have to paint this town red,"
was his hyperbolical expression; for sure no man ever
embarked upon a milder course of dissipation, most of his days
being passed in the little parlour behind Black Tom's public
house, with a select corps of old particular acquaintances, all
from the South Seas, and all patrons of a long yarn, a short
pipe, and glasses round. 

Black Tom's, to the front, presented the appearance of a fourth-
rate saloon, devoted to Kanaka seamen, dirt, negrohead
tobacco, bad cigars, worse gin, and guitars and banjos in a
state of decline.  The proprietor, a powerful coloured man, was
at once a publican, a ward politician, leader of some brigade of
"lambs" or "smashers," at the wind of whose clubs the party
bosses and the mayor were supposed to tremble, and (what hurt
nothing) an active and reliable crimp.  His front quarters, then,
were noisy, disreputable, and not even safe.  I have seen worse
frequented saloons where there were fewer scandals; for Tom
was often drunk himself; and there is no doubt the Lambs must
have been a useful body, or the place would have been closed. 
I remember one day, not long before an election, seeing a blind
man, very well dressed, led up to the counter and remain a long
while in consultation with the negro.  The pair looked so ill-
assorted, and the awe with which the drinkers fell back and left
them in the midst of an impromptu privacy was so unusual in
such a place, that I turned to my next neighbour with a
question.  He told me the blind man was a distinguished party
boss, called by some the King of San Francisco, but perhaps
better known by his picturesque Chinese nickname of the Blind
White Devil.  "The Lambs must be wanted pretty bad, I guess,"
my informant added.  I have here a sketch of the Blind White
Devil leaning on the counter; on the next page, and taken the
same hour, a jotting of Black Tom threatening a whole crowd
of customers with a long Smith and Wesson:  to such heights
and depths we rose and fell in the front parts of the saloon. 


Meanwhile, away in the back quarters, sat the small informal
South Sea club, talking of another world and surely of a
different century.  Old schooner captains they were, old South
Sea traders, cooks, and mates:  fine creatures, softened by
residence among a softer race:  full men besides, though not by
reading, but by strange experience; and for days together I
could hear their yarns with an unfading pleasure.  All had
indeed some touch of the poetic; for the beach-comber, when
not a mere ruffian, is the poor relation of the artist.  Even
through Johnson's inarticulate speech, his "O yes, there ain't no
harm in them Kanakas," or "O yes, that's a son of a gun of a
fine island, mountainious right down; I didn't never ought to
have left that island," there pierced a certain gusto of
appreciation:  and some of the rest were master-talkers.  From
their long tales, their traits of character and unpremeditated
landscape, there began to piece itself together in my head some
image of the islands and the island life:  precipitous shores,
spired mountain tops, the deep shade of hanging forests, the
unresting surf upon the reef, and the unending peace of the
lagoon; sun, moon, and stars of an imperial brightness; man
moving in these scenes scarce fallen, and woman lovelier than
Eve; the primal curse abrogated, the bed made ready for the
stranger, life set to perpetual music, and the guest welcomed,
the boat urged, and the long night beguiled, with poetry and
choral song.  A man must have been an unsuccessful artist; he
must have starved on the streets of Paris; he must have been
yoked to a commercial force like Pinkerton, before he can
conceive the longings that at times assailed me.  The draughty,
rowdy city of San Francisco, the bustling office where my
friend Jim paced like a caged lion daily between ten and four,
even (at times) the retrospect of Paris, faded in comparison. 
Many a man less tempted would have thrown up all to realise
his visions; but I was by nature unadventurous and uninitiative:
to divert me from all former paths and send me cruising
through the isles of paradise, some force external to myself
must be exerted; Destiny herself must use the fitting wedge;
and little as I deemed it, that tool was already in her hand of
brass.

I sat, one afternoon, in the corner of a great, glassy, silvered
saloon, a free lunch at my one elbow, at the other a
"conscientious nude" from the brush of local talent; when, with
the tramp of feet and a sudden buzz of voices, the swing-doors
were flung broadly open and the place carried as by storm.  The
crowd which thus entered (mostly seafaring men, and all
prodigiously excited) contained a sort of kernel or general
centre of interest, which the rest merely surrounded and
advertised, as children in the Old World surround and escort
the Punch-and-Judy man; the word went round the bar like
wildfire that these were Captain Trent and the survivors of the
British brig Flying Scud, picked up by a British war-ship on
Midway Island, arrived that morning in San Francisco Bay,
and now fresh from making the necessary declarations. 
Presently I had a good sight of them:  four brown, seamanlike
fellows, standing by the counter, glass in hand, the centre of a
score of questioners.  One was a Kanaka--the cook, I was
informed; one carried a cage with a canary, which occasionally
trilled into thin song; one had his left arm in a sling and looked
gentlemanlike, and somewhat sickly, as though the injury had
been severe and he was scarce recovered; and the captain
himself--a red-faced, blue-eyed, thickset man of five and forty
--wore a bandage on his right hand.  The incident struck me; I
was struck particularly to see captain, cook, and foremost
hands walking the street and visiting saloons in company; and,
as when anything impressed me, I got my sketch-book out, and
began to steal a sketch of the four castaways.  The crowd,
sympathising with my design, made a clear lane across the
room; and I was thus enabled, all unobserved myself, to
observe with a still-growing closeness the face and the
demeanour of Captain Trent.

Warmed by whiskey and encouraged by the eagerness of the
bystanders, that gentleman was now rehearsing the history of
his misfortune.  It was but scraps that reached me:  how he
"filled her on the starboard tack," and how "it came up sudden
out of the nor'nor'west," and "there she was, high and dry."
Sometimes he would appeal to one of the men--"That was how
it was, Jack?"--and the man would reply, "That was the way of
it, Captain Trent."  Lastly, he started a fresh tide of popular
sympathy by enunciating the sentiment, "Damn all these
Admirality Charts, and that's what I say!"  From the nodding of
heads and the murmurs of assent that followed, I could see that
Captain Trent had established himself in the public mind as a
gentleman and a thorough navigator:  about which period, my
sketch of the four men and the canary-bird being finished, and
all (especially the canary-bird) excellent likenesses, I buckled
up my book, and slipped from the saloon.

Little did I suppose that I was leaving Act I, Scene I, of the
drama of my life; and yet the scene, or rather the captain's face,
lingered for some time in my memory.  I was no prophet, as I
say; but I was something else:  I was an observer; and one
thing I knew, I knew when a man was terrified.  Captain Trent,
of the British brig Flying Scud, had been glib; he had been
ready; he had been loud; but in his blue eyes I could detect the
chill, and in the lines of his countenance spy the agitation of
perpetual terror.  Was he trembling for his certificate?  In my
judgment, it was some livelier kind of fear that thrilled in the
man's marrow as he turned to drink.  Was it the result of recent
shock, and had he not yet recovered the disaster to his brig?  I
remembered how a friend of mine had been in a railway
accident, and shook and started for a month; and although
Captain Trent of the Flying Scud had none of the appearance of
a nervous man, I told myself, with incomplete conviction, that
his must be a similar case.



 CHAPTER IX.

 THE WRECK OF THE "FLYING SCUD."


The next morning I found Pinkerton, who had risen before me,
seated at our usual table, and deep in the perusal of what I will
call the _Daily Occidental_.  This was a paper (I know not if it
be so still) that stood out alone among its brethren in the West; 
the others, down to their smallest item, were defaced with
capitals, head-lines, alliterations, swaggering misquotations,
and the shoddy picturesque and unpathetic pathos of the Harry
Millers:  the _Occidental_ alone appeared to be written by a
dull, sane, Christian gentleman, singly desirous of
communicating knowledge.  It had not only this merit, which
endeared it to me, but was admittedly the best informed on
business matters, which attracted Pinkerton.

"Loudon," said he, looking up from the journal, "you
sometimes think I have too many irons in the fire.  My notion,
on the other hand, is, when you see a dollar lying, pick it up!
Well, here I've tumbled over a whole pile of 'em on a reef in the
middle of the Pacific."

"Why, Jim, you miserable fellow!" I exclaimed; "haven't we
Depew City, one of God's green centres for this State? haven't
we----"

"Just listen to this," interrupted Jim.  "It's miserable copy; these
_Occidental_ reporter fellows have no fire; but the facts are
right enough, I guess."  And he began to read:--

"WRECK OF THE BRITISH BRIG, 'FLYING SCUD.'

"H.B.M.S. Tempest, which arrived yesterday at this port, brings
Captain Trent and four men of the British brig Flying Scud,
cast away February 12th on Midway Island, and most
providentially rescued the next day.  The Flying Scud was of
200 tons burthen, owned in London, and has been out nearly
two years tramping.  Captain Trent left Hong Kong December
8th, bound for this port in rice and a small mixed cargo of silks,
teas, and China notions, the whole valued at $10,000, fully
covered by insurance.  The log shows plenty of fine weather,
with light airs, calms, and squalls.  In lat. 28 N., long. 177 W.,
his water going rotten, and misled by Hoyt's _North Pacific
Directory_, which informed him there was a coaling station on
the island, Captain Trent put in to Midway Island.  He found it
a literal sandbank, surrounded by a coral reef mostly
submerged.  Birds were very plenty, there was good fish in the
lagoon, but no firewood; and the water, which could be
obtained by digging, brackish.  He found good holding-ground
off the north end of the larger bank in fifteen fathoms water;
bottom sandy, with coral patches.  Here he was detained seven
days by a calm, the crew suffering severely from the water,
which was gone quite bad; and it was only on the evening of
the 12th, that a little wind sprang up, coming puffy out of
N.N.E.  Late as it was, Captain Trent immediately weighed
anchor and attempted to get out.  While the vessel was beating
up to the passage, the wind took a sudden lull, and then veered
squally into N. and even N.N.W., driving the brig ashore on the
sand at about twenty minutes before six o'clock.  John Wallen,
a native of Finland, and Charles Holdorsen, a native of
Sweden, were drowned alongside, in attempting to lower a
boat, neither being able to swim, the squall very dark, and the
noise of the breakers drowning everything.  At the same time
John Brown, another of the crew, had his arm broken by the
falls.  Captain Trent further informed the OCCIDENTAL
reporter, that the brig struck heavily at first bows on, he
supposes upon coral; that she then drove over the obstacle, and
now lies in sand, much down by the head and with a list to
starboard.  In the first collision she must have sustained some
damage, as she was making water forward.  The rice will
probably be all destroyed:  but the more valuable part of the
cargo is fortunately in the afterhold.  Captain Trent was
preparing his long-boat for sea, when the providential arrival of
the Tempest, pursuant to Admiralty orders to call at islands in
her course for castaways, saved the gallant captain from all
further danger.  It is scarcely necessary to add that both the
officers and men of the unfortunate vessel speak in high terms
of the kindness they received on board the man-of-war.  We
print a list of the survivors: Jacob Trent, master, of Hull, 
England; Elias Goddedaal, mate, native of Christiansand,
Sweden; Ah Wing, cook, native of Sana, China; John Brown,
native of Glasgow, Scotland; John Hardy, native of London,
England.  The Flying Scud is ten years old, and this morning
will be sold as she stands, by order of Lloyd's agent, at public
auction for the benefit of the underwriters.  The auction will
take place in the Merchants' Exchange at ten o'clock.

"Farther Particulars.--Later in the afternoon the OCCIDENTAL
reporter found Lieutenant Sebright, first officer of H.B.M.S.
Tempest, at the Palace Hotel.  The gallant officer was
somewhat pressed for time, but confirmed the account given by
Captain Trent in all particulars.  He added that the Flying Scud
is in an excellent berth, and except in the highly improbable
event of a heavy N.W. gale, might last until next winter." 

"You will never know anything of literature," said I, when Jim
had finished.  "That is a good, honest, plain piece of work, and
tells the story clearly.  I see only one mistake:  the cook is not a
Chinaman; he is a Kanaka, and I think a Hawaiian."

"Why, how do you know that?" asked Jim.

"I saw the whole gang yesterday in a saloon," said I.  "I even
heard the tale, or might have heard it, from Captain Trent
himself, who struck me as thirsty and nervous."

"Well, that's neither here nor there," cried Pinkerton.  "The
point is, how about these dollars lying on a reef?"

"Will it pay?" I asked.

"Pay like a sugar trust!" exclaimed Pinkerton.  "Don't you see
what this British officer says about the safety?  Don't you see
the cargo's valued at ten thousand?  Schooners are begging just
now; I can get my pick of them at two hundred and fifty a
month; and how does that foot up?  It looks like three hundred
per cent. to me."

"You forget," I objected, "the captain himself declares the rice
is damaged."


"That's a point, I know," admitted Jim.  "But the rice is the
sluggish article, anyway; it's little more account than ballast;
it's the tea and silks that I look to: all we have to find is the
proportion, and one look at the manifest will settle that.  I've
rung up Lloyd's on purpose; the captain is to meet me there in
an hour, and then I'll be as posted on that brig as if I built her. 
Besides, you've no idea what pickings there are about a wreck
--copper, lead, rigging, anchors, chains, even the crockery,
Loudon!"

"You seem to me to forget one trifle," said I.  "Before you pick
that wreck, you've got to buy her, and how much will she cost?"

"One hundred dollars," replied Jim, with the promptitude of an
automaton.

"How on earth do you guess that?" I cried.

"I don't guess; I know it," answered the Commercial Force. 
"My dear boy, I may be a galoot about literature, but you'll
always be an outsider in business.  How do you suppose I
bought the James L. Moody for two hundred and fifty, her
boats alone worth four times the money?  Because my name
stood first in the list.  Well it stands there again; I have the
naming of the figure, and I name a small one because of the
distance:  but it wouldn't matter what I named; that would be
the price."

"It sounds mysterious enough," said I.  "Is this public auction
conducted in a subterranean vault?  Could a plain citizen--
myself, for instance--come and see?"

"O, everything's open and above board!" he cried indignantly. 
"Anybody can come, only nobody bids against us; and if he
did, he would get frozen out.  It's been tried before now, and
once was enough.  We hold the plant; we've got the connection;
we can afford to go higher than any outsider; there's two
million dollars in the ring; and we stick at nothing.  Or suppose
anybody did buy over our head--I tell you, Loudon, he would
think this town gone crazy; he could no more get business
through on the city front than I can dance; schooners, divers,
men--all he wanted--the prices would fly right up and strike
him."

"But how did you get in?" I asked.  "You were once an outsider
like your neighbours, I suppose?"

"I took hold of that thing, Loudon, and just studied it up," he
replied.  "It took my fancy; it was so romantic, and then I saw
there was boodle in the thing; and I figured on the business till
no man alive could give me points.  Nobody knew I had an eye
on wrecks till one fine morning I dropped in upon Douglas B.
Longhurst in his den, gave him all the facts and figures, and
put it to him straight:  "Do you want me in this ring? or shall I
start another?"  He took half an hour, and when I came back,
"Pink," says he, "I've put your name on."  The first time I came
to the top, it was that Moody racket; now it's the Flying Scud."
 
Whereupon Pinkerton, looking at his watch, uttered an
exclamation, made a hasty appointment with myself for the
doors of the Merchants' Exchange, and fled to examine
manifests and interview the skipper.  I finished my cigarette
with the deliberation of a man at the end of many picnics;
reflecting to myself that of all forms of the dollar hunt, this
wrecking had by far the most address to my imagination.  Even
as I went down town, in the brisk bustle and chill of the
familiar San Francisco thoroughfares, I was haunted by a
vision of the wreck, baking so far away in the strong sun, under
a cloud of sea-birds; and even then, and for no better reason,
my heart inclined towards the adventure.  If not myself,
something that was mine, some one at least in my employment,
should voyage to that ocean-bounded pin-point and descend to
that deserted cabin.

Pinkerton met me at the appointed moment, pinched of lip and
more than usually erect of bearing, like one conscious of great
resolves.

"Well?" I asked.

"Well," said he, "it might be better, and it might be worse. 
This Captain Trent is a remarkably honest fellow--one out of a
thousand.  As soon as he knew I was in the market, he owned
up about the rice in so many words.  By his calculation, if
there's thirty mats of it saved, it's an outside figure.  However,
the manifest was cheerier.  There's about five thousand dollars
of the whole value in silks and teas and nut-oils and that, all in
the lazarette, and as safe as if it was in Kearney Street.  The
brig was new coppered a year ago.  There's upwards of a
hundred and fifty fathom away-up chain.  It's not a bonanza,
but there's boodle in it; and we'll try it on."


It was by that time hard on ten o'clock, and we turned at once
into the place of sale.  The Flying Scud, although so important
to ourselves, appeared to attract a very humble share of popular
attention.  The auctioneer was surrounded by perhaps a score of
lookers-on, big fellows, for the most part, of the true Western
build, long in the leg, broad in the shoulder, and adorned (to a
plain man's taste) with needless finery.  A jaunty, ostentatious
comradeship prevailed.  Bets were flying, and nicknames. 
"The boys" (as they would have called themselves) were very
boyish; and it was plain they were here in mirth, and not on
business.  Behind, and certainly in strong contrast to these
gentlemen, I could detect the figure of my friend Captain Trent,
come (as I could very well imagine that a captain would) to
hear the last of his old vessel.  Since yesterday, he had rigged
himself anew in ready-made black clothes, not very aptly fitted;
the upper left-hand pocket showing a corner of silk
handkerchief, the lower, on the other side, bulging with papers. 
Pinkerton had just given this man a high character.  Certainly
he seemed to have been very frank, and I looked at him again to
trace (if possible) that virtue in his face.  It was red and broad
and flustered and (I thought) false.  The whole man looked sick
with some unknown anxiety; and as he stood there,
unconscious of my observation, he tore at his nails, scowled on
the floor, or glanced suddenly, sharply, and fearfully at
passers-by.  I was still gazing at the man in a kind of
fascination, when the sale began.

Some preliminaries were rattled through, to the irreverent,
uninterrupted gambolling of the boys; and then, amid a trifle
more attention, the auctioneer sounded for some two or three
minutes the pipe of the charmer.  Fine brig--new copper--
valuable fittings--three fine boats--remarkably choice cargo--
what the auctioneer would call a perfectly safe investment; nay,
gentlemen, he would go further, he would put a figure on it: he
had no hesitation (had that bold auctioneer) in putting it in
figures; and in his view, what with this and that, and one thing
and another, the purchaser might expect to clear a sum equal to
the entire estimated value of the cargo; or, gentlemen, in other
words, a sum of ten thousand dollars.  At this modest
computation the roof immediately above the speaker's head (I
suppose, through the intervention of a spectator of ventriloquial
tastes) uttered a clear "Cock-a-doodle-doo!"--whereat all
laughed, the auctioneer himself obligingly joining.

"Now, gentlemen, what shall we say?" resumed that
gentleman, plainly ogling Pinkerton,--"what shall we say for
this remarkable opportunity?"

"One hundred dollars," said Pinkerton.

"One hundred dollars from Mr. Pinkerton," went the
auctioneer, "one hundred dollars.  No other gentleman inclined
to make any advance? One hundred dollars, only one hundred
dollars----"

The auctioneer was droning on to some such tune as this, and I,
on my part, was watching with something between sympathy
and amazement the undisguised emotion of Captain Trent,
when we were all startled by the interjection of a bid.

"And fifty," said a sharp voice.

Pinkerton, the auctioneer, and the boys, who were all equally in
the open secret of the ring, were now all equally and
simultaneously taken aback.

"I beg your pardon," said the auctioneer.  "Anybody bid?"

"And fifty," reiterated the voice, which I was now able to trace
to its origin, on the lips of a small, unseemly rag of human-
kind.  The speaker's skin was gray and blotched; he spoke in a
kind of broken song, with much variety of key; his gestures
seemed (as in the disease called Saint Vitus's dance) to be
imperfectly under control; he was badly dressed; he carried
himself with an air of shrinking assumption, as though he were
proud to be where he was and to do what he was doing, and yet
half expected to be called in question and kicked out.  I think I
never saw a man more of a piece; and the type was new to me;
I had never before set eyes upon his parallel, and I thought
instinctively of Balzac and the lower regions of the _Comedie
Humaine_.

Pinkerton stared a moment on the intruder with no friendly eye,
tore a leaf from his note-book, and scribbled a line in pencil,
turned, beckoned a messenger boy, and whispered, "To
Longhurst."  Next moment the boy had sped upon his errand,
and Pinkerton was again facing the auctioneer.

"Two hundred dollars," said Jim.

"And fifty," said the enemy.


"This looks lively," whispered I to Pinkerton.

"Yes; the little beast means cold drawn biz," returned my
friend.  "Well, he'll have to have a lesson.  Wait till I see
Longhurst.  Three hundred," he added aloud.

"And fifty," came the echo.

It was about this moment when my eye fell again on Captain
Trent.  A deeper shade had mounted to his crimson face:  the
new coat was unbuttoned and all flying open; the new silk
handkerchief in busy requisition; and the man's eye, of a clear
sailor blue, shone glassy with excitement.  He was anxious
still, but now (if I could read a face) there was hope in his
anxiety.

"Jim," I whispered, "look at Trent.  Bet you what you please he
was expecting this."

"Yes," was the reply, "there's some blame' thing going on here."
And he renewed his bid.

The figure had run up into the neighbourhood of a thousand
when I was aware of a sensation in the faces opposite, and
looking over my shoulder, saw a very large, bland, handsome
man come strolling forth and make a little signal to the
auctioneer.

"One word, Mr. Borden," said he; and then to Jim, "Well, Pink,
where are we up to now?"

Pinkerton gave him the figure.  "I ran up to that on my own
responsibility, Mr. Longhurst," he added, with a flush.  "I
thought it the square thing."

"And so it was," said Mr. Longhurst, patting him kindly on the
shoulder, like a gratified uncle.  "Well, you can drop out now;
we take hold ourselves.  You can run it up to five thousand;
and if he likes to go beyond that, he's welcome to the bargain."

"By the by, who is he?" asked Pinkerton.  "He looks away
down."

"I've sent Billy to find out."  And at the very moment Mr.
Longhurst received from the hands of one of the expensive
young gentlemen a folded paper.  It was passed round from one
to another till it came to me, and I read:  "Harry D. Bellairs,
Attorney-at-Law; defended Clara Varden; twice nearly
disbarred."

"Well, that gets me!" observed Mr. Longhurst.  "Who can have
put up a shyster [1] like that?  Nobody with money, that's a
sure thing.  Suppose you tried a big bluff?  I think I would,
Pink.  Well, ta-ta!  Your partner, Mr. Dodd?  Happy to have the
pleasure of your acquaintance, sir."  And the great man
withdrew.

[1] A low lawyer.

"Well, what do you think of Douglas B.?" whispered Pinkerton,
looking reverently after him as he departed.  "Six foot of perfect
gentleman and culture to his boots."

During this interview the auction had stood transparently
arrested, the auctioneer, the spectators, and even Bellairs, all
well aware that Mr. Longhurst was the principal, and Jim but a
speaking-trumpet.  But now that the Olympian Jupiter was
gone, Mr. Borden thought proper to affect severity.

"Come, come, Mr. Pinkerton.  Any advance?" he snapped.

And Pinkerton, resolved on the big bluff, replied, "Two
thousand dollars."

Bellairs preserved his composure.  "And fifty," said he.  But
there was a stir among the onlookers, and what was of more
importance, Captain Trent had turned pale and visibly gulped.

"Pitch it in again, Jim," said I.  "Trent is weakening."

"Three thousand," said Jim.

"And fifty," said Bellairs.

And then the bidding returned to its original movement by
hundreds and fifties; but I had been able in the meanwhile to
draw two conclusions.  In the first place, Bellairs had made his
last advance with a smile of gratified vanity; and I could see the
creature was glorying in the kudos of an unusual position and
secure of ultimate success.  In the second, Trent had once more
changed colour at the thousand leap, and his relief, when he
heard the answering fifty was manifest and unaffected.  Here
then was a problem:  both were presumably in the same
interest, yet the one was not in the confidence of the other.  Nor
was this all.  A few bids later it chanced that my eye
encountered that of Captain Trent, and his, which glittered with
excitement, was instantly, and I thought guiltily, withdrawn. 
He wished, then, to conceal his interest?  As Jim had said,
there was some blamed thing going on.  And for certain, here
were these two men, so strangely united, so strangely divided,
both sharp-set to keep the wreck from us, and that at an
exorbitant figure.

Was the wreck worth more than we supposed? A sudden heat
was kindled in my brain; the bids were nearing Longhurst's
limit of five thousand; another minute, and all would be too
late.  Tearing a leaf from my sketch-book, and inspired (I
suppose) by vanity in my own powers of inference and
observation, I took the one mad decision of my life.  "If you
care to go ahead," I wrote, "I'm in for all I'm worth."

Jim read and looked round at me like one bewildered; then his
eyes lightened, and turning again to the auctioneer, he bid,
"Five thousand one hundred dollars."

"And fifty," said monotonous Bellairs.

Presently Pinkerton scribbled, "What can it be?" and I
answered, still on paper:  "I can't imagine; but there's
something.  Watch Bellairs; he'll go up to the ten thousand, see
if he don't."

And he did, and we followed.  Long before this, word had gone
abroad that there was battle royal:  we were surrounded by a
crowd that looked on wondering; and when Pinkerton had
offered ten thousand dollars (the outside value of the cargo,
even were it safe in San Francisco Bay) and Bellairs, smirking
from ear to ear to be the centre of so much attention, had jerked
out his answering, "And fifty," wonder deepened to excitement.

"Ten thousand one hundred," said Jim; and even as he spoke he
made a sudden gesture with his hand, his face changed, and I
could see that he had guessed, or thought that he had guessed,
the mystery.  As he scrawled another memorandum in his note-
book, his hand shook like a telegraph-operator's.

"Chinese ship," ran the legend; and then, in big, tremulous
half-text, and with a flourish that overran the margin, "Opium!"

To be sure! thought I:  this must be the secret.  I knew that
scarce a ship came in from any Chinese port, but she carried
somewhere, behind a bulkhead, or in some cunning hollow of
the beams, a nest of the valuable poison.  Doubtless there was
some such treasure on the Flying Scud.  How much was it
worth?  We knew not, we were gambling in the dark; but Trent
knew, and Bellairs; and we could only watch and judge.

By this time neither Pinkerton nor I were of sound mind. 
Pinkerton was beside himself, his eyes like lamps.  I shook in
every member.  To any stranger entering (say) in the course of
the fifteenth thousand, we should probably have cut a poorer
figure than Bellairs himself.  But we did not pause; and the
crowd watched us, now in silence, now with a buzz of
whispers.

Seventeen thousand had been reached, when Douglas B.
Longhurst, forcing his way into the opposite row of faces,
conspicuously and repeatedly shook his head at Jim.  Jim's
answer was a note of two words: "My racket!" which, when the
great man had perused, he shook his finger warningly and
departed, I thought, with a sorrowful countenance.

Although Mr. Longhurst knew nothing of Bellairs, the shady
lawyer knew all about the Wrecker Boss.  He had seen him
enter the ring with manifest expectation; he saw him depart,
and the bids continue, with manifest surprise and
disappointment.  "Hullo," he plainly thought, "this is not the
ring I'm fighting, then?" And he determined to put on a spurt.

"Eighteen thousand," said he.

"And fifty," said Jim, taking a leaf out of his adversary's book.

"Twenty thousand," from Bellairs.

"And fifty," from Jim, with a little nervous titter.

And with one consent they returned to the old pace, only now it
was Bellairs who took the hundreds, and Jim who did the fifty
business.  But by this time our idea had gone abroad.  I could
hear the word "opium" pass from mouth to mouth; and by the
looks directed at us, I could see we were supposed to have
some private information.  And here an incident occurred
highly typical of San Francisco.  Close at my back there had
stood for some time a stout, middle-aged gentleman, with
pleasant eyes, hair pleasantly grizzled, and a ruddy, pleasing
face.  All of a sudden he appeared as a third competitor, skied
the Flying Scud with four fat bids of a thousand dollars each,
and then as suddenly fled the field, remaining thenceforth (as
before) a silent, interested spectator.

Ever since Mr. Longhurst's useless intervention, Bellairs had
seemed uneasy; and at this new attack, he began (in his turn) to
scribble a note between the bids.  I imagined naturally enough
that it would go to Captain Trent; but when it was done, and
the writer turned and looked behind him in the crowd, to my
unspeakable amazement, he did not seem to remark the
captain's presence.

"Messenger boy, messenger boy!" I heard him say.  "Somebody
call me a messenger boy."

At last somebody did, but it was not the captain.

"He's sending for instructions," I wrote to Pinkerton.

"For money," he wrote back.  "Shall I strike out?  I think this is
the time."

I nodded.

"Thirty thousand," said Pinkerton, making a leap of close upon
three thousand dollars.

I could see doubt in Bellairs's eye; then, sudden resolution. 
"Thirty-five thousand," said he.

"Forty thousand," said Pinkerton.

There was a long pause, during which Bellairs's countenance
was as a book; and then, not much too soon for the impending
hammer, "Forty thousand and five dollars," said he.

Pinkerton and I exchanged eloquent glances.  We were of one
mind.  Bellairs had tried a bluff; now he perceived his mistake,
and was bidding against time; he was trying to spin out the sale
until the messenger boy returned.

"Forty-five thousand dollars," said Pinkerton: his voice was like
a ghost's and tottered with emotion.

"Forty-five thousand and five dollars," said Bellairs.

"Fifty thousand," said Pinkerton.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Pinkerton.  Did I hear you make an
advance, sir?" asked the auctioneer.

"I--I have a difficulty in speaking," gasped Jim.  "It's fifty
thousand, Mr. Borden."

Bellairs was on his feet in a moment.  "Auctioneer," he said, "I
have to beg the favour of three moments at the telephone.  In
this matter, I am acting on behalf of a certain party to whom I
have just written----"

"I have nothing to do with any of this," said the auctioneer,
brutally.  "I am here to sell this wreck.  Do you make any
advance on fifty thousand?"

"I have the honour to explain to you, sir," returned Bellairs,
with a miserable assumption of dignity.  "Fifty thousand was
the figure named by my principal; but if you will give me the
small favour of two moments at the telephone--" 

"O, nonsense!" said the auctioneer.  "If you make no advance,
I'll knock it down to Mr. Pinkerton."

"I warn you," cried the attorney, with sudden shrillness.  "Have
a care what you're about.  You are here to sell for the
underwriters, let me tell you--not to act for Mr. Douglas
Longhurst.  This sale has been already disgracefully interrupted
to allow that person to hold a consultation with his minions.  It
has been much commented on."

"There was no complaint at the time," said the auctioneer,
manifestly discountenanced.  "You should have complained at
the time."

"I am not here to conduct this sale," replied Bellairs; "I am not
paid for that."

"Well, I am, you see," retorted the auctioneer, his impudence
quite restored; and he resumed his sing-song.  "Any advance on
fifty thousand dollars?  No advance on fifty thousand?  No
advance, gentlemen?  Going at fifty thousand, the wreck of the
brig Flying Scud--going--going--gone!"

"My God, Jim, can we pay the money?" I cried, as the stroke of
the hammer seemed to recall me from a dream.

"It's got to be raised," said he, white as a sheet.  "It'll be a hell
of a strain, Loudon.  The credit's good for it, I think; but I shall
have to get around.  Write me a cheque for your stuff.  Meet me
at the Occidental in an hour."

I wrote my cheque at a desk, and I declare I could never have
recognised my signature.  Jim was gone in a moment; Trent
had vanished even earlier; only Bellairs remained exchanging
insults with the auctioneer; and, behold! as I pushed my way
out of the exchange, who should run full tilt into my arms, but
the messenger boy?

It was by so near a margin that we became the owners of the
Flying Scud.



 CHAPTER X.

 IN WHICH THE CREW VANISH.


At the door of the exchange I found myself along-side of the
short, middle-aged gentleman who had made an appearance, so
vigorous and so brief, in the great battle.

"Congratulate you, Mr. Dodd," he said.  "You and your friend
stuck to your guns nobly."

"No thanks to you, sir," I replied, "running us up a thousand at
a time, and tempting all the speculators in San Francisco to
come and have a try."

"O, that was temporary insanity," said he; "and I thank the
higher powers I am still a free man.  Walking this way, Mr.
Dodd?  I'll walk along with you.  It's pleasant for an old fogy
like myself to see the young bloods in the ring; I've done some
pretty wild gambles in my time in this very city, when it was a
smaller place and I was a younger man.  Yes, I know you, Mr.
Dodd.  By sight, I may say I know you extremely well, you and
your followers, the fellows in the kilts, eh?  Pardon me.  But I
have the misfortune to own a little box on the Saucelito shore. 
I'll be glad to see you there any Sunday--without the fellows in
kilts, you know; and I can give you a bottle of wine, and show
you the best collection of Arctic voyages in the States.  Morgan
is my name--Judge Morgan--a Welshman and a forty-niner."

"O, if you're a pioneer," cried I, "come to me and I'll provide
you with an axe."

"You'll want your axes for yourself, I fancy," he returned, with
one of his quick looks.  "Unless you have private knowledge,
there will be a good deal of rather violent wrecking to do before
you find that--opium, do you call it?"

"Well, it's either opium, or we are stark, staring mad," I replied. 
"But I assure you we have no private information.  We went in
(as I suppose you did yourself) on observation."

"An observer, sir?" inquired the judge.

"I may say it is my trade--or, rather, was," said I.

"Well now, and what did you think of Bellairs?" he asked.

"Very little indeed," said I.

"I may tell you," continued the judge, "that to me, the
employment of a fellow like that appears inexplicable.  I knew
him; he knows me, too; he has often heard from me in court;
and I assure you the man is utterly blown upon; it is not safe to
trust him with a dollar; and here we find him dealing up to fifty
thousand.  I can't think who can have so trusted him, but I am
very sure it was a stranger in San Francisco."

"Some one for the owners, I suppose," said I.

"Surely not!" exclaimed the judge.  "Owners in London can
have nothing to say to opium smuggled between Hong Kong
and San Francisco.  I should rather fancy they would be the last
to hear of it--until the ship was seized.  No; I was thinking of
the captain.  But where would he get the money? above all,
after having laid out so much to buy the stuff in China? 
Unless, indeed, he were acting for some one in 'Frisco; and in
that case--here we go round again in the vicious circle--Bellairs
would not have been employed."

"I think I can assure you it was not the captain," said I; "for he
and Bellairs are not acquainted."

"Wasn't that the captain with the red face and coloured
handkerchief?  He seemed to me to follow Bellairs's game with
the most thrilling interest," objected Mr. Morgan.

"Perfectly true," said I; "Trent is deeply interested; he very
likely knew Bellairs, and he certainly knew what he was there
for; but I can put my hand in the fire that Bellairs didn't know
Trent."

"Another singularity," observed the judge.  "Well, we have had
a capital forenoon.  But you take an old lawyer's advice, and get
to Midway Island as fast as you can.  There's a pot of money on
the table, and Bellairs and Co. are not the men to stick at
trifles."

With this parting counsel Judge Morgan shook hands and
made off along Montgomery Street, while I entered the
Occidental Hotel, on the steps of which we had finished our
conversation.  I was well known to the clerks, and as soon as it
was understood that I was there to wait for Pinkerton and
lunch, I was invited to a seat inside the counter.  Here, then, in
a retired corner, I was beginning to come a little to myself after
these so violent experiences, when who should come hurrying
in, and (after a moment with a clerk) fly to one of the telephone
boxes but Mr. Henry D. Bellairs in person?  Call it what you
will, but the impulse was irresistible, and I rose and took a
place immediately at the man's back.  It may be some excuse
that I had often practised this very innocent form of
eavesdropping upon strangers, and for fun.  Indeed, I scarce
know anything that gives a lower view of man's intelligence
than to overhear (as you thus do) one side of a communication.

"Central," said the attorney, "2241 and 584 B" (or some such
numbers)--"Who's that?--All right--Mr. Bellairs--Occidental;
the wires are fouled in the other place--Yes, about three
minutes--Yes--Yes--Your figure, I am sorry to say--No--I had
no authority--Neither more nor less--I have every reason to
suppose so--O, Pinkerton, Montana Block--Yes--Yes--Very
good, sir--As you will, sir--Disconnect 584 B."

Bellairs turned to leave; at sight of me behind him, up flew his
hands, and he winced and cringed, as though in fear of bodily
attack.  "O, it's you!" he cried; and then, somewhat recovered,
"Mr.  Pinkerton's partner, I believe?  I am pleased to see you,
sir--to congratulate you on your late success."  And with that he
was gone, obsequiously bowing as he passed.

And now a madcap humour came upon me.  It was plain
Bellairs had been communicating with his principal; I knew the
number, if not the name; should I ring up at once, it was more
than likely he would return in person to the telephone; why
should not I dash (vocally) into the presence of this mysterious
person, and have some fun for my money.  I pressed the bell.

"Central," said I, "connect again 2241 and 584 B."

A phantom central repeated the numbers; there was a pause,
and then "Two two four one," came in a tiny voice into my ear--
a voice with the English sing-song--the voice plainly of a
gentleman.  "Is that you again, Mr. Bellairs?" it trilled.  "I tell
you it's no use.  Is that you, Mr. Bellairs?  Who is that?"

"I only want to put a single question," said I, civilly.  "Why do
you want to buy the Flying Scud?"

No answer came.  The telephone vibrated and hummed in
miniature with all the numerous talk of a great city; but the
voice of 2241 was silent.  Once and twice I put my question;
but the tiny, sing-song English voice, I heard no more.  The
man, then, had fled? fled from an impertinent question?  It
scarce seemed natural to me; unless on the principle that the
wicked fleeth when no man pursueth.  I took the telephone list
and turned the number up: "2241, Mrs. Keane, res. 942
Mission Street."  And that, short of driving to the house and
renewing my impertinence in person, was all that I could do.

Yet, as I resumed my seat in the corner of the office, I was
conscious of a new element of the uncertain, the underhand,
perhaps even the dangerous, in our adventure; and there was
now a new picture in my mental gallery, to hang beside that of
the wreck under its canopy of sea-birds and of Captain Trent
mopping his red brow--the picture of a man with a telephone
dice-box to his ear, and at the small voice of a single question,
struck suddenly as white as ashes.

From these considerations I was awakened by the striking of
the clock.  An hour and nearly twenty minutes had elapsed
since Pinkerton departed for the money:  he was twenty
minutes behind time; and to me who knew so well his
gluttonous despatch of business and had so frequently admired
his iron punctuality, the fact spoke volumes.  The twenty
minutes slowly stretched into an hour; the hour had nearly
extended to a second; and I still sat in my corner of the office,
or paced the marble pavement of the hall, a prey to the most
wretched anxiety and penitence.  The hour for lunch was nearly
over before I remembered that I had not eaten.  Heaven knows I
had no appetite; but there might still be much to do--it was
needful I should keep myself in proper trim, if it were only to
digest the now too probable bad news; and leaving word at the
office for Pinkerton, I sat down to table and called for soup,
oysters, and a pint of champagne.

I was not long set, before my friend returned.  He looked pale
and rather old, refused to hear of food, and called for tea.

"I suppose all's up?" said I, with an incredible sinking.

"No," he replied; "I've pulled it through, Loudon; just pulled it
through.  I couldn't have raised another cent in all 'Frisco. 
People don't like it; Longhurst even went back on me; said he
wasn't a three-card-monte man."

"Well, what's the odds?" said I.  "That's all we wanted, isn't it?"

"Loudon, I tell you I've had to pay blood for that money," cried
my friend, with almost savage energy and gloom.  "It's all on
ninety days, too; I couldn't get another day--not another day.  If
we go ahead with this affair, Loudon, you'll have to go yourself
and make the fur fly.  I'll stay of course--I've got to stay and
face the trouble in this city; though, I tell you, I just long to go. 
I would show these fat brutes of sailors what work was; I
would be all through that wreck and out at the other end, before
they had boosted themselves upon the deck!  But you'll do your
level best, Loudon; I depend on you for that.  You must be all
fire and grit and dash from the word 'go.'   That schooner and
the boodle on board of her are bound to be here before three
months, or it's B. U. S. T.--bust."

"I'll swear I'll do my best, Jim; I'll work double tides," said I. 
"It is my fault that you are in this thing, and I'll get you out
again or kill myself.  But what is that you say?  'If we go
ahead?'  Have we any choice, then?"

"I'm coming to that," said Jim.  "It isn't that I doubt the
investment.  Don't blame yourself for that; you showed a fine,
sound business instinct:  I always knew it was in you, but then
it ripped right out.  I guess that little beast of an attorney knew
what he was doing; and he wanted nothing better than to go
beyond.  No, there's profit in the deal; it's not that; it's these
ninety-day bills, and the strain I've given the credit, for I've
been up and down, borrowing, and begging and bribing to
borrow.  I don't believe there's another man but me in 'Frisco,"
he cried, with a sudden fervor of self admiration, "who could
have raised that last ten thousand!--Then there's another thing. 
I had hoped you might have peddled that opium through the
islands, which is safer and more profitable.  But with this
three-month limit, you must make tracks for Honolulu straight,
and communicate by steamer.  I'll try to put up something for
you there; I'll have a man spoken to who's posted on that line of
biz.  Keep a bright lookout for him as soon's you make the
islands; for it's on the cards he might pick you up at sea in a
whaleboat or a steam-launch, and bring the dollars right on
board."

It shows how much I had suffered morally during my sojourn
in San Francisco, that even now when our fortunes trembled in
the balance, I should have consented to become a smuggler and
(of all things) a smuggler of opium.  Yet I did, and that in
silence; without a protest, not without a twinge.

"And suppose," said I, "suppose the opium is so securely
hidden that I can't get hands on it?"

"Then you will stay there till that brig is kindling-wood, and
stay and split that kindling-wood with your penknife," cried
Pinkerton.  "The stuff is there; we know that; and it must be
found.  But all this is only the one string to our bow--though I
tell you I've gone into it head-first, as if it was our bottom
dollar.  Why, the first thing I did before I'd raised a cent, and
with this other notion in my head already--the first thing I did
was to secure the schooner.  The Nora Creina, she is, sixty-four
tons, quite big enough for our purpose since the rice is spoiled,
and the fastest thing of her tonnage out of San Francisco.  For a
bonus of two hundred, and a monthly charter of three, I have
her for my own time; wages and provisions, say four hundred
more:  a drop in the bucket.  They began firing the cargo out of
her (she was part loaded) near two hours ago; and about the
same time John Smith got the order for the stores.  That's what
I call business."

"No doubt of that," said I.  "But the other notion?"


"Well, here it is," said Jim.  "You agree with me that Bellairs
was ready to go higher?"

"I saw where he was coming.  "Yes--and why shouldn't he?"
said I.  "Is that the line?"

"That's the line, Loudon Dodd," assented Jim.  "If Bellairs and
his principal have any desire to go me better, I'm their man."

A sudden thought, a sudden fear, shot into my mind.  What if I
had been right?  What if my childish pleasantry had frightened
the principal away, and thus destroyed our chance?  Shame
closed my mouth; I began instinctively a long course of
reticence; and it was without a word of my meeting with
Bellairs, or my discovery of the address in Mission Street, that I
continued the discussion.

"Doubtless fifty thousand was originally mentioned as a round
sum," said I, "or at least, so Bellairs supposed.  But at the same
time it may be an outside sum; and to cover the expenses we
have already incurred for the money and the schooner--I am far
from blaming you; I see how needful it was to be ready for
either event--but to cover them we shall want a rather large
advance."

"Bellairs will go to sixty thousand; it's my belief, if he were
properly handled, he would take the hundred," replied
Pinkerton.  "Look back on the way the sale ran at the end."

"That is my own impression as regards Bellairs, I admitted.
"The point I am trying to make is that Bellairs himself may be
mistaken; that what he supposed to be a round sum was really
an outside figure."

"Well, Loudon, if that is so," said Jim, with extraordinary
gravity of face and voice, "if that is so, let him take the Flying
Scud at fifty thousand, and joy go with her!  I prefer the loss."

"Is that so, Jim?  Are we dipped as bad as that?" I cried.

"We've put our hand farther out than we can pull it in again,
Loudon," he replied.  "Why, man, that fifty thousand dollars,
before we get clear again, will cost us nearer seventy.  Yes, it
figures up overhead to more than ten per cent a month; and I
could do no better, and there isn't the man breathing could have
done as well.  It was a miracle, Loudon.  I couldn't but admire
myself.  O, if we had just the four months!  And you know,
Loudon, it may still be done.  With your energy and charm, if
the worst comes to the worst, you can run that schooner as you
ran one of your picnics; and we may have luck.  And, O, man!
if we do pull it through, what a dashing operation it will be!
What an advertisement! what a thing to talk of, and remember
all our lives!  However," he broke off suddenly, "we must try
the safe thing first.  Here's for the shyster!"

There was another struggle in my mind, whether I should even
now admit my knowledge of the Mission Street address.  But I
had let the favourable moment slip.  I had now, which made it
the more awkward, not merely the original discovery, but my
late suppression to confess.  I could not help reasoning,
besides, that the more natural course was to approach the
principal by the road of his agent's office; and there weighed
upon my spirits a conviction that we were already too late, and
that the man was gone two hours ago.  Once more, then, I held
my peace; and after an exchange of words at the telephone to
assure ourselves he was at home, we set out for the attorney's
office.

The endless streets of any American city pass, from one end to
another, through strange degrees and vicissitudes of splendour
and distress, running under the same name between
monumental warehouses, the dens and taverns of thieves, and
the sward and shrubbery of villas.  In San Francisco, the sharp
inequalities of the ground, and the sea bordering on so many
sides, greatly exaggerate these contrasts.  The street for which
we were now bound took its rise among blowing sands,
somewhere in view of the Lone Mountain Cemetery; ran for a
term across that rather windy Olympus of Nob Hill, or perhaps
just skirted its frontier; passed almost immediately after
through a stage of little houses, rather impudently painted, and
offering to the eye of the observer this diagnostic peculiarity,
that the huge brass plates upon the small and highly coloured
doors bore only the first names of ladies--Norah or Lily or
Florence; traversed China Town, where it was doubtless
undermined with opium cellars, and its blocks pierced, after the
similitude of rabbit-warrens, with a hundred doors and
passages and galleries; enjoyed a glimpse of high publicity at
the corner of Kearney; and proceeded, among dives and
warehouses, towards the City Front and the region of the water-
rats.  In this last stage of its career, where it was both grimy
and solitary, and alternately quiet and roaring to the wheels of
drays, we found a certain house of some pretension to neatness,
and furnished with a rustic outside stair.  On the pillar of the
stair a black plate bore in gilded lettering this device: "Harry D.
Bellairs, Attorney-at-law.  Consultations, 9 to 6." On ascending
the stairs, a door was found to stand open on the balcony, with
this further inscription, "Mr. Bellairs In."

"I wonder what we do next," said I.

"Guess we sail right in," returned Jim, and suited the action to
the word.

The room in which we found ourselves was clean, but
extremely bare.  A rather old-fashioned secretaire stood by the
wall, with a chair drawn to the desk; in one corner was a shelf
with half-a-dozen law books; and I can remember literally not
another stick of furniture.  One inference imposed itself: Mr.
Bellairs was in the habit of sitting down himself and suffering
his clients to stand.  At the far end, and veiled by a curtain of
red baize, a second door communicated with the interior of the
house.  Hence, after some coughing and stamping, we elicited
the shyster, who came timorously forth, for all the world like a
man in fear of bodily assault, and then, recognising his guests,
suffered from what I can only call a nervous paroxysm of
courtesy.

"Mr. Pinkerton and partner!" said he.  "I will go and fetch you
seats."

"Not the least," said Jim.  "No time.  Much rather stand.  This
is business, Mr. Bellairs.  This morning, as you know, I bought
the wreck, Flying Scud."

The lawyer nodded.

"And bought her," pursued my friend, "at a figure out of all
proportion to the cargo and the circumstances, as they
appeared?"

"And now you think better of it, and would like to be off with
your bargain?  I have been figuring upon this," returned the
lawyer.  "My client, I will not hide from you, was displeased
with me for putting her so high.  I think we were both too
heated, Mr. Pinkerton: rivalry--the spirit of competition.  But I
will be quite frank--I know when I am dealing with gentlemen
--and I am almost certain, if you leave the matter in my hands,
my client would relieve you of the bargain, so as you would
lose"--he consulted our faces with gimlet-eyed calculation--
"nothing," he added shrilly.

And here Pinkerton amazed me.

"That's a little too thin," said he.  "I have the wreck.  I know
there's boodle in her, and I mean to keep her.  What I want is
some points which may save me needless expense, and which
I'm prepared to pay for, money down.  The thing for you to
consider is just this:  am I to deal with you or direct with your
principal?  If you are prepared to give me the facts right off,
why, name your figure.  Only one thing!" added Jim, holding a
finger up, "when I say 'money down,' I mean bills payable
when the ship returns, and if the information proves reliable.  I
don't buy pigs in pokes."

I had seen the lawyer's face light up for a moment, and then, at
the sound of Jim's proviso, miserably fade.  "I guess you know
more about this wreck than I do, Mr. Pinkerton," said he.  "I
only know that I was told to buy the thing, and tried, and
couldn't."

"What I like about you, Mr. Bellairs, is that you waste no
time," said Jim.  "Now then, your client's name and address."

"On consideration," replied the lawyer, with indescribable
furtivity, "I cannot see that I am entitled to communicate my
client's name.  I will sound him for you with pleasure, if you
care to instruct me; but I cannot see that I can give you his
address."

"Very well," said Jim, and put his hat on.  "Rather a strong
step, isn't it?" (Between every sentence was a clear pause.) "Not
think better of it?  Well, come--call it a dollar?"

"Mr. Pinkerton, sir!" exclaimed the offended attorney; and,
indeed, I myself was almost afraid that Jim had mistaken his
man and gone too far. 

"No present use for a dollar?" says Jim.  "Well, look here, Mr.
Bellairs:  we're both busy men, and I'll go to my outside figure
with you right away--"

"Stop this, Pinkerton," I broke in.  "I know the address: 924
Mission Street."


I do not know whether Pinkerton or Bellairs was the more
taken aback.

"Why in snakes didn't you say so, Loudon?" cried my friend.

"You didn't ask for it before," said I, colouring to my temples
under his troubled eyes.

It was Bellairs who broke silence, kindly supplying me with all
that I had yet to learn.  "Since you know Mr. Dickson's
address," said he, plainly burning to be rid of us, "I suppose I
need detain you no longer."

I do not know how Pinkerton felt, but I had death in my soul as
we came down the outside stair, from the den of this blotched
spider.  My whole being was strung, waiting for Jim's first
question, and prepared to blurt out, I believe, almost with tears,
a full avowal.  But my friend asked nothing.

"We must hack it," said he, tearing off in the direction of the
nearest stand.  "No time to be lost.  You saw how I changed
ground.  No use in paying the shyster's commission."

Again I expected a reference to my suppression; again I was
disappointed.  It was plain Jim feared the subject, and I felt I
almost hated him for that fear.  At last, when we were already
in the hack and driving towards Mission Street, I could bear
my suspense no longer.

"You do not ask me about that address," said I.

"No," said he, quickly and timidly.  "What was it?  I would like
to know."

The note of timidity offended me like a buffet; my temper rose
as hot as mustard.  "I must request you do not ask me," said I.
"It is a matter I cannot explain." 

The moment the foolish words were said, that moment I would
have given worlds to recall them:  how much more, when
Pinkerton, patting my hand, replied:  "All right, dear boy; not
another word; that's all done.  I'm convinced it's perfectly
right."  To return upon the subject was beyond my courage; but
I vowed inwardly that I should do my utmost in the future for
this mad speculation, and that I would cut myself in pieces
before Jim should lose one dollar.

We had no sooner arrived at the address than I had other things
to think of.

"Mr. Dickson?  He's gone," said the landlady.

Where had he gone?

"I'm sure I can't tell you," she answered.  "He was quite a
stranger to me."

"Did he express his baggage, ma'am?" asked Pinkerton.

"Hadn't any," was the reply.  "He came last night and left again
to-day with a satchel."

"When did he leave?" I inquired.

"It was about noon," replied the landlady.  "Some one rang up
the telephone, and asked for him; and I reckon he got some
news, for he left right away, although his rooms were taken by
the week.  He seemed considerable put out: I reckon it was a
death."

My heart sank; perhaps my idiotic jest had indeed driven him
away; and again I asked myself, Why? and whirled for a
moment in a vortex of untenable hypotheses.

"What was he like, ma'am?" Pinkerton was asking, when I
returned to consciousness of my surroundings.

"A clean shaved man," said the woman, and could be led or
driven into no more significant description.

"Pull up at the nearest drug-store," said Pinkerton to the driver;
and when there, the telephone was put in operation, and the
message sped to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company's office--
this was in the days before Spreckels had arisen--"When does
the next China steamer touch at Honolulu?"

"The City of Pekin; she cast off the dock to-day, at half-past
one," came the reply.

"It's a clear case of bolt," said Jim.  "He's skipped, or my
name's not Pinkerton.  He's gone to head us off at Midway
Island."

Somehow I was not so sure; there were elements in the case,
not known to Pinkerton--the fears of the captain, for example
--that inclined me otherwise; and the idea that I had terrified
Mr. Dickson into flight, though resting on so slender a
foundation, clung obstinately in my mind.  "Shouldn't we see
the list of passengers?" I asked.

"Dickson is such a blamed common name," returned Jim; "and
then, as like as not, he would change it."

At this I had another intuition.  A negative of a street scene,
taken unconsciously when I was absorbed in other thought,
rose in my memory with not a feature blurred:  a view, from
Bellairs's door as we were coming down, of muddy roadway,
passing drays, matted telegraph wires, a Chinaboy with a
basket on his head, and (almost opposite) a corner grocery with
the name of Dickson in great gilt letters.

"Yes," said I, "you are right; he would change it.  And anyway,
I don't believe it was his name at all; I believe he took it from a
corner grocery beside Bellairs's."

"As like as not," said Jim, still standing on the sidewalk with
contracted brows.

"Well, what shall we do next?" I asked.

"The natural thing would be to rush the schooner," he replied. 
"But I don't know.  I telephoned the captain to go at it head
down and heels in air; he answered like a little man; and I
guess he's getting around.  I believe, Loudon, we'll give Trent a
chance.  Trent was in it; he was in it up to the neck; even if he
couldn't buy, he could give us the straight tip."

"I think so, too," said I.  "Where shall we find him?"

"British consulate, of course," said Jim.  "And that's another
reason for taking him first.  We can hustle that schooner up all
evening; but when the consulate's shut, it's shut."

At the consulate, we learned that Captain Trent had alighted
(such is I believe the classic phrase) at the What Cheer House. 
To that large and unaristocratic hostelry we drove, and
addressed ourselves to a large clerk, who was chewing a
toothpick and looking straight before him.

"Captain Jacob Trent?"

"Gone," said the clerk.

"Where has he gone?" asked Pinkerton.

"Cain't say," said the clerk.

"When did he go?" I asked.

"Don't know," said the clerk, and with the simplicity of a
monarch offered us the spectacle of his broad back.

What might have happened next I dread to picture, for
Pinkerton's excitement had been growing steadily, and now
burned dangerously high; but we were spared extremities by
the intervention of a second clerk.

"Why!  Mr. Dodd!" he exclaimed, running forward to the
counter.  "Glad to see you, sir!  Can I do anything in your
way?"

How virtuous actions blossom!  Here was a young man to
whose pleased ears I had rehearsed _Just before the battle,
mother,_ at some weekly picnic; and now, in that tense
moment of my life, he came (from the machine) to be my
helper.

"Captain Trent, of the wreck?  O yes, Mr. Dodd; he left about
twelve; he and another of the men.  The Kanaka went earlier by
the City of Pekin; I know that; I remember expressing his chest. 
Captain Trent?  I'll inquire, Mr. Dodd.  Yes, they were all here. 
Here are the names on the register; perhaps you would care to
look at them while I go and see about the baggage?"

I drew the book toward me, and stood looking at the four
names all written in the same hand, rather a big and rather a
bad one: Trent, Brown, Hardy, and (instead of Ah Sing) Jos.
Amalu.

"Pinkerton," said I, suddenly, "have you that _Occidental_ in
your pocket?"

"Never left me," said Pinkerton, producing the paper.


I turned to the account of the wreck.  "Here," said I; "here's the
name.  'Elias Goddedaal, mate.'  Why do we never come across
Elias Goddedaal?"

"That's so," said Jim.  "Was he with the rest in that saloon
when you saw them?"

"I don't believe it," said I.  "They were only four, and there was
none that behaved like a mate."

At this moment the clerk returned with his report.

"The captain," it appeared, "came with some kind of an express
waggon, and he and the man took off three chests and a big
satchel.  Our porter helped to put them on, but they drove the
cart themselves.  The porter thinks they went down town.  It
was about one."

"Still in time for the City of Pekin," observed Jim.

"How many of them were here?" I inquired.

"Three, sir, and the Kanaka," replied the clerk.  "I can't
somehow fin out about the third, but he's gone too."

"Mr. Goddedaal, the mate, wasn't here then?" I asked.

"No, Mr. Dodd, none but what you see," says the clerk.

"Nor you never heard where he was?"

"No.  Any particular reason for finding these men, Mr. Dodd?"
inquired the clerk.

"This gentleman and I have bought the wreck," I explained;
"we wished to get some information, and it is very annoying to
find the men all gone."

A certain group had gradually formed about us, for the wreck
was still a matter of interest; and at this, one of the bystanders,
a rough seafaring man, spoke suddenly.

"I guess the mate won't be gone," said he.  "He's main sick;
never left the sick-bay aboard the Tempest; so they tell ME."

Jim took me by the sleeve.  "Back to the consulate," said he.

But even at the consulate nothing was known of Mr.
Goddedaal.  The doctor of the Tempest had certified him very
sick; he had sent his papers in, but never appeared in person
before the authorities.

"Have you a telephone laid on to the Tempest?" asked
Pinkerton.

"Laid on yesterday," said the clerk.

"Do you mind asking, or letting me ask?  We are very anxious
to get hold of Mr. Goddedaal."

"All right," said the clerk, and turned to the telephone.  "I'm
sorry," he said presently, "Mr. Goddedaal has left the ship, and
no one knows where he is."

"Do you pay the men's passage home?" I inquired, a sudden
thought striking me.

"If they want it," said the clerk; "sometimes they don't.  But we
paid the Kanaka's passage to Honolulu this morning; and by
what Captain Trent was saying, I understand the rest are going
home together."

"Then you haven't paid them?" said I.

"Not yet," said the clerk.

"And you would be a good deal surprised, if I were to tell you
they were gone already?" I asked.

"O, I should think you were mistaken," said he.

"Such is the fact, however," said I.

"I am sure you must be mistaken," he repeated.

"May I use your telephone one moment?" asked Pinkerton; and
s soon as permission had been granted, I heard him ring up the
printing-office where our advertisements were usually handled. 
More I did not hear; for suddenly recalling the big, bad hand in
the register of the What Cheer House, I asked the consulate
clerk if he had a specimen of Captain Trent's writing.  
Whereupon I learned that the captain could not write, having
cut his hand open a little before the loss of the brig; that the
latter part of the log even had been written up by Mr.
Goddedaal; and that Trent had always signed with his left
hand.  By the time I had gleaned this information, Pinkerton
was ready.

"That's all that we can do.  Now for the schooner," said he;
"and by to-morrow evening I lay hands on Goddedaal, or my
name's not Pinkerton."

"How have you managed?" I inquired.

"You'll see before you get to bed," said Pinkerton.  "And now,
after all this backwarding and forwarding, and that hotel clerk,
and that bug Bellairs, it'll be a change and a kind of consolation
to see the schooner.  I guess things are humming there."

But on the wharf, when we reached it, there was no sign of
bustle, and, but for the galley smoke, no mark of life on the
Norah Creina.  Pinkerton's face grew pale, and his mouth
straightened, as he leaped on board.

"Where's the captain of this----?" and he left the phrase
unfinished, finding no epithet sufficiently energetic for his
thoughts.

It did not appear whom or what he was addressing; but a head,
presumably the cook's, appeared in answer at the galley door.

"In the cabin, at dinner," said the cook deliberately, chewing as
he spoke.

"Is that cargo out?"

"No, sir."

"None of it?"

"O, there's some of it out.  We'll get at the rest of it livelier
to-morrow, I guess."

"I guess there'll be something broken first," said Pinkerton, and
strode to the cabin.

Here we found a man, fat, dark, and quiet, seated gravely at
what seemed a liberal meal.  He looked up upon our entrance;
and seeing Pinkerton continue to stand facing him in silence,
hat on head, arms folded, and lips compressed, an expression
of mingled wonder and annoyance began to dawn upon his
placid face.

"Well!" said Jim; and so this is what you call rushing around?"

"Who are you?" cries the captain.

"Me!  I'm Pinkerton!" retorted Jim, as though the name had
been a talisman.

"You're not very civil, whoever you are," was the reply.  But
still a certain effect had been produced, for he scrambled to his
feet, and added hastily, "A man must have a bit of dinner, you
know, Mr. Pinkerton."

"Where's your mate?" snapped Jim.

"He's up town," returned the other.

"Up town!" sneered Pinkerton.  "Now, I'll tell you what you are:
you're a Fraud; and if I wasn't afraid of dirtying my boot, I
would kick you and your dinner into that dock."

"I'll tell you something, too," retorted the captain, duskily
flushing.  "I wouldn't sail this ship for the man you are, if you
went upon your knees.  I've dealt with gentlemen up to now."

"I can tell you the names of a number of gentlemen you'll never
deal with any more, and that's the whole of Longhurst's gang,"
said Jim.  "I'll put your pipe out in that quarter, my friend. 
Here, rout out your traps as quick as look at it, and take your
vermin along with you.  I'll have a captain in, this very night,
that's a sailor, and some sailors to work for him."

"I'll go when I please, and that's to-morrow morning," cried the
captain after us, as we departed for the shore.

"There's something gone wrong with the world to-day; it must
have come bottom up!" wailed Pinkerton.  "Bellairs, and then
the hotel clerk, and now This Fraud!  And what am I to do for a
captain, Loudon, with Longhurst gone home an hour ago, and
the boys all scattered?"

"I know," said I.  "Jump in!"  And then to the driver: "Do you
know Black Tom's?"

Thither then we rattled; passed through the bar, and found (as I
had hoped) Johnson in the enjoyment of club life.  The table
had been thrust upon one side; a South Sea merchant was
discoursing music from a mouth-organ in one corner; and in
the middle of the floor Johnson and a fellow-seaman, their
arms clasped about each other's bodies, somewhat heavily
danced.  The room was both cold and close; a jet of gas, which
continually menaced the heads of the performers, shed a coarse
illumination; the mouth-organ sounded shrill and dismal; and
the faces of all concerned were church-like in their gravity.  It
were, of course, indelicate to interrupt these solemn frolics; so
we edged ourselves to chairs, for all the world like belated
comers in a concert-room, and patiently waited for the end.  At
length the organist, having exhausted his supply of breath,
ceased abruptly in the middle of a bar.  With the cessation of
the strain, the dancers likewise came to a full stop, swayed a
moment, still embracing, and then separated and looked about
the circle for applause.

"Very well danced!" said one; but it appears the compliment
was not strong enough for the performers, who (forgetful of the
proverb) took up the tale in person.

"Well," said Johnson.  "I mayn't be no sailor, but I can dance!"

And his late partner, with an almost pathetic conviction, added,
"My foot is as light as a feather."

Seeing how the wind set, you may be sure I added a few words
of praise before I carried Johnson alone into the passage: to
whom, thus mollified, I told so much as I judged needful of our
situation, and begged him, if he would not take the job himself,
to find me a smart man.

"Me!" he cried.  "I couldn't no more do it than I could try to go
to hell!"

"I thought you were a mate?" said I.

"So I am a mate," giggled Johnson, "and you don't catch me
shipping noways else.  But I'll tell you what, I believe I can get
you Arty Nares:  you seen Arty; first-rate navigator and a son of
a gun for style."  And he proceeded to explain to me that Mr.
Nares, who had the promise of a fine barque in six months,
after things had quieted down, was in the meantime living very
private, and would be pleased to have a change of air.

I called out Pinkerton and told him.  "Nares!" he cried, as soon
as I had come to the name.  "I would jump at the chance of a
man that had had Nares's trousers on!  Why, Loudon, he's the
smartest deep-water mate out of San Francisco, and draws his
dividends regular in service and out."  This hearty indorsation
clinched the proposal; Johnson agreed to produce Nares before
six the following morning; and Black Tom, being called into
the consultation, promised us four smart hands for the same
hour, and even (what appeared to all of us excessive) promised
them sober.

The streets were fully lighted when we left Black Tom's: street
after street sparkling with gas or electricity, line after line of
distant luminaries climbing the steep sides of hills towards the
overvaulting darkness; and on the other hand, where the waters
of the bay invisibly trembled, a hundred riding lanterns marked
the position of a hundred ships.  The sea-fog flew high in
heaven; and at the level of man's life and business it was clear
and chill.  By silent consent, we paid the hack off, and
proceeded arm in arm towards the Poodle Dog for dinner.

At one of the first hoardings, I was aware of a bill-sticker at
work:  it was a late hour for this employment, and I checked
Pinkerton until the sheet should be unfolded.  This is what I
read:--

              TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD.
                        
                OFFICERS AND MEN OF THE

              WRECKED BRIG FLYING SCUD
                         
                       APPLYING,

               PERSONALLY OR BY LETTER,

AT THE OFFICE OF JAMES PINKERTON, MONTANA
BLOCK,

         BEFORE NOON TO-MORROW, TUESDAY, 12TH,

                     WILL RECEIVE
                          
              TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD.

"This is your idea, Pinkerton!" I cried.

"Yes.  They've lost no time; I'll say that for them--not like the
Fraud," said he.  "But mind you, Loudon, that's not half of it. 
The cream of the idea's here: we know our man's sick; well, a
copy of that has been mailed to every hospital, every doctor,
and every drug-store in San Francisco."

Of course, from the nature of our business, Pinkerton could do
a thing of the kind at a figure extremely reduced; for all that, I
was appalled at the extravagance, and said so.

"What matter a few dollars now?" he replied sadly.  "It's in
three months that the pull comes, Loudon."

We walked on again in silence, not without a shiver.  Even at
the Poodle Dog, we took our food with small appetite and less
speech; and it was not until he was warmed with a third glass
of champagne that Pinkerton cleared his throat and looked
upon me with a deprecating eye.

"Loudon," said he, "there was a subject you didn't wish to be
referred to.  I only want to do so indirectly.  It wasn't"--he
faltered--"it wasn't because you were dissatisfied with me?" he
concluded, with a quaver.

"Pinkerton!" cried I.

"No, no, not a word just now," he hastened to proceed.  "Let me
speak first.  I appreciate, though I can't imitate, the delicacy of
your nature; and I can well understand you would rather die
than speak of it, and yet might feel disappointed.  I did think I
could have done better myself.  But when I found how tight
money was in this city, and a man like Douglas B. Longhurst--
a forty-niner, the man that stood at bay in a corn patch for five
hours against the San Diablo squatters--weakening on the
operation, I tell you, Loudon, I began to despair; and--I may
have made mistakes, no doubt there are thousands who could
have done better--but I give you a loyal hand on it, I did my
best."

"My poor Jim," said I, "as if I ever doubted you! as if I didn't
know you had done wonders!  All day I've been admiring your
energy and resource.  And as for that affair----"

"No, Loudon, no more, not a word more!  I don't want to hear,"
cried Jim.

"Well, to tell you the truth, I don't want to tell you," said I; "for
it's a thing I'm ashamed of."

"Ashamed, Loudon?  O, don't say that; don't use such an
expression even in jest!" protested Pinkerton.

"Do you never do anything you're ashamed of?" I inquired.

"No," says he, rolling his eyes.  "Why?  I'm sometimes sorry
afterwards, when it pans out different from what I figured.  But
I can't see what I would want to be ashamed for."

I sat a while considering with admiration the simplicity of my
friend's character.  Then I sighed.  "Do you know, Jim, what
I'm sorriest for?" said I.  "At this rate, I can't be best man at
your marriage."

"My marriage!" he repeated, echoing the sigh.  "No marriage
for me now.  I'm going right down to-night to break it to her.  I
think that's what's shaken me all day.  I feel as if I had had no
right (after I was engaged) to operate so widely."

"Well, you know, Jim, it was my doing, and you must lay the
blame on me," said I.

"Not a cent of it!" he cried.  "I was as eager as yourself, only
not so bright at the beginning.  No; I've myself to thank for it;
but it's a wrench."

While Jim departed on his dolorous mission, I returned alone to
the office, lit the gas, and sat down to reflect on the events of
that momentous day:  on the strange features of the tale that
had been so far unfolded, the disappearances, the terrors, the
great sums of money; and on the dangerous and ungrateful task
that awaited me in the immediate future.

It is difficult, in the retrospect of such affairs, to avoid
attributing to ourselves in the past a measure of the knowledge
we possess to-day.  But I may say, and yet be well within the
mark, that I was consumed that night with a fever of suspicion
and curiosity; exhausted my fancy in solutions, which I still
dismissed as incommensurable with the facts; and in the
mystery by which I saw myself surrounded, found a precious
stimulus for my courage and a convenient soothing draught for
conscience.  Even had all been plain sailing, I do not hint that I
should have drawn back.  Smuggling is one of the meanest of
crimes, for by that we rob a whole country pro rata, and are
therefore certain to impoverish the poor:  to smuggle opium is
an offence particularly dark, since it stands related not so much
to murder, as to massacre.  Upon all these points I was quite
clear; my sympathy was all in arms against my interest; and
had not Jim been involved, I could have dwelt almost with
satisfaction on the idea of my failure.  But Jim, his whole
fortune, and his marriage, depended upon my success; and I
preferred the interests of my friend before those of all the
islanders in the South Seas.  This is a poor, private morality, if
you like; but it is mine, and the best I have; and I am not half
so much ashamed of having embarked at all on this adventure,
as I am proud that (while I was in it, and for the sake of my
friend) I was up early and down late, set my own hand to
everything, took dangers as they came, and for once in my life
played the man throughout.  At the same time, I could have
desired another field of energy; and I was the more grateful for
the redeeming element of mystery.  Without that, though I
might have gone ahead and done as well, it would scarce have
been with ardour; and what inspired me that night with an
impatient greed of the sea, the island, and the wreck, was the
hope that I might stumble there upon the answer to a hundred
questions, and learn why Captain Trent fanned his red face in
the exchange, and why Mr. Dickson fled from the telephone in
the Mission Street lodging-house.



 CHAPTER XI.

 IN WHICH JIM AND I TAKE DIFFERENT WAYS.


I was unhappy when I closed my eyes; and it was to
unhappiness that I opened them again next morning, to a
confused sense of some calamity still inarticulate, and to the
consciousness of jaded limbs and of a swimming head.  I must
have lain for some time inert and stupidly miserable, before I
became aware of a reiterated knocking at the door; with which
discovery all my wits flowed back in their accustomed
channels, and I remembered the sale, and the wreck, and
Goddedaal, and Nares, and Johnson, and Black Tom, and the
troubles of yesterday, and the manifold engagements of the day 
that was to come.  The thought thrilled me like a trumpet in the
hour of battle.  In a moment, I had leaped from bed, crossed the
office where Pinkerton lay in a deep trance of sleep on the
convertible sofa, and stood in the doorway, in my night gear, to
receive our visitors.

Johnson was first, by way of usher, smiling.  From a little
behind, with his Sunday hat tilted forward over his brow, and a
cigar glowing between his lips, Captain Nares acknowledged
our previous acquaintance with a succinct nod.  Behind him
again, in the top of the stairway, a knot of sailors, the new crew
of the Norah Creina, stood polishing the wall with back and
elbow.  These I left without to their reflections.  But our two
officers I carried at once into the office, where (taking Jim by
the shoulder) I shook him slowly into consciousness.  He sat
up, all abroad for the moment, and stared on the new captain.

"Jim," said I, "this is Captain Nares.  Captain, Mr. Pinkerton."

Nares repeated his curt nod, still without speech; and I thought
he held us both under a watchful scrutiny.

"O!" says Jim, "this is Captain Nares, is it?  Good morning,
Captain Nares.  Happy to have the pleasure of your
acquaintance, sir.  I know you well by reputation."

Perhaps, under the circumstances of the moment, this was
scarce a welcome speech.  At least, Nares received it with a
grunt.

"Well, Captain," Jim continued, "you know about the size of
the business?  You're to take the Nora Creina to Midway
Island, break up a wreck, call at Honolulu, and back to this
port?  I suppose that's understood?"

"Well," returned Nares, with the same unamiable reserve, "for a
reason, which I guess you know, the cruise may suit me; but
there's a point or two to settle.  We shall have to talk, Mr.
Pinkerton.  But whether I go or not, somebody will; there's no
sense in losing time; and you might give Mr. Johnson a note,
let him take the hands right down, and set to to overhaul the
rigging.  The beasts look sober," he added, with an air of great
disgust, "and need putting to work to keep them so."

This being agreed upon, Nares watched his subordinate depart
and drew a visible breath.

"And now we're alone and can talk," said he.  "What's this
thing about?  It's been advertised like Barnum's museum; that
poster of yours has set the Front talking; that's an objection in
itself, for I'm laying a little dark just now; and anyway, before I
take the ship, I require to know what I'm going after."

Thereupon Pinkerton gave him the whole tale, beginning with a
businesslike precision, and working himself up, as he went on,
to the boiling-point of narrative enthusiasm.  Nares sat and
smoked, hat still on head, and acknowledged each fresh feature
of the story with a frowning nod.  But his pale blue eyes
betrayed him, and lighted visibly.

"Now you see for yourself," Pinkerton concluded:  "there's
every last chance that Trent has skipped to Honolulu, and it
won't take much of that fifty thousand dollars to charter a smart
schooner down to Midway.  Here's where I want a man!" cried
Jim, with contagious energy.  "That wreck's mine; I've paid for
it, money down; and if it's got to be fought for, I want to see it
fought for lively.  If you're not back in ninety days, I tell you
plainly, I'll make one of the biggest busts ever seen upon this
coast; it's life or death for Mr. Dodd and me.  As like as not,
it'll come to grapples on the island; and when I heard your
name last night--and a blame' sight more this morning when I
saw the eye you've got in your head--I said, 'Nares is good
enough for me!'"

"I guess," observed Nares, studying the ash of his cigar, "the
sooner I get that schooner outside the Farallones, the better
you'll be pleased."

"You're the man I dreamed of!" cried Jim, bouncing on the bed. 
"There's not five per cent of fraud in all your carcase."

"Just hold on," said Nares.  "There's another point.  I heard
some talk about a supercargo."

"That's Mr. Dodd, here, my partner," said Jim.

"I don't see it," returned the captain drily.  "One captain's
enough for any ship that ever I was aboard."

"Now don't you start disappointing me," said Pinkerton; "for
you're talking without thought.  I'm not going to give you the
run of the books of this firm, am I?  I guess not.  Well, this is
not only a cruise; it's a business operation; and that's in the
hands of my partner.  You sail that ship, you see to breaking up
that wreck and keeping the men upon the jump, and you'll find
your hands about full.  Only, no mistake about one thing:  it
has to be done to Mr. Dodd's satisfaction; for it's Mr. Dodd
that's paying."

"I'm accustomed to give satisfaction," said Mr. Nares, with a
dark flush.

"And so you will here!" cried Pinkerton.  "I understand you. 
You're prickly to handle, but you're straight all through."

"The position's got to be understood, though," returned Nares,
perhaps a trifle mollified.  "My position, I mean.  I'm not going
to ship sailing-master; it's enough out of my way already, to set
a foot on this mosquito schooner."

"Well, I'll tell you," retorted Jim, with an indescribable twinkle:
"you just meet me on the ballast, and we'll make it a
barquentine."

Nares laughed a little; tactless Pinkerton had once more gained
a victory in tact.  "Then there's another point," resumed the
captain, tacitly relinquishing the last.  "How about the
owners?"

"O, you leave that to me; I'm one of Longhurst's crowd, you
know," said Jim, with sudden bristling vanity.  "Any man that's
good enough for me, is good enough for them."

"Who are they?" asked Nares.

"M'Intyre and Spittal," said Jim.

"O, well, give me a card of yours," said the captain:  "you
needn't bother to write; I keep M'Intyre and Spittal in my
vest-pocket."

Boast for boast; it was always thus with Nares and Pinkerton--
the two vainest men of my acquaintance.  And having thus
reinstated himself in his own opinion, the captain rose, and,
with a couple of his stiff nods, departed.

"Jim," I cried, as the door closed behind him, "I don't like that
man."

"You've just got to, Loudon," returned Jim.  "He's a typical
American seaman--brave as a lion, full of resource, and stands
high with his owners.  He's a man with a record."

"For brutality at sea," said I.

"Say what you like," exclaimed Pinkerton, "it was a good hour
we got him in:  I'd trust Mamie's life to him to-morrow."

"Well, and talking of Mamie?" says I.

Jim paused with his trousers half on.  "She's the gallantest little
soul God ever made!" he cried. "Loudon, I'd meant to knock
you up last night, and I hope you won't take it unfriendly that I
didn't.  I went in and looked at you asleep; and I saw you were
all broken up, and let you be.  The news would keep, anyway;
and even you, Loudon, couldn't feel it the same way as I did."

"What news?" I asked.

"It's this way," says Jim.  "I told her how we stood, and that I
backed down from marrying.  'Are you tired of me?' says she:
God bless her!  Well, I explained the whole thing over again,
the chance of smash, your absence unavoidable, the point I
made of having you for the best man, and that.  'If you're not
tired of me, I think I see one way to manage,' says she.  "Let's
get married to-morrow, and Mr. Loudon can be best man
before he goes to sea.'  That's how she said it, crisp and bright,
like one of Dickens's characters.  It was no good for me to talk
about the smash.  'You'll want me all the more,' she said. 
Loudon, I only pray I can make it up to her; I prayed for it last
night beside your bed, while you lay sleeping--for you, and
Mamie and myself; and--I don't know if you quite believe in
prayer, I'm a bit Ingersollian myself--but a kind of sweetness
came over me, and I couldn't help but think it was an answer. 
Never was a man so lucky!  You and me and Mamie; it's a
triple cord, Loudon.  If either of you were to die! And she likes
you so much, and thinks you so accomplished and distingue-
looking, and was just as set as I was to have you for best man. 
'Mr. Loudon,' she calls you; seems to me so friendly!  And she
sat up till three in the morning fixing up a costume for the
marriage; it did me good to see her, Loudon, and to see that
needle going, going, and to say 'All this hurry, Jim, is just to
marry you!'  I couldn't believe it; it was so like some blame'
fairy story.  To think of those old tin-type times about turned
my head; I was so unrefined then, and so illiterate, and so
lonesome; and here I am in clover, and I'm blamed if I can see
what I've done to deserve it."

So he poured forth with innocent volubility the fulness of his
heart; and I, from these irregular communications, must pick
out, here a little and there a little, the particulars of his new
plan.  They were to be married, sure enough, that day; the
wedding breakfast was to be at Frank's; the evening to be
passed in a visit of God-speed aboard the Norah Creina; and
then we were to part, Jim and I, he to his married life, I on my
sea-enterprise.  If ever I cherished an ill-feeling for Miss
Mamie, I forgave her now; so brave and kind, so pretty and
venturesome, was her decision.  The weather frowned overhead
with a leaden sky, and San Francisco had never (in all my
experience) looked so bleak and gaunt, and shoddy, and crazy,
like a city prematurely old; but through all my wanderings and
errands to and fro, by the dock side or in the jostling street,
among rude sounds and ugly sights, there ran in my mind, like
a tiny strain of music, the thought of my friend's happiness.

For that was indeed a day of many and incongruous
occupations.  Breakfast was scarce swallowed before Jim must
run to the City Hall and Frank's about the cares of marriage,
and I hurry to John Smith's upon the account of stores, and
thence, on a visit of certification, to the Norah Creina.
Methought she looked smaller than ever, sundry great ships
overspiring her from close without.  She was already a
nightmare of disorder; and the wharf alongside was piled with
a world of casks, and cases, and tins, and tools, and coils of
rope, and miniature barrels of giant powder, such as it seemed
no human ingenuity could stuff on board of her.  Johnson was
in the waist, in a red shirt and dungaree trousers, his eye
kindled with activity.  With him I exchanged a word or two;
thence stepped aft along the narrow alleyway between the
house and the rail, and down the companion to the main cabin,
where the captain sat with the commissioner at wine.

I gazed with disaffection at the little box which for many a day
I was to call home.  On the starboard was a stateroom for the
captain; on the port, a pair of frowsy berths, one over the other,
and abutting astern upon the side of an unsavoury cupboard. 
The walls were yellow and damp, the floor black and greasy;
there was a prodigious litter of straw, old newspapers, and
broken packing-cases; and by way of ornament, only a glass-
rack, a thermometer presented "with compliments" of some
advertising whiskey-dealer, and a swinging lamp.  It was hard
to foresee that, before a week was up, I should regard that
cabin as cheerful, lightsome, airy, and even spacious.

I was presented to the commissioner, and to a young friend of
his whom he had brought with him for the purpose (apparently)
of smoking cigars; and after we had pledged one another in a
glass of California port, a trifle sweet and sticky for a morning
beverage, the functionary spread his papers on the table, and
the hands were summoned.  Down they trooped, accordingly,
into the cabin; and stood eyeing the ceiling or the floor, the
picture of sheepish embarrassment, and with a common air of
wanting to expectorate and not quite daring.  In admirable
contrast, stood the Chinese cook, easy, dignified, set apart by
spotless raiment, the hidalgo of the seas.

I daresay you never had occasion to assist at the farce which
followed.  Our shipping laws in the United States (thanks to
the inimitable Dana) are conceived in a spirit of paternal
stringency, and proceed throughout on the hypothesis that poor
Jack is an imbecile, and the other parties to the contract, rogues
and ruffians.  A long and wordy paper of precautions, a fo'c's'le
bill of rights, must be read separately to each man.  I had now
the benefit of hearing it five times in brisk succession; and you
would suppose I was acquainted with its contents.  But the
commissioner (worthy man) spends his days in doing little
else; and when we bear in mind the parallel case of the
irreverent curate, we need not be surprised that he took the
passage tempo prestissimo, in one roulade of gabble --that I,
with the trained attention of an educated man, could gather but
a fraction of its import--and the sailors nothing.  No profanity
in giving orders, no sheath-knives, Midway Island and any
other port the master may direct, not to exceed six calendar
months, and to this port to be paid off:  so it seemed to run,
with surprising verbiage; so ended.  And with the end, the
commissioner, in each case, fetched a deep breath, resumed his
natural voice, and proceeded to business.  "Now, my man," he
would say, "you ship A. B. at so many dollars, American gold
coin.  Sign your name here, if you have one, and can write." 
Whereupon, and the name (with infinite hard breathing) being
signed, the commissioner would proceed to fill in the man's
appearance, height, etc., on the official form.  In this task of
literary portraiture he seemed to rely wholly upon temperament;
for I could not perceive him to cast one glance on any of his
models.  He was assisted, however, by a running commentary
from the captain: "Hair blue and eyes red, nose five foot seven,
and stature broken"--jests as old, presumably, as the American
marine; and, like the similar pleasantries of the billiard board,
perennially relished.  The highest note of humour was reached
in the case of the Chinese cook, who was shipped under the
name of "One Lung," to the sound of his own protests and the
self-approving chuckles of the functionary.

"Now, captain," said the latter, when the men were gone, and
he had bundled up his papers, "the law requires you to carry a
slop-chest and a chest of medicines."

"I guess I know that," said Nares.

"I guess you do," returned the commissioner, and helped
himself to port.

But when he was gone, I appealed to Nares on the same
subject, for I was well aware we carried none of these
provisions.

"Well," drawled Nares, "there's sixty pounds of niggerhead on
the quay, isn't there? and twenty pounds of salts; and I never
travel without some painkiller in my gripsack."

As a matter of fact, we were richer.  The captain had the usual
sailor's provision of quack medicines, with which, in the usual
sailor fashion, he would daily drug himself, displaying an
extreme inconstancy, and flitting from Kennedy's Red
Discovery to Kennedy's White, and from Hood's Sarsaparilla to
Mother Seigel's Syrup.  And there were, besides, some
mildewed and half-empty bottles, the labels obliterated, over
which Nares would sometimes sniff and speculate.  "Seems to
smell like diarrhoea stuff," he would remark.  "I wish't I knew,
and I would try it." But the slop-chest was indeed represented
by the plugs of niggerhead, and nothing else.  Thus paternal
laws are made, thus they are evaded; and the schooner put to
sea, like plenty of her neighbours, liable to a fine of six hundred
dollars.

This characteristic scene, which has delayed me overlong, was
but a moment in that day of exercise and agitation.  To fit out a
schooner for sea, and improvise a marriage between dawn and
dusk, involves heroic effort.  All day Jim and I ran, and
tramped, and laughed, and came near crying, and fell in sudden
anxious consultations, and were sped (with a prepared sarcasm
on our lips) to some fallacious milliner, and made dashes to the
schooner and John Smith's, and at every second corner were
reminded (by our own huge posters) of our desperate estate. 
Between whiles, I had found the time to hover at some half-a-
dozen jewellers' windows; and my present, thus intemperately
chosen, was graciously accepted.  I believe, indeed, that was
the last (though not the least) of my concerns, before the old
minister, shabby and benign, was routed from his house and
led to the office like a performing poodle; and there, in the
growing dusk, under the cold glitter of Thirteen Star, two
hundred strong, and beside the garish glories of the agricultural
engine, Mamie and Jim were made one.  The scene was
incongruous, but the business pretty, whimsical, and affecting:
the typewriters with such kindly faces and fine posies, Mamie
so demure, and Jim--how shall I describe that poor,
transfigured Jim?  He began by taking the minister aside to the
far end of the office.  I knew not what he said, but I have reason
to believe he was protesting his unfitness; for he wept as he
said it:  and the old minister, himself genuinely moved, was
heard to console and encourage him, and at one time to use this
expression:  "I assure you, Mr. Pinkerton, there are not many
who can say so much"--from which I gathered that my friend
had tempered his self-accusations with at least one legitimate
boast.  From this ghostly counselling, Jim turned to me; and
though he never got beyond the explosive utterance of my name
and one fierce handgrip, communicated some of his own
emotion, like a charge of electricity, to his best man.  We stood
up to the ceremony at last, in a general and kindly
discomposure.  Jim was all abroad; and the divine himself
betrayed his sympathy in voice and demeanour, and concluded
with a fatherly allocution, in which he congratulated Mamie
(calling her "my dear") upon the fortune of an excellent
husband, and protested he had rarely married a more
interesting couple.  At this stage, like a glory descending, there
was handed in, ex machina, the card of Douglas B. Longhurst,
with congratulations and four dozen Perrier-Jouet.  A bottle
was opened; and the minister pledged the bride, and the
bridesmaids simpered and tasted, and I made a speech with
airy bacchanalianism, glass in hand.  But poor Jim must leave
the wine untasted.  "Don't touch it," I had found the opportunity
to whisper; "in your state it will make you as drunk as a
fiddler."  And Jim had wrung my hand with a "God bless you,
Loudon!--saved me again!"

Hard following upon this, the supper passed off at Frank's with
somewhat tremulous gaiety.  And thence, with one half of the
Perrier-Jouet--I would accept no more--we voyaged in a hack to
the Norah Creina.

"What a dear little ship!" cried Mamie, as our miniature craft
was pointed out to her.  And then, on second thought, she
turned to the best man.  "And how brave you must be, Mr.
Dodd," she cried, "to go in that tiny thing so far upon the
ocean!"  And I perceived I had risen in the lady's estimation.

The dear little ship presented a horrid picture of confusion, and
its occupants of weariness and ill-humour.  From the cabin the
cook was storing tins into the lazarette, and the four hands,
sweaty and sullen, were passing them from one to another from
the waist.  Johnson was three parts asleep over the table; and in
his bunk, in his own cabin, the captain sourly chewed and
puffed at a cigar.

"See here," he said, rising; "you'll be sorry you came.  We can't
stop work if we're to get away to-morrow.  A ship getting ready
for sea is no place for people, anyway.  You'll only interrupt my
men."

I was on the point of answering something tart; but Jim, who
was acquainted with the breed, as he was with most things that
had a bearing on affairs, made haste to pour in oil.

"Captain," he said, "I know we're a nuisance here, and that
you've had a rough time.  But all we want is that you should
drink one glass of wine with us, Perrier-Jouet, from Longhurst,
on the occasion of my marriage, and Loudon's--Mr. Dodd's--
departure."

"Well, it's your lookout," said Nares.  "I don't mind half an
hour.  Spell, O!" he added to the men; "go and kick your heels
for half an hour, and then you can turn to again a trifle livelier. 
Johnson, see if you can't wipe off a chair for the lady."

His tone was no more gracious than his language; but when
Mamie had turned upon him the soft fire of her eyes, and
informed him that he was the first sea-captain she had ever
met, "except captains of steamers, of course"--she so qualified
the statement--and had expressed a lively sense of his courage,
and perhaps implied (for I suppose the arts of ladies are the
same as those of men) a modest consciousness of his good
looks, our bear began insensibly to soften; and it was already
part as an apology, though still with unaffected heat of temper,
that he volunteered some sketch of his annoyances.

"A pretty mess we've had!" said he.  "Half the stores were
wrong; I'll wring John Smith's neck for him some of these days. 
Then two newspaper beasts came down, and tried to raise copy
out of me, till I threatened them with the first thing handy; and
then some kind of missionary bug, wanting to work his passage
to Raiatea or somewhere.  I told him I would take him off the
wharf with the butt end of my boot, and he went away cursing. 
This vessel's been depreciated by the look of him."

While the captain spoke, with his strange, humorous, arrogant
abruptness, I observed Jim to be sizing him up, like a thing at
once quaint and familiar, and with a scrutiny that was both
curious and knowing.

"One word, dear boy," he said, turning suddenly to me.  And
when he had drawn me on deck, "That man," says he, "will
carry sail till your hair grows white; but never you let on, never
breathe a word.  I know his line:  he'll die before he'll take
advice; and if you get his back up, he'll run you right under.  I
don't often jam in my advice, Loudon; and when I do, it means
I'm thoroughly posted."

The little party in the cabin, so disastrously begun, finished,
under the mellowing influence of wine and woman, in excellent
feeling and with some hilarity.  Mamie, in a plush
Gainsborough hat and a gown of wine-coloured silk, sat, an
apparent queen, among her rude surroundings and companions. 
The dusky litter of the cabin set off her radiant trimness:  tarry
Johnson was a foil to her fair beauty; she glowed in that poor
place, fair as a star; until even I, who was not usually of her
admirers, caught a spark of admiration; and even the captain,
who was in no courtly humour, proposed that the scene should
be commemorated by my pencil.  It was the last act of the
evening.  Hurriedly as I went about my task, the half-hour had
lengthened out to more than three before it was completed:
Mamie in full value, the rest of the party figuring in outline
only, and the artist himself introduced in a back view, which
was pronounced a likeness.  But it was to Mamie that I devoted
the best of my attention; and it was with her I made my chief
success.

"O!" she cried, "am I really like that?  No wonder Jim ..." She
paused.  "Why it's just as lovely as he's good!" she cried:  an
epigram which was appreciated, and repeated as we made our
salutations, and called out after the retreating couple as they
passed away under the lamplight on the wharf.

Thus it was that our farewells were smuggled through under an
ambuscade of laughter, and the parting over ere I knew it was
begun.  The figures vanished, the steps died away along the
silent city front; on board, the men had returned to their
labours, the captain to his solitary cigar; and after that long and
complex day of business and emotion, I was at last alone and
free.  It was, perhaps, chiefly fatigue that made my heart so
heavy.  I leaned at least upon the house, and stared at the foggy
heaven, or over the rail at the wavering reflection of the lamps,
like a man that was quite done with hope and would have
welcomed the asylum of the grave.  And all at once, as I thus
stood, the City of Pekin flashed into my mind, racing her
thirteen knots for Honolulu, with the hated Trent--perhaps with
the mysterious Goddedaal--on board; and with the thought, the
blood leaped and careered through all my body.  It seemed no
chase at all; it seemed we had no chance, as we lay there bound
to iron pillars, and fooling away the precious moments over tins
of beans.  "Let them get there first!" I thought.  "Let them!  We
can't be long behind."  And from that moment, I date myself a
man of a rounded experience: nothing had lacked but this, that
I should entertain and welcome the grim thought of bloodshed.

It was long before the toil remitted in the cabin, and it was
worth my while to get to bed; long after that, before sleep
favoured me; and scarce a moment later (or so it seemed) when
I was recalled to consciousness by bawling men and the jar of
straining hawsers.

The schooner was cast off before I got on deck.  In the misty
obscurity of the first dawn, I saw the tug heading us with
glowing fires and blowing smoke, and heard her beat the
roughened waters of the bay.  Beside us, on her flock of hills,
the lighted city towered up and stood swollen in the raw fog.  It
was strange to see her burn on thus wastefully, with half-
quenched luminaries, when the dawn was already grown strong
enough to show me, and to suffer me to recognise, a solitary
figure standing by the piles.

Or was it really the eye, and not rather the heart, that identified
that shadow in the dusk, among the shoreside lamps?  I know
not.  It was Jim, at least; Jim, come for a last look; and we had
but time to wave a valedictory gesture and exchange a wordless
cry.  This was our second parting, and our capacities were now
reversed.  It was mine to play the Argonaut, to speed affairs, to
plan and to accomplish--if need were, at the price of life; it was
his to sit at home, to study the calendar, and to wait.  I knew
besides another thing that gave me joy.  I knew that my friend
had succeeded in my education; that the romance of business, if
our fantastic purchase merited the name, had at last stirred my
dilletante nature; and, as we swept under cloudy Tamalpais and
through the roaring narrows of the bay, the Yankee blood sang
in my veins with suspense and exultation.

Outside the heads, as if to meet my desire, we found it blowing
fresh from the northeast.  No time had been lost.  The sun was
not yet up before the tug cast off the hawser, gave us a salute of
three whistles, and turned homeward toward the coast, which
now began to gleam along its margin with the earliest rays of
day.  There was no other ship in view when the Norah Creina, 
lying over under all plain sail, began her long and lonely
voyage to the wreck.



 CHAPTER XII.

 THE "NORAH CREINA."


I love to recall the glad monotony of a Pacific voyage, when the
trades are not stinted, and the ship, day after day, goes free. 
The mountain scenery of trade-wind clouds, watched (and in
my case painted) under every vicissitude of light--blotting stars,
withering in the moon's glory, barring the scarlet eve, lying
across the dawn collapsed into the unfeatured morning bank, or
at noon raising their snowy summits between the blue roof of
heaven and the blue floor of sea; the small, busy, and deliberate
world of the schooner, with its unfamiliar scenes, the spearing
of dolphin from the bowsprit end, the holy war on sharks, the
cook making bread on the main hatch; reefing down before a
violent squall, with the men hanging out on the foot-ropes; the
squall itself, the catch at the heart, the opened sluices of the
sky; and the relief, the renewed loveliness of life, when all is
over, the sun forth again, and our out-fought enemy only a blot
upon the leeward sea.  I love to recall, and would that I could
reproduce that life, the unforgettable, the unrememberable.  The
memory, which shows so wise a backwardness in registering
pain, is besides an imperfect recorder of extended pleasures;
and a long-continued well-being escapes (as it were, by its
mass) our petty methods of commemoration.  On a part of our
life's map there lies a roseate, undecipherable haze, and that is
all.

Of one thing, if I am at all to trust my own annals, I was
delightedly conscious.  Day after day, in the sun-gilded cabin,
the whiskey-dealer's thermometer stood at 84.  Day after day,
the air had the same indescribable liveliness and sweetness,
soft and nimble, and cool as the cheek of health.  Day after day
the sun flamed; night after night the moon beaconed, or the
stars paraded their lustrous regiment.  I was aware of a
spiritual change, or, perhaps, rather a molecular reconstitution. 
My bones were sweeter to me.  I had come home to my own
climate, and looked back with pity on those damp and wintry
zones, miscalled the temperate.

"Two years of this, and comfortable quarters to live in, kind of
shake the grit out of a man," the captain remarked; "can't make
out to be happy anywhere else.  A townie of mine was lost
down this way, in a coalship that took fire at sea.  He struck the
beach somewhere in the Navigators; and he wrote to me that
when he left the place, it would be feet first.  He's well off, too,
and his father owns some coasting craft Down East; but Billy
prefers the beach, and hot rolls off the bread-fruit trees."

A voice told me I was on the same track as Billy.  But when
was this?  Our outward track in the Norah Creina lay well to
the northward; and perhaps it is but the impression of a few pet
days which I have unconsciously spread longer, or perhaps the
feeling grew upon me later, in the run to Honolulu.  One thing I
am sure:  it was before I had ever seen an island worthy of the
name that I must date my loyalty to the South Seas.  The blank
sea itself grew desirable under such skies; and wherever the
trade-wind blows, I know no better country than a schooner's
deck.

But for the tugging anxiety as to the journey's end, the journey
itself must thus have counted for the best of holidays.  My
physical well-being was over-proof; effects of sea and sky kept
me for ever busy with my pencil; and I had no lack of
intellectual exercise of a different order in the study of my
inconsistent friend, the captain.  I call him friend, here on the
threshold; but that is to look well ahead.  At first, I was too
much horrified by what I considered his barbarities, too much
puzzled by his shifting humours, and too frequently annoyed by
his small vanities, to regard him otherwise than as the cross of
my existence.  It was only by degrees, in his rare hours of
pleasantness, when he forgot (and made me forget) the
weaknesses to which he was so prone, that he won me to a
kind of unconsenting fondness.  Lastly, the faults were all
embraced in a more generous view:  I saw them in their place,
like discords in a musical progression; and accepted them and
found them picturesque, as we accept and admire, in the
habitable face of nature, the smoky head of the volcano or the
pernicious thicket of the swamp.

He was come of good people Down East, and had the
beginnings of a thorough education.  His temper had been
ungovernable from the first; and it is likely the defect was
inherited, and the blame of the rupture not entirely his.  He ran
away at least to sea; suffered horrible maltreatment, which
seemed to have rather hardened than enlightened him; ran
away again to shore in a South American port; proved his
capacity and made money, although still a child; fell among
thieves and was robbed; worked back a passage to the States,
and knocked one morning at the door of an old lady whose
orchard he had often robbed.  The introduction appears
insufficient; but Nares knew what he was doing.  The sight of
her old neighbourly depredator shivering at the door in tatters,
the very oddity of his appeal, touched a soft spot in the
spinster's heart.  "I always had a fancy for the old lady," Nares
said, "even when she used to stampede me out of the orchard,
and shake her thimble and her old curls at me out of the
window as I was going by; I always thought she was a kind of
pleasant old girl.  Well, when she came to the door that
morning, I told her so, and that I was stone-broke; and she took
me right in, and fetched out the pie."  She clothed him, taught
him, and had him to sea again in better shape, welcomed him
to her hearth on his return from every cruise, and when she died
bequeathed him her possessions.  "She was a good old girl," he
would say.  "I tell you, Mr. Dodd, it was a queer thing to see
me and the old lady talking a pasear in the garden, and the old
man scowling at us over the pickets.  She lived right next door
to the old man, and I guess that's just what took me there.  I
wanted him to know that I was badly beat, you see, and would
rather go to the devil than to him.  What made the dig harder,
he had quarrelled with the old lady about me and the orchard:  I
guess that made him rage.  Yes, I was a beast when I was
young.  But I was always pretty good to the old lady."  Since
then he had prospered, not uneventfully, in his profession; the
old lady's money had fallen in during the voyage of the
Gleaner, and he was now, as soon as the smoke of that
engagement cleared away, secure of his ship.  I suppose he was
about thirty: a powerful, active man, with a blue eye, a thick
head of hair, about the colour of oakum and growing low over
the brow; clean-shaved and lean about the jaw; a good singer; a
good performer on that sea-instrument, the accordion; a quick
observer, a close reasoner; when he pleased, of a really elegant
address; and when he chose, the greatest brute upon the seas.

His usage of the men, his hazing, his bullying, his perpetual
fault-finding for no cause, his perpetual and brutal sarcasm,
might have raised a mutiny in a slave galley.  Suppose the
steersman's eye to have wandered:  "You ----, ----, little,
mutton-faced Dutchman," Nares would bawl; "you want a
booting to keep you on your course!  I know a little city-front
slush when I see one.  Just you glue your eye to that compass,
or I'll show you round the vessel at the butt-end of my boot." 
Or suppose a hand to linger aft, whither he had perhaps been
summoned not a minute before.  "Mr. Daniells, will you oblige
me by stepping clear of that main-sheet?" the captain might
begin, with truculent courtesy.  "Thank you.  And perhaps
you'll be so kind as to tell me what the hell you're doing on my
quarter-deck?  I want no dirt of your sort here.  Is there nothing
for you to do?  Where's the mate?  Don't you set ME to find
work for you, or I'll find you some that will keep you on your
back a fortnight."  Such allocutions, conceived with a perfect
knowledge of his audience, so that every insult carried home,
were delivered with a mien so menacing, and an eye so fiercely
cruel, that his unhappy subordinates shrank and quailed.  Too
often violence followed; too often I have heard and seen and
boiled at the cowardly aggression; and the victim, his hands
bound by law, has risen again from deck and crawled forward
stupefied--I know not what passion of revenge in his wronged
heart.

It seems strange I should have grown to like this tyrant.  It may
even seem strange that I should have stood by and suffered his
excesses to proceed.  But I was not quite such a chicken as to
interfere in public; for I would rather have a man or two
mishandled than one half of us butchered in a mutiny and the
rest suffer on the gallows.  And in private, I was unceasing in
my protests.

"Captain," I once said to him, appealing to his patriotism,
which was of a hardy quality, "this is no way to treat American
seamen.  You don't call it American to treat men like dogs?"

"Americans?" he said grimly.  "Do you call these Dutchmen
and Scattermouches [1] Americans?  I've been fourteen years to
sea, all but one trip under American colours, and I've never laid
eye on an American foremast hand.  There used to be such
things in the old days, when thirty-five dollars were the wages
out of Boston; and then you could see ships handled and run
the way they want to be.  But that's all past and gone; and
nowadays the only thing that flies in an American ship is a
belaying-pin.  You don't know; you haven't a guess.  How
would you like to go on deck for your middle watch, fourteen
months on end, with all your duty to do and every one's life
depending on you, and expect to get a knife ripped into you as
you come out of your stateroom, or be sand-bagged as you pass
the boat, or get tripped into the hold, if the hatches are off in
fine weather?  That kind of shakes the starch out of the
brotherly love and New Jerusalem business.  You go through
the mill, and you'll have a bigger grudge against every old
shellback that dirties his plate in the three oceans, than the
Bank of California could settle up.  No; it has an ugly look to it,
but the only way to run a ship is to make yourself a terror."

[1] In sea-lingo (Pacific) DUTCHMAN includes all Teutons
and folk from the basin of the Baltic; SCATTERMOUCH, all
Latins and Levantines.

"Come, Captain," said I, "there are degrees in everything.  You
know American ships have a bad name; you know perfectly
well if it wasn't for the high wage and the good food, there's not
a man would ship in one if he could help; and even as it is,
some prefer a British ship, beastly food and all."

"O, the lime-juicers?" said he.  "There's plenty booting in lime-
juicers, I guess; though I don't deny but what some of them are
soft."  And with that he smiled like a man recalling something. 
"Look here, that brings a yarn in my head," he resumed; "and
for the sake of the joke, I'll give myself away.  It was in 1874, I
shipped mate in the British ship Maria, from 'Frisco for
Melbourne.  She was the queerest craft in some ways that ever
I was aboard of.  The food was a caution; there was nothing fit
to put your lips to--but the lime-juice, which was from the end
bin no doubt:  it used to make me sick to see the men's dinners,
and sorry to see my own.  The old man was good enough, I
guess; Green was his name; a mild, fatherly old galoot.  But the
hands were the lowest gang I ever handled; and whenever I
tried to knock a little spirit into them, the old man took their
part!  It was Gilbert and Sullivan on the high seas; but you bet I
wouldn't let any man dictate to me.  'You give me your orders,
Captain Green,' I said, 'and you'll find I'll carry them out; that's
all you've got to say.  You'll find I do my duty,' I said; 'how I do
it is my lookout; and there's no man born that's going to give
me lessons.'  Well, there was plenty dirt on board that Maria
first and last.  Of course, the old man put my back up, and, of
course, he put up the crew's; and I had to regular fight my way
through every watch.  The men got to hate me, so's I would
hear them grit their teeth when I came up.  At last, one day, I
saw a big hulking beast of a Dutchman booting the ship's boy. 
I made one shoot of it off the house and laid that Dutchman
out.  Up he came, and I laid him out again.  'Now,' I said, 'if
there's a kick left in you, just mention it, and I'll stamp your
ribs in like a packing-case.'  He thought better of it, and never
let on; lay there as mild as a deacon at a funeral; and they took
him below to reflect on his native Dutchland.  One night we got
caught in rather a dirty thing about 25 south.  I guess we were
all asleep; for the first thing I knew there was the fore-royal
gone.  I ran forward, bawling blue hell; and just as I came by
the foremast, something struck me right through the forearm
and stuck there.  I put my other hand up, and by George! it was
the grain; the beasts had speared me like a porpoise.  'Cap'n!' I
cried.--'What's wrong?' says he.--'They've grained me,' says I.--
'Grained you?' says he.  'Well, I've been looking for that.'----
'And by God,' I cried, 'I want to have some of these beasts
murdered for it!'--'Now, Mr. Nares,' says he, 'you better go
below.  If I had been one of the men, you'd have got more than
this.  And I want no more of your language on deck.  You've
cost me my fore-royal already,' says he; 'and if you carry on,
you'll have the three sticks out of her.'  That was old man
Green's idea of supporting officers.  But you wait a bit; the
cream's coming.  We made Melbourne right enough, and the
old man said:  'Mr. Nares, you and me don't draw together. 
You're a first-rate seaman, no mistake of that; but you're the
most disagreeable man I ever sailed with; and your language
and your conduct to the crew I cannot stomach.  I guess we'll
separate.'  I didn't care about the berth, you may be sure; but I
felt kind of mean; and if he made one kind of stink, I thought I
could make another.  So I said I would go ashore and see how
things stood; went, found I was all right, and came aboard
again on the top rail.--'Are you getting your traps together, Mr.
Nares?' says the old man.--'No,' says I, 'I don't know as we'll
separate much before 'Frisco; at least,' I said, 'it's a point for
your consideration.  I'm very willing to say good-by to the
Maria, but I don't know whether you'll care to start me out with
three months' wages.'  He got his money-box right away.  'My
son,' says he, 'I think it cheap at the money.'  He had me there."


It was a singular tale for a man to tell of himself; above all, in
the midst of our discussion; but it was quite in character for
Nares.  I never made a good hit in our disputes, I never justly
resented any act or speech of his, but what I found it long after
carefully posted in his day-book and reckoned (here was the
man's oddity) to my credit.  It was the same with his father,
whom he had hated; he would give a sketch of the old fellow,
frank and credible, and yet so honestly touched that it was
charming.  I have never met a man so strangely constituted:  to
possess a reason of the most equal justice, to have his nerves at
the same time quivering with petty spite, and to act upon the
nerves and not the reason.

A kindred wonder in my eyes was the nature of his courage. 
There was never a braver man:  he went out to welcome
danger; an emergency (came it never so sudden) strung him
like a tonic.  And yet, upon the other hand, I have known none
so nervous, so oppressed with possibilities, looking upon the
world at large, and the life of a sailor in particular, with so
constant and haggard a consideration of the ugly chances.  All
his courage was in blood, not merely cold, but icy with
reasoned apprehension.  He would lay our little craft rail under,
and "hang on" in a squall, until I gave myself up for lost, and
the men were rushing to their stations of their own accord. 
"There," he would say, "I guess there's not a man on board
would have hung on as long as I did that time; they'll have to
give up thinking me no schooner sailor.  I guess I can shave
just as near capsizing as any other captain of this vessel, drunk
or sober." And then he would fall to repining and wishing
himself well out of the enterprise, and dilate on the peril of the
seas, the particular dangers of the schooner rig, which he
abhorred, the various ways in which we might go to the
bottom, and the prodigious fleet of ships that have sailed out in
the course of history, dwindled from the eyes of watchers, and
returned no more.  "Well," he would wind up, "I guess it don't
much matter.  I can't see what any one wants to live for,
anyway.  If I could get into some one else's apple-tree, and be
about twelve years old, and just stick the way I was, eating
stolen apples, I won't say.  But there's no sense in this
grown-up business--sailorising, politics, the piety mill, and all
the rest of it.  Good clean drowning is good enough for me."  It
is hard to imagine any more depressing talk for a poor
landsman on a dirty night; it is hard to imagine anything less
sailor-like (as sailors are supposed to be, and generally are)
than this persistent harping on the minor.


But I was to see more of the man's gloomy constancy ere the
cruise was at an end.

On the morning of the seventeenth day I came on deck, to find
the schooner under double reefs, and flying rather wild before a
heavy run of sea.  Snoring trades and humming sails had been
our portion hitherto.  We were already nearing the island.  My
restrained excitement had begun again to overmaster me; and
for some time my only book had been the patent log that trailed
over the taffrail, and my chief interest the daily observation and
our caterpillar progress across the chart.  My first glance,
which was at the compass, and my second, which was at the
log, were all that I could wish.  We lay our course; we had been
doing over eight since nine the night before; and I drew a heavy
breath of satisfaction.  And then I know not what odd and
wintry appearance of the sea and sky knocked suddenly at my
heart.  I observed the schooner to look more than usually small,
the men silent and studious of the weather.  Nares, in one of his
rusty humours, afforded me no shadow of a morning salutation. 
He, too, seemed to observe the behaviour of the ship with an
intent and anxious scrutiny.  What I liked still less, Johnson
himself was at the wheel, which he span busily, often with a
visible effort; and as the seas ranged up behind us, black and
imminent, he kept casting behind him eyes of animal swiftness,
and drawing in his neck between his shoulders, like a man
dodging a blow.  From these signs, I gathered that all was not
exactly for the best; and I would have given a good handful of
dollars for a plain answer to the questions which I dared not
put.  Had I dared, with the present danger signal in the
captain's face, I should only have been reminded of my position
as supercargo--an office never touched upon in kindness--and
advised, in a very indigestible manner, to go below.  There was
nothing for it, therefore, but to entertain my vague
apprehensions as best I should be able, until it pleased the
captain to enlighten me of his own accord.  This he did sooner
than I had expected; as soon, indeed, as the Chinaman had
summoned us to breakfast, and we sat face to face across the
narrow board.

"See here, Mr. Dodd," he began, looking at me rather queerly,
"here is a business point arisen.  This sea's been running up for
the last two days, and now it's too high for comfort.  The glass
is falling, the wind is breezing up, and I won't say but what
there's dirt in it.  If I lay her to, we may have to ride out a gale
of wind and drift God knows where--on these French Frigate
Shoals, for instance.  If I keep her as she goes, we'll make that
island to-morrow afternoon, and have the lee of it to lie under,
if we can't make out to run in.  The point you have to figure on,
is whether you'll take the big chances of that Captain Trent
making the place before you, or take the risk of something
happening.  I'm to run this ship to your satisfaction," he added,
with an ugly sneer.  "Well, here's a point for the supercargo."

"Captain," I returned, with my heart in my mouth, "risk is
better than certain failure."

"Life is all risk, Mr. Dodd," he remarked.  "But there's one
thing:  it's now or never; in half an hour, Archdeacon Gabriel
couldn't lay her to, if he came down stairs on purpose."

"All right," said I. "Llet's run."

"Run goes," said he; and with that he fell to breakfast, and
passed half an hour in stowing away pie and devoutly wishing
himself back in San Francisco.

When we came on deck again, he took the wheel from Johnson
--it appears they could trust none among the hands--and I stood
close beside him, feeling safe in this proximity, and tasting a
fearful joy from our surroundings and the consciousness of my
decision.  The breeze had already risen, and as it tore over our
heads, it uttered at times a long hooting note that sent my heart
into my boots.  The sea pursued us without remission, leaping
to the assault of the low rail.  The quarter-deck was all awash,
and we must close the companion doors.

"And all this, if you please, for Mr. Pinkerton's dollars!" the
captain suddenly exclaimed.  "There's many a fine fellow gone
under, Mr. Dodd, because of drivers like your friend.  What do
they care for a ship or two?  Insured, I guess.  What do they
care for sailors' lives alongside of a few thousand dollars? 
What they want is speed between ports, and a damned fool of a
captain that'll drive a ship under as I'm doing this one.  You
can put in the morning, asking why I do it."

I sheered off to another part of the vessel as fast as civility
permitted.  This was not at all the talk that I desired, nor was
the train of reflection which it started anyway welcome.  Here I
was, running some hazard of my life, and perilling the lives of
seven others; exactly for what end, I was now at liberty to ask
myself.  For a very large amount of a very deadly poison, was
the obvious answer; and I thought if all tales were true, and I
were soon to be subjected to cross-examination at the bar of
Eternal Justice, it was one which would not increase my
popularity with the court.  "Well, never mind, Jim," thought I.
"I'm doing it for you."

Before eleven, a third reef was taken in the mainsail; and
Johnson filled the cabin with a storm-sail of No. 1 duck and sat
cross-legged on the streaming floor, vigorously putting it to
rights with a couple of the hands.  By dinner I had fled the
deck, and sat in the bench corner, giddy, dumb, and stupefied
with terror.  The frightened leaps of the poor Norah Creina,
spanking like a stag for bare existence, bruised me between the
table and the berths.  Overhead, the wild huntsman of the storm
passed continuously in one blare of mingled noises; screaming
wind, straining timber, lashing rope's end, pounding block and
bursting sea contributed; and I could have thought there was at
times another, a more piercing, a more human note, that
dominated all, like the wailing of an angel; I could have
thought I knew the angel's name, and that his wings were
black.  It seemed incredible that any creature of man's art could
long endure the barbarous mishandling of the seas, kicked as
the schooner was from mountain side to mountain side, beaten
and blown upon and wrenched in every joint and sinew, like a
child upon the rack.  There was not a plank of her that did not
cry aloud for mercy; and as she continued to hold together, I
became conscious of a growing sympathy with her endeavours,
a growing admiration for her gallant staunchness, that amused
and at times obliterated my terrors for myself.  God bless every
man that swung a mallet on that tiny and strong hull!  It was
not for wages only that he laboured, but to save men's lives.

All the rest of the day, and all the following night, I sat in the
corner or lay wakeful in my bunk; and it was only with the
return of morning that a new phase of my alarms drove me
once more on deck.  A gloomier interval I never passed. 
Johnson and Nares steadily relieved each other at the wheel
and came below.  The first glance of each was at the glass,
which he repeatedly knuckled and frowned upon; for it was
sagging lower all the time.  Then, if Johnson were the visitor,
he would pick a snack out of the cupboard, and stand, braced
against the table, eating it, and perhaps obliging me with a
word or two of his hee-haw conversation:  how it was "a son of
a gun of a cold night on deck, Mr. Dodd" (with a grin); how "it
wasn't no night for panjammers, he could tell me":  having
transacted all which, he would throw himself down in his bunk
and sleep his two hours with compunction.  But the captain
neither ate nor slept.  "You there, Mr. Dodd?" he would say,
after the obligatory visit to the glass.  "Well, my son, we're one
hundred and four miles" (or whatever it was) "off the island,
and scudding for all we're worth.  We'll make it to-morrow
about four, or not, as the case may be.  That's the news.  And
now, Mr. Dodd, I've stretched a point for you; you can see I'm
dead tired; so just you stretch away back to your bunk again."
And with this attempt at geniality, his teeth would settle hard
down on his cigar, and he would pass his spell below staring
and blinking at the cabin lamp through a cloud of tobacco 
smoke.  He has told me since that he was happy, which I
should never have divined.  "You see," he said, "the wind we
had was never anything out of the way; but the sea was really
nasty, the schooner wanted a lot of humouring, and it was clear
from the glass that we were close to some dirt.  We might be
running out of it, or we might be running right crack into it. 
Well, there's always something sublime about a big deal like
that; and it kind of raises a man in his own liking.  We're a
queer kind of beasts, Mr. Dodd."

The morning broke with sinister brightness; the air alarmingly
transparent, the sky pure, the rim of the horizon clear and
strong against the heavens.  The wind and the wild seas, now
vastly swollen, indefatigably hunted us.  I stood on deck,
choking with fear; I seemed to lose all power upon my limbs;
my knees were as paper when she plunged into the murderous
valleys; my heart collapsed when some black mountain fell in
avalanche beside her counter, and the water, that was more
than spray, swept round my ankles like a torrent.  I was
conscious of but one strong desire, to bear myself decently in
my terrors, and whatever should happen to my life, preserve my
character:  as the captain said, we are a queer kind of beasts. 
Breakfast time came, and I made shift to swallow some hot tea. 
Then I must stagger below to take the time, reading the
chronometer with dizzy eyes, and marvelling the while what
value there could be in observations taken in a ship launched
(as ours then was) like a missile among flying seas.  The
forenoon dragged on in a grinding monotony of peril; every
spoke of the wheel a rash, but an obliged experiment--rash as a
forlorn hope, needful as the leap that lands a fireman from a
burning staircase.  Noon was made; the captain dined on his
day's work, and I on watching him; and our place was entered
on the chart with a meticulous precision which seemed to me
half pitiful and half absurd, since the next eye to behold that
sheet of paper might be the eye of an exploring fish.  One
o'clock came, then two; the captain gloomed and chafed, as he
held to the coaming of the house, and if ever I saw dormant
murder in man's eye, it was in his.  God help the hand that
should have disobeyed him.

Of a sudden, he turned towards the mate, who was doing his
trick at the wheel.

"Two points on the port bow," I heard him say.  And he took
the wheel himself.

Johnson nodded, wiped his eyes with the back of his wet hand,
watched a chance as the vessel lunged up hill, and got to the
main rigging, where he swarmed aloft.  Up and up, I watched
him go, hanging on at every ugly plunge, gaining with every
lull of the schooner's movement, until, clambering into the
cross-trees and clinging with one arm around the masts, I could
see him take one comprehensive sweep of the southwesterly
horizon.  The next moment, he had slid down the backstay and
stood on deck, with a grin, a nod, and a gesture of the finger
that said "yes"; the next again, and he was back sweating and
squirming at the wheel, his tired face streaming and smiling,
and his hair and the rags and corners of his clothes lashing
round him in the wind.

Nares went below, fetched up his binocular, and fell into a
silent perusal of the sea-line; I also, with my unaided eyesight. 
Little by little, in that white waste of water, I began to make out
a quarter where the whiteness appeared more condensed: the
sky above was whitish likewise, and misty like a squall; and
little by little there thrilled upon my ears a note deeper and
more terrible than the yelling of the gale--the long, thundering
roll of breakers.  Nares wiped his night glass on his sleeve and
passed it to me, motioning, as he did so, with his hand.  An
endless wilderness of raging billows came and went and
danced in the circle of the glass; now and then a pale corner of
sky, or the strong line of the horizon rugged with the heads of
waves; and then of a sudden--come and gone ere I could fix it,
with a swallow's swiftness--one glimpse of what we had come
so far and paid so dear to see:  the masts and rigging of a brig
pencilled on heaven, with an ensign streaming at the main, and
the ragged ribbons of a topsail thrashing from the yard.  Again
and again, with toilful searching, I recalled that apparition. 
There was no sign of any land; the wreck stood between sea
and sky, a thing the most isolated I had ever viewed; but as we
drew nearer, I perceived her to be defended by a line of
breakers which drew off on either hand, and marked, indeed,
the nearest segment of the reef.  Heavy spray hung over them
like a smoke, some hundred feet into the air; and the sound of
their consecutive explosions rolled like a cannonade. 

In half an hour we were close in; for perhaps as long again, we
skirted that formidable barrier toward its farther side; and
presently the sea began insensibly to moderate and the ship to
go more sweetly.  We had gained the lee of the island as (for
form's sake) I may call that ring of foam and haze and thunder;
and shaking out a reef, wore ship and headed for the passage.



 CHAPTER XIII.

 THE ISLAND AND THE WRECK.


All hands were filled with joy.  It was betrayed in their alacrity
and easy faces:  Johnson smiling broadly at the wheel, Nares
studying the sketch chart of the island with an eye at peace, and
the hands clustered forward, eagerly talking and pointing:  so
manifest was our escape, so wonderful the attraction of a single
foot of earth after so many suns had set and risen on an empty
sea.  To add to the relief, besides, by one of those malicious
coincidences which suggest for fate the image of an underbred
and grinning schoolboy, we had no sooner worn ship than the
wind began to abate.

For myself, however, I did but exchange anxieties.  I was no
sooner out of one fear than I fell upon another; no sooner secure
that I should myself make the intended haven, than I began to
be convinced that Trent was there before me.  I climbed into the
rigging, stood on the board, and eagerly scanned that ring of
coral reef and bursting breaker, and the blue lagoon which they
enclosed.  The two islets within began to show plainly--Middle
Brooks and Lower Brooks Island, the Directory named them:
two low, bush-covered, rolling strips of sand, each with
glittering beaches, each perhaps a mile or a mile and a half in
length, running east and west, and divided by a narrow
channel.  Over these, innumerable as maggots, there hovered,
chattered, screamed and clanged, millions of twinkling sea-
birds:  white and black; the black by far the largest.  With
singular scintillations, this vortex of winged life swayed to and
fro in the strong sunshine, whirled continually through itself,
and would now and again burst asunder and scatter as wide as
the lagoon:  so that I was irresistibly reminded of what I had
read of nebular convulsions.  A thin cloud overspread the area
of the reef and the adjacent sea--the dust, as I could not but
fancy, of earlier explosions.  And a little apart, there was yet
another focus of centrifugal and centripetal flight, where, hard
by the deafening line of breakers, her sails (all but the tattered
topsail) snugly furled down, and the red rag that marks Old
England on the seas beating, union down, at the main--the
Flying Scud, the fruit of so many toilers, a recollection in so
many lives of men, whose tall spars had been mirrored in the
remotest corners of the sea--lay stationary at last and forever, in
the first stage of naval dissolution.  Towards her, the taut
Norah Creina, vulture-wise, wriggled to windward:  come from
so far to pick her bones.  And, look as I pleased, there was no
other presence of man or of man's handiwork; no Honolulu
schooner lay there crowded with armed rivals, no smoke rose
from the fire at which I fancied Trent cooking a meal of sea-
birds.  It seemed, after all, we were in time, and I drew a
mighty breath.

I had not arrived at this reviving certainty before the breakers
were already close aboard, the leadsman at his station, and the
captain posted in the fore cross-trees to con us through the coral
lumps of the lagoon.  All circumstances were in our favour, the
light behind, the sun low, the wind still fresh and steady, and
the tide about the turn.  A moment later we shot at racing speed
betwixt two pier heads of broken water; the lead began to be
cast, the captain to bawl down his anxious directions, the
schooner to tack and dodge among the scattered dangers of the
lagoon; and at one bell in the first dog watch, we had come to
our anchor off the north-east end of Middle Brooks Island, in
five fathoms water.  The sails were gasketted and covered, the
boats emptied of the miscellaneous stores and odds and ends of
sea-furniture, that accumulate in the course of a voyage, the
kedge sent ashore, and the decks tidied down:  a good three-
quarters of an hour's work, during which I raged about the deck
like a man with a strong toothache.  The transition from the
wild sea to the comparative immobility of the lagoon had
wrought strange distress among my nerves:  I could not hold
still whether in hand or foot; the slowness of the men, tired as
dogs after our rough experience outside, irritated me like
something personal; and the irrational screaming of the sea-
birds saddened me like a dirge.  It was a relief when, with
Nares, and a couple of hands, I might drop into the boat and
move off at last for the Flying Scud.

"She looks kind of pitiful, don't she?" observed the captain,
nodding towards the wreck, from which we were separated by
some half a mile.  "Looks as if she didn't like her berth, and
Captain Trent had used her badly.  Give her ginger, boys!" he
added to the hands, "and you can all have shore liberty to-night
to see the birds and paint the town red."

We all laughed at the pleasantry, and the boat skimmed the
faster over the rippling face of the lagoon.  The Flying Scud
would have seemed small enough beside the wharves of San
Francisco, but she was some thrice the size of the Norah
Creina, which had been so long our continent; and as we
craned up at her wall-sides, she impressed us with a mountain
magnitude.  She lay head to the reef, where the huge blue wall
of the rollers was for ever ranging up and crumbling down; and
to gain her starboard side, we must pass below the stern.  The
rudder was hard aport, and we could read the legend:

                      FLYING SCUD

                             HULL

On the other side, about the break of the poop, some half a
fathom of rope ladder trailed over the rail, and by this we made
our entrance.

She was a roomy ship inside, with a raised poop standing some
three feet higher than the deck, and a small forward house, for
the men's bunks and the galley, just abaft the foremast.  There
was one boat on the house, and another and larger one, in beds
on deck, on either hand of it.  She had been painted white, with
tropical economy, outside and in; and we found, later on, that
the stanchions of the rail, hoops of the scuttle but, etc., were
picked out with green.  At that time, however, when we first
stepped aboard, all was hidden under the droppings of
innumerable sea-birds.

The birds themselves gyrated and screamed meanwhile among
the rigging; and when we looked into the galley, their outrush
drove us back.  Savage-looking fowl they were, savagely
beaked, and some of the black ones great as eagles.  Half-
buried in the slush, we were aware of a litter of kegs in the
waist; and these, on being somewhat cleaned, proved to be
water beakers and quarter casks of mess beef with some
colonial brand, doubtless collected there before the Tempest
hove in sight, and while Trent and his men had no better
expectation than to strike for Honolulu in the boats.  Nothing
else was notable on deck, save where the loose topsail had
played some havoc with the rigging, and there hung, and
swayed, and sang in the declining wind, a raffle of intorted
cordage.

With a shyness that was almost awe, Nares and I descended
the companion.  The stair turned upon itself and landed us just
forward of a thwart-ship bulkhead that cut the poop in two. 
The fore part formed a kind of miscellaneous store-room, with
a double-bunked division for the cook (as Nares supposed) and
second mate.  The after part contained, in the midst, the main
cabin, running in a kind of bow into the curvature of the stern;
on the port side, a pantry opening forward and a stateroom for
the mate; and on the starboard, the captain's berth and water-
closet.  Into these we did but glance:  the main cabin holding
us.  It was dark, for the sea-birds had obscured the skylight
with their droppings; it smelt rank and fusty; and it was beset
with a loud swarm of flies that beat continually in our faces. 
Supposing them close attendants upon man and his broken
meat, I marvelled how they had found their way to Midway
reef; it was sure at least some vessel must have brought them,
and that long ago, for they had multiplied exceedingly.  Part of
the floor was strewn with a confusion of clothes, books,
nautical instruments, odds and ends of finery, and such trash as
might be expected from the turning out of several seamen's
chests, upon a sudden emergency and after a long cruise.  It
was strange in that dim cabin, quivering with the near thunder
of the breakers and pierced with the screaming of the fowls, to
turn over so many things that other men had coveted, and
prized, and worn on their warm bodies--frayed old
underclothing, pyjamas of strange design, duck suits in every
stage of rustiness, oil skins, pilot coats, bottles of scent,
embroidered shirts, jackets of Ponjee silk--clothes for the night
watch at sea or the day ashore in the hotel verandah; and
mingled among these, books, cigars, fancy pipes, quantities of
tobacco, many keys, a rusty pistol, and a sprinkling of cheap
curiosities--Benares brass, Chinese jars and pictures, and
bottles of odd shells in cotton, each designed no doubt for
somebody at home--perhaps in Hull, of which Trent had been a
native and his ship a citizen.

Thence we turned our attention to the table, which stood
spread, as if for a meal, with stout ship's crockery and the
remains of food--a pot of marmalade, dregs of coffee in the
mugs, unrecognisable remains of foods, bread, some toast, and
a tin of condensed milk.  The table-cloth, originally of a red
colour, was stained a dark brown at the captain's end,
apparently with coffee; at the other end, it had been folded
back, and a pen and ink-pot stood on the bare table.  Stools
were here and there about the table, irregularly placed, as
though the meal had been finished and the men smoking and
chatting; and one of the stools lay on the floor, broken.

"See! they were writing up the log," said Nares, pointing to the
ink-bottle.  "Caught napping, as usual.  I wonder if there ever
was a captain yet, that lost a ship with his log-book up to date?
He generally has about a month to fill up on a clean break, like
Charles Dickens and his serial novels.--What a regular, lime-
juicer spread!" he added contemptuously.  "Marmalade--and
toast for the old man!  Nasty, slovenly pigs!"

There was something in this criticism of the absent that jarred
upon my feelings.  I had no love indeed for Captain Trent or
any of his vanished gang; but the desertion and decay of this
once habitable cabin struck me hard:  the death of man's
handiwork is melancholy like the death of man himself; and I
was impressed with an involuntary and irrational sense of
tragedy in my surroundings.

"This sickens me," I said.  "Let's go on deck and breathe."

The captain nodded.  "It IS kind of lonely, isn't it?" he said.
"But I can't go up till I get the code signals.  I want to run up
'Got Left' or something, just to brighten up this island home. 
Captain Trent hasn't been here yet, but he'll drop in before long;
and it'll cheer him up to see a signal on the brig." 

"Isn't there some official expression we could use?" I asked,
vastly taken by the fancy.  "'Sold for the benefit of the
underwriters:  for further particulars, apply to J. Pinkerton,
Montana Block, S.F.'"

"Well," returned Nares, "I won't say but what an old navy
quartermaster might telegraph all that, if you gave him a day to
do it in and a pound of tobacco for himself.  But it's above my
register.  I must try something short and sweet:  KB, urgent
signal, 'Heave all aback'; or LM, urgent, 'The berth you're now
in is not safe'; or what do you say to PQH?--'Tell my owners
the ship answers remarkably well.'"

"It's premature," I replied; "but it seems calculated to give pain
to Trent.  PQH for me."

The flags were found in Trent's cabin, neatly stored behind a
lettered grating; Nares chose what he required and (I following)
returned on deck, where the sun had already dipped, and the
dusk was coming.

"Here! don't touch that, you fool!" shouted the captain to one of
the hands, who was drinking from the scuttle but. "That water's
rotten!"

"Beg pardon, sir," replied the man.  "Tastes quite sweet."

"Let me see," returned Nares, and he took the dipper and held it
to his lips.  "Yes, it's all right," he said.  "Must have rotted and
come sweet again.  Queer, isn't it, Mr. Dodd?  Though I've
known the same on a Cape Horner."

There was something in his intonation that made me look him
in the face; he stood a little on tiptoe to look right and left about
the ship, like a man filled with curiosity, and his whole
expression and bearing testified to some suppressed
excitement.

"You don't believe what you're saying!" I broke out.

"O, I don't know but what I do!" he replied, laying a hand upon
me soothingly.  "The thing's very possible.  Only, I'm bothered
about something else."

And with that he called a hand, gave him the code flags, and
stepped himself to the main signal halliards, which vibrated
under the weight of the ensign overhead.  A minute later, the
American colours, which we had brought in the boat, replaced
the English red, and PQH was fluttering at the fore.

"Now, then," said Nares, who had watched the breaking out of
his signal with the old-maidish particularity of an American
sailor, "out with those handspikes, and let's see what water
there is in the lagoon."

The bars were shoved home; the barbarous cacophony of the
clanking pump rose in the waist; and streams of ill-smelling
water gushed on deck and made valleys in the slab guano. 
Nares leaned on the rail, watching the steady stream of bilge as
though he found some interest in it.


"What is it that bothers you?" I asked.

"Well, I'll tell you one thing shortly," he replied.  "But here's
another.  Do you see those boats there, one on the house and
two on the beds?  Well, where is the boat Trent lowered when
he lost the hands?"

"Got it aboard again, I suppose," said I.

"Well, if you'll tell me why!" returned the captain.

"Then it must have been another," I suggested.

"She might have carried another on the main hatch, I won't
deny," admitted Nares; "but I can't see what she wanted with it,
unless it was for the old man to go out and play the accordion
in, on moonlight nights."

"It can't much matter, anyway," I reflected.

"O, I don't suppose it does," said he, glancing over his shoulder
at the spouting of the scuppers.

"And how long are we to keep up this racket?" I asked. "We're
simply pumping up the lagoon.  Captain Trent himself said she
had settled down and was full forward."

"Did he?" said Nares, with a significant dryness.  And almost
as he spoke the pumps sucked, and sucked again, and the men
threw down their bars.  "There, what do you make of that?" he
asked.  "Now, I'll tell, Mr. Dodd," he went on, lowering his
voice, but not shifting from his easy attitude against the rail,
"this ship is as sound as the Norah Creina.  I had a guess of it
before we came aboard, and now I know."

"It's not possible!" I cried.  "What do you make of Trent?"

"I don't make anything of Trent; I don't know whether he's a
liar or only an old wife; I simply tell you what's the fact," said
Nares.  "And I'll tell you something more," he added: "I've
taken the ground myself in deep-water vessels; I know what
I'm saying; and I say that, when she first struck and before she
bedded down, seven or eight hours' work would have got this
hooker off, and there's no man that ever went two years to sea
but must have known it."


I could only utter an exclamation.

Nares raised his finger warningly.  "Don't let THEM get hold of
it," said he.  "Think what you like, but say nothing."

I glanced round; the dusk was melting into early night; the
twinkle of a lantern marked the schooner's position in the
distance; and our men, free from further labour, stood grouped
together in the waist, their faces illuminated by their glowing
pipes.

"Why didn't Trent get her off?" inquired the captain.  "Why did
he want to buy her back in 'Frisco for these fabulous sums,
when he might have sailed her into the bay himself?"

"Perhaps he never knew her value until then," I suggested.

"I wish we knew her value now," exclaimed Nares.  "However,
I don't want to depress you; I'm sorry for you, Mr. Dodd; I
know how bothering it must be to you; and the best I can say's
this:  I haven't taken much time getting down, and now I'm
here I mean to work this thing in proper style.  I just want to
put your mind at rest:  you shall have no trouble with me."

There was something trusty and friendly in his voice; and I
found myself gripping hands with him, in that hard, short
shake that means so much with English-speaking people.

"We'll do, old fellow," said he.  "We've shaken down into pretty
good friends, you and me; and you won't find me working the
business any the less hard for that.  And now let's scoot for
supper."

After supper, with the idle curiosity of the seafarer, we pulled
ashore in a fine moonlight, and landed on Middle Brook's
Island.  A flat beach surrounded it upon all sides; and the midst
was occupied by a thicket of bushes, the highest of them
scarcely five feet high, in which the sea-fowl lived.  Through
this we tried at first to strike; but it were easier to cross
Trafalgar Square on a day of demonstration than to invade
these haunts of sleeping sea-birds.  The nests sank, and the
eggs burst under footing; wings beat in our faces, beaks
menaced our eyes, our minds were confounded with the
screeching, and the coil spread over the island and mounted
high into the air.


"I guess we'll saunter round the beach," said Nares, when we
had made good our retreat.

The hands were all busy after sea-birds' eggs, so there were
none to follow us.  Our way lay on the crisp sand by the margin
of the water:  on one side, the thicket from which we had been
dislodged; on the other, the face of the lagoon, barred with a
broad path of moonlight, and beyond that, the line, alternately
dark and shining, alternately hove high and fallen prone, of the
external breakers.  The beach was strewn with bits of wreck
and drift:  some redwood and spruce logs, no less than two
lower masts of junks, and the stern-post of a European ship; all
of which we looked on with a shade of serious concern,
speaking of the dangers of the sea and the hard case of
castaways.  In this sober vein we made the greater part of the
circuit of the island; had a near view of its neighbour from the
southern end; walked the whole length of the westerly side in
the shadow of the thicket; and came forth again into the
moonlight at the opposite extremity. 

On our right, at the distance of about half a mile, the schooner
lay faintly heaving at her anchors.  About half a mile down the
beach, at a spot still hidden from us by the thicket, an upboiling
of the birds showed where the men were still (with sailor-like
insatiability) collecting eggs.  And right before us, in a small
indentation of the sand, we were aware of a boat lying high and
dry, and right side up.

Nares crouched back into the shadow of the bushes.

"What the devil's this?" he whispered.

"Trent," I suggested, with a beating heart.

"We were damned fools to come ashore unarmed," said he. 
"But I've got to know where I stand."  In the shadow, his face
looked conspicuously white, and his voice betrayed a strong
excitement.  He took his boat's whistle from his pocket.  "In
case I might want to play a tune," said he, grimly, and thrusting
it between his teeth, advanced into the moonlit open; which we
crossed with rapid steps, looking guiltily about us as we went. 
Not a leaf stirred; and the boat, when we came up to it, offered
convincing proof of long desertion.  She was an eighteen-foot
whaleboat of the ordinary type, equipped with oars and thole-
pins.  Two or three quarter-casks lay on the bilge amidships,
one of which must have been broached, and now stank
horribly; and these, upon examination, proved to bear the same
New Zealand brand as the beef on board the wreck.

"Well, here's the boat," said I; "here's one of your difficulties
cleared away."

"H'm," said he.  There was a little water in the bilge, and here
he stooped and tasted it.

"Fresh," he said.  "Only rain-water."

"You don't object to that?" I asked.

"No," said he.

"Well, then, what ails you?" I cried.

"In plain United States, Mr. Dodd," he returned, "a whaleboat,
five ash sweeps, and a barrel of stinking pork."

"Or, in other words, the whole thing?" I commented.

"Well, it's this way," he condescended to explain.  "I've no use
for a fourth boat at all; but a boat of this model tops the
business.  I don't say the type's not common in these waters; it's
as common as dirt; the traders carry them for surf-boats.  But
the Flying Scud? a deep-water tramp, who was lime-juicing
around between big ports, Calcutta and Rangoon and 'Frisco
and the Canton River?  No, I don't see it."

We were leaning over the gunwale of the boat as we spoke. 
The captain stood nearest the bow, and he was idly playing
with the trailing painter, when a thought arrested him.  He
hauled the line in hand over hand, and stared, and remained
staring, at the end.

"Anything wrong with it?" I asked.

"Do you know, Mr. Dodd," said he, in a queer voice, "this
painter's been cut?  A sailor always seizes a rope's end, but this
is sliced short off with the cold steel.  This won't do at all for
the men," he added.  "Just stand by till I fix it up more natural."

"Any guess what it all means?" I asked.

"Well, it means one thing," said he.  "It means Trent was a liar. 
I guess the story of the Flying Scud was a sight more
picturesque than he gave out."

Half an hour later, the whaleboat was lying astern of the Norah
Creina; and Nares and I sought our bunks, silent and half-
bewildered by our late discoveries.



 CHAPTER XIV.

 THE CABIN OF THE "FLYING SCUD."


The sun of the morrow had not cleared the morning bank:  the
lake of the lagoon, the islets, and the wall of breakers now
beginning to subside, still lay clearly pictured in the flushed
obscurity of early day, when we stepped again upon the deck of
the Flying Scud: Nares, myself, the mate, two of the hands, and
one dozen bright, virgin axes, in war against that massive
structure.  I think we all drew pleasurable breath; so profound
in man is the instinct of destruction, so engaging is the interest
of the chase.  For we were now about to taste, in a supreme
degree, the double joys of demolishing a toy and playing "Hide
the handkerchief":  sports from which we had all perhaps
desisted since the days of infancy.  And the toy we were to
burst in pieces was a deep-sea ship; and the hidden good for
which we were to hunt was a prodigious fortune.

The decks were washed down, the main hatch removed, and a
gun-tackle purchase rigged before the boat arrived with
breakfast.  I had grown so suspicious of the wreck, that it was a
positive relief to me to look down into the hold, and see it full,
or nearly full, of undeniable rice packed in the Chinese fashion
in boluses of matting.  Breakfast over, Johnson and the hands
turned to upon the cargo; while Nares and I, having smashed
open the skylight and rigged up a windsail on deck, began the
work of rummaging the cabins.

I must not be expected to describe our first day's work, or (for
that matter) any of the rest, in order and detail as it occurred. 
Such particularity might have been possible for several officers
and a draft of men from a ship of war, accompanied by an
experienced secretary with a knowledge of shorthand.  For two
plain human beings, unaccustomed to the use of the broad-axe
and consumed with an impatient greed of the result, the whole
business melts, in the retrospect, into a nightmare of exertion,
heat, hurry, and bewilderment; sweat pouring from the face like
rain, the scurry of rats, the choking exhalations of the bilge, and
the throbs and splinterings of the toiling axes.  I shall content
myself with giving the cream of our discoveries in a logical
rather than a temporal order; though the two indeed practically
coincided, and we had finished our exploration of the cabin,
before we could be certain of the nature of the cargo.

Nares and I began operations by tossing up pell-mell through
the companion, and piling in a squalid heap about the wheel,
all clothes, personal effects, the crockery, the carpet, stale
victuals, tins of meat, and in a word, all movables from the
main cabin.  Thence, we transferred our attention to the
captain's quarters on the starboard side.  Using the blankets for
a basket, we sent up the books, instruments, and clothes to
swell our growing midden on the deck; and then Nares, going
on hands and knees, began to forage underneath the bed.  Box
after box of Manilla cigars rewarded his search.  I took
occasion to smash some of these boxes open, and even to
guillotine the bundles of cigars; but quite in vain--no secret
cache of opium encouraged me to continue.

"I guess I've got hold of the dicky now!" exclaimed Nares, and
turning round from my perquisitions, I found he had drawn
forth a heavy iron box, secured to the bulkhead by chain and
padlock.  On this he was now gazing, not with the triumph that
instantly inflamed my own bosom, but with a somewhat foolish
appearance of surprise.

"By George, we have it now!" I cried, and would have shaken
hands with my companion; but he did not see, or would not
accept, the salutation.

"Let's see what's in it first," he remarked dryly.  And he
adjusted the box upon its side, and with some blows of an axe
burst the lock open.  I threw myself beside him, as he replaced
the box on its bottom and removed the lid.  I cannot tell what I
expected; a million's worth of diamonds might perhaps have
pleased me; my cheeks burned, my heart throbbed to bursting;
and lo! there was disclosed but a trayful of papers, neatly taped,
and a cheque-book of the customary pattern.  I made a snatch at
the tray to see what was beneath; but the captain's hand fell on
mine, heavy and hard.

"Now, boss!" he cried, not unkindly, "is this to be run
shipshape? or is it a Dutch grab-racket?"

And he proceeded to untie and run over the contents of the
papers, with a serious face and what seemed an ostentation of
delay.  Me and my impatience it would appear he had
forgotten; for when he was quite done, he sat a while thinking,
whistled a bar or two, refolded the papers, tied them up again;
and then, and not before, deliberately raised the tray.

I saw a cigar-box, tied with a piece of fishing-line, and four fat
canvas-bags.  Nares whipped out his knife, cut the line, and
opened the box.  It was about half full of sovereigns.

"And the bags?" I whispered.

The captain ripped them open one by one, and a flood of mixed
silver coin burst forth and rattled in the rusty bottom of the box. 
Without a word, he set to work to count the gold.

"What is this?" I asked.

"It's the ship's money," he returned, doggedly continuing his
work.

"The ship's money?" I repeated.  "That's the money Trent
tramped and traded with?   And there's his cheque-book to
draw upon his owners?  And he has left it?"

"I guess he has," said Nares, austerely, jotting down a note of
the gold; and I was abashed into silence till his task should be
completed.

It came, I think, to three hundred and seventy-eight pounds
sterling; some nineteen pounds of it in silver: all of which we
turned again into the chest.

"And what do you think of that?" I asked.

"Mr. Dodd," he replied, "you see something of the rumness of
this job, but not the whole.  The specie bothers you, but what
gets me is the papers.  Are you aware that the master of a ship
has charge of all the cash in hand, pays the men advances,
receives freight and passage money, and runs up bills in every
port?  All this he does as the owner's confidential agent, and
his integrity is proved by his receipted bills.  I tell you, the
captain of a ship is more likely to forget his pants than these
bills which guarantee his character.  I've known men drown to
save them:  bad men, too; but this is the shipmaster's honour. 
And here this Captain Trent--not hurried, not threatened with
anything but a free passage in a British man-of-war--has left
them all behind!  I don't want to express myself too strongly,
because the facts appear against me, but the thing is
impossible."

Dinner came to us not long after, and we ate it on deck, in a
grim silence, each privately racking his brain for some solution
of the mysteries.  I was indeed so swallowed up in these
considerations, that the wreck, the lagoon, the islets, and the
strident sea-fowl, the strong sun then beating on my head, and
even the gloomy countenance of the captain at my elbow, all
vanished from the field of consciousness.  My mind was a
blackboard, on which I scrawled and blotted out hypotheses;
comparing each with the pictorial records in my memory:
cyphering with pictures.  In the course of this tense mental
exercise I recalled and studied the faces of one memorial
masterpiece, the scene of the saloon; and here I found myself,
on a sudden, looking in the eyes of the Kanaka.

"There's one thing I can put beyond doubt, at all events," I
cried, relinquishing my dinner and getting briskly afoot. 
"There was that Kanaka I saw in the bar with Captain Trent,
the fellow the newspapers and ship's articles made out to be a
Chinaman.  I mean to rout his quarters out and settle that."

"All right," said Nares.  "I'll lazy off a bit longer, Mr. Dodd; I
feel pretty rocky and mean."

We had thoroughly cleared out the three after-compartments of
the ship:  all the stuff from the main cabin and the mate's and
captain's quarters lay piled about the wheel; but in the forward
stateroom with the two bunks, where Nares had said the mate
and cook most likely berthed, we had as yet done nothing. 
Thither I went.  It was very bare; a few photographs were
tacked on the bulkhead, one of them indecent; a single chest
stood open, and, like all we had yet found, it had been partly
rifled.  An armful of two-shilling novels proved to me beyond a
doubt it was a European's; no Chinaman would have possessed
any, and the most literate Kanaka conceivable in a ship's galley
was not likely to have gone beyond one.  It was plain, then, that
the cook had not berthed aft, and I must look elsewhere.

The men had stamped down the nests and driven the birds from
the galley, so that I could now enter without contest.  One door
had been already blocked with rice; the place was in part
darkness, full of a foul stale smell, and a cloud of nasty flies; it
had been left, besides, in some disorder, or else the birds,
during their time of tenancy, had knocked the things about; and
the floor, like the deck before we washed it, was spread with
pasty filth.  Against the wall, in the far corner, I found a
handsome chest of camphor-wood bound with brass, such as
Chinamen and sailors love, and indeed all of mankind that
plies in the Pacific.  From its outside view I could thus make no
deduction; and, strange to say, the interior was concealed.  All
the other chests, as I have said already, we had found gaping
open, and their contents scattered abroad; the same remark we
found to apply afterwards in the quarters of the seamen; only
this camphor-wood chest, a singular exception, was both closed
and locked.

I took an axe to it, readily forced the paltry Chinese fastening,
and, like a Custom-House officer, plunged my hands among
the contents.  For some while I groped among linen and cotton. 
Then my teeth were set on edge with silk, of which I drew forth
several strips covered with mysterious characters.  And these
settled the business, for I recognised them as a kind of bed-
hanging popular with the commoner class of the Chinese.  Nor
were further evidences wanting, such as night-clothes of an
extraordinary design, a three-stringed Chinese fiddle, a silk
handkerchief full of roots and herbs, and a neat apparatus for
smoking opium, with a liberal provision of the drug.  Plainly,
then, the cook had been a Chinaman; and, if so, who was Jos.
Amalu? Or had Jos. stolen the chest before he proceeded to
ship under a false name and domicile? It was possible, as
anything was possible in such a welter; but, regarded as a
solution, it only led and left me deeper in the bog.  For why
should this chest have been deserted and neglected, when the
others were rummaged or removed? and where had Jos. come
by that second chest, with which (according to the clerk at the
What Cheer) he had started for Honolulu?


"And how have YOU fared?" inquired the captain, whom I
found luxuriously reclining in our mound of litter.  And the
accent on the pronoun, the heightened colour of the speaker's
face, and the contained excitement in his tones, advertised me 
at once that I had not been alone to make discoveries.

"I have found a Chinaman's chest in the galley," said I, "and
John (if there was any John) was not so much as at the pains to
take his opium."

Nares seemed to take it mighty quietly.  "That so?" said he. 
"Now, cast your eyes on that and own you're beaten!" And with
a formidable clap of his open hand he flattened out before me,
on the deck, a pair of newspapers.

I gazed upon them dully, being in no mood for fresh
discoveries.

"Look at them, Mr. Dodd," cried the captain sharply.  "Can't
you look at them?" And he ran a dirty thumb along the title. 
"'_Sydney Morning Herald, November 26th,' can't you make
that out?" he cried, with rising energy.  "And don't you know,
sir, that not thirteen days after this paper appeared in New
South Pole, this ship we're standing in heaved her blessed
anchors out of China? How did the _Sydney Morning Herald_
get to Hong Kong in thirteen days?  Trent made no land, he
spoke no ship, till he got here.  Then he either got it here or in
Hong Kong.  I give you your choice, my son!" he cried, and fell
back among the clothes like a man weary of life.

"Where did you find them?" I asked.  "In that black bag?"

"Guess so," he said.  "You needn't fool with it.  There's nothing
else but a lead-pencil and a kind of worked-out knife."

I looked in the bag, however, and was well rewarded.

"Every man to his trade, captain," said I.  "You're a sailor, and
you've given me plenty of points; but I am an artist, and allow
me to inform you this is quite as strange as all the rest.  The
knife is a palette-knife; the pencil a Winsor and Newton, and a
B B B at that.  A palette-knife and a B B B on a tramp brig! It's
against the laws of nature."

"It would sicken a dog, wouldn't it?" said Nares.

"Yes," I continued, "it's been used by an artist, too:  see how it's
sharpened--not for writing--no man could write with that.  An
artist, and straight from Sydney?  How can he come in?"

"O, that's natural enough," sneered Nares.  "They cabled him to
come up and illustrate this dime novel."

We fell a while silent.

"Captain," I said at last, "there is something deuced underhand
about this brig.  You tell me you've been to sea a good part of
your life.  You must have seen shady things done on ships, and
heard of more.  Well, what is this? is it insurance? is it piracy?
what is it ABOUT? what can it be for?"

"Mr. Dodd," returned Nares, "you're right about me having
been to sea the bigger part of my life.  And you're right again
when you think I know a good many ways in which a dishonest
captain mayn't be on the square, nor do exactly the right thing
by his owners, and altogether be just a little too smart by
ninety-nine and three-quarters.  There's a good many ways, but
not so many as you'd think; and not one that has any mortal
thing to do with Trent.  Trent and his whole racket has got to
do with nothing--that's the bed-rock fact; there's no sense to it,
and no use in it, and no story to it:  it's a beastly dream.  And
don't you run away with that notion that landsmen take about
ships.  A society actress don't go around more publicly than
what a ship does, nor is more interviewed, nor more
humbugged, nor more run after by all sorts of little fussinesses
in brass buttons.  And more than an actress, a ship has a deal to
lose; she's capital, and the actress only character--if she's that. 
The ports of the world are thick with people ready to kick a
captain into the penitentiary if he's not as bright as a dollar and
as honest as the morning star; and what with Lloyd keeping
watch and watch in every corner of the three oceans, and the
insurance leeches, and the consuls, and the customs bugs, and
the medicos, you can only get the idea by thinking of a
landsman watched by a hundred and fifty detectives, or a
stranger in a village Down East."

"Well, but at sea?" I said.

"You make me tired," retorted the captain.  "What's the use--at
sea?  Everything's got to come to bearings at some port, hasn't
it?  You can't stop at sea for ever, can you?--No; the Flying
Scud is rubbish; if it meant anything, it would have to mean
something so almighty intricate that James G. Blaine hasn't got
the brains to engineer it; and I vote for more axeing, pioneering,
and opening up the resources of this phenomenal brig, and less
general fuss," he added, arising.  "The dime-museum
symptoms will drop in of themselves, I guess, to keep us
cheery."

But it appeared we were at the end of discoveries for the day;
and we left the brig about sundown, without being further
puzzled or further enlightened.  The best of the cabin spoils--
books, instruments, papers, silks, and curiosities--we carried
along with us in a blanket, however, to divert the evening
hours; and when supper was over, and the table cleared, and
Johnson set down to a dreary game of cribbage between his
right hand and his left, the captain and I turned out our blanket
on the floor, and sat side by side to examine and appraise the
spoils.

The books were the first to engage our notice.  These were
rather numerous (as Nares contemptuously put it) "for a lime-
juicer."  Scorn of the British mercantile marine glows in the
breast of every Yankee merchant captain; as the scorn is not
reciprocated, I can only suppose it justified in fact; and
certainly the old country mariner appears of a less studious
disposition.  The more credit to the officers of the Flying Scud,
who had quite a library, both literary and professional.  There
were Findlay's five directories of the world--all broken-backed,
as is usual with Findlay, and all marked and scribbled over
with corrections and additions--several books of navigation, a
signal code, and an Admiralty book of a sort of orange hue,
called _Islands of the Eastern Pacific Ocean, Vol. III._, which
appeared from its imprint to be the latest authority, and showed
marks of frequent consultation in the passages about the French
Frigate Shoals, the Harman, Cure, Pearl, and Hermes reefs,
Lisiansky Island, Ocean Island, and the place where we then
lay--Brooks or Midway.  A volume of Macaulay's _Essays_
and a shilling Shakespeare led the van of the belles lettres; the
rest were novels:  several Miss Braddons--of course, _Aurora
Floyd_, which has penetrated to every isle of the Pacific, a good
many cheap detective books, _Rob Roy_, Auerbach's _Auf der
Hohe_ in the German, and a prize temperance story, pillaged
(to judge by the stamp) from an Anglo-Indian circulating
library.

"The Admiralty man gives a fine picture of our island,"
remarked Nares, who had turned up Midway Island.  "He
draws the dreariness rather mild, but you can make out he
knows the place."

"Captain," I cried, "you've struck another point in this mad
business.  See here," I went on eagerly, drawing from my
pocket a crumpled fragment of the _Daily Occidental_ which I
had inherited from Jim:  "'misled by Hoyt's Pacific Directory'?
Where's Hoyt?"

"Let's look into that," said Nares.  "I got that book on purpose
for this cruise." Therewith he fetched it from the shelf in his
berth, turned to Midway Island, and read the account aloud.  It
stated with precision that the Pacific Mail Company were about
to form a depot there, in preference to Honolulu, and that they
had already a station on the island.

"I wonder who gives these Directory men their information,"
Nares reflected.  "Nobody can blame Trent after that.  I never
got in company with squarer lying; it reminds a man of a
presidential campaign."

"All very well," said I.  "That's your Hoyt, and a fine, tall copy. 
But what I want to know is, where is Trent's Hoyt?"

"Took it with him," chuckled Nares.  "He had left everything
else, bills and money and all the rest; he was bound to take
something, or it would have aroused attention on the Tempest: 
'Happy thought,' says he, 'let's take Hoyt.'"

"And has it not occurred to you," I went on, "that all the Hoyts
in creation couldn't have misled Trent, since he had in his hand
that red admiralty book, an official publication, later in date,
and particularly full on Midway Island?"

"That's a fact!" cried Nares; "and I bet the first Hoyt he ever
saw was out of the mercantile library of San Francisco.  Looks
as if he had brought her here on purpose, don't it?  But then
that's inconsistent with the steam-crusher of the sale.  That's the
trouble with this brig racket; any one can make half a dozen
theories for sixty or seventy per cent of it; but when they're
made, there's always a fathom or two of slack hanging out of
the other end."

I believe our attention fell next on the papers, of which we had
altogether a considerable bulk.  I had hoped to find among
these matter for a full-length character of Captain Trent; but
here I was doomed, on the whole, to disappointment.  We
could make out he was an orderly man, for all his bills were
docketed and preserved.  That he was convivial, and inclined to
be frugal even in conviviality, several documents proclaimed. 
Such letters as we found were, with one exception, arid notes
from tradesmen.  The exception, signed Hannah Trent, was a
somewhat fervid appeal for a loan.  "You know what
misfortunes I have had to bear," wrote Hannah, "and how much
I am disappointed in George.  The landlady appeared a true
friend when I first came here, and I thought her a perfect lady. 
But she has come out since then in her true colours; and if you
will not be softened by this last appeal, I can't think what is to
become of your affectionate----" and then the signature.  This
document was without place or date, and a voice told me that it
had gone likewise without answer.  On the whole, there were
few letters anywhere in the ship; but we found one before we
were finished, in a seaman's chest, of which I must transcribe
some sentences.  It was dated from some place on the Clyde. 
"My dearist son," it ran, "this is to tell you your dearist father
passed away, Jan twelft, in the peace of the Lord.  He had your
photo and dear David's lade upon his bed, made me sit by him. 
Let's be a' thegither, he said, and gave you all his blessing.  O
my dear laddie, why were nae you and Davie here?  He would
have had a happier passage.  He spok of both of ye all night
most beautiful, and how ye used to stravaig on the Saturday
afternoons, and of auld Kelvinside.  Sooth the tune to me, he
said, though it was the Sabbath, and I had to sooth him Kelvin
Grove, and he looked at his fiddle, the dear man.  I cannae bear
the sight of it, he'll never play it mair.  O my lamb, come home
to me, I'm all by my lane now."  The rest was in a religious
vein and quite conventional.  I have never seen any one more
put out than Nares, when I handed him this letter; he had read
but a few words, before he cast it down; it was perhaps a
minute ere he picked it up again, and the performance was
repeated the third time before he reached the end.

"It's touching, isn't it?" said I.

For all answer, Nares exploded in a brutal oath; and it was
some half an hour later that he vouchsafed an explanation.  "I'll
tell you what broke me up about that letter," said he.  "My old
man played the fiddle, played it all out of tune:  one of the
things he played was _Martyrdom,_ I remember--it was all
martyrdom to me.  He was a pig of a father, and I was a pig of
a son; but it sort of came over me I would like to hear that
fiddle squeak again.  Natural," he added; "I guess we're all
beasts."

"All sons are, I guess," said I.  "I have the same trouble on my
conscience:  we can shake hands on that."  Which (oddly
enough, perhaps) we did.

Amongst the papers we found a considerable sprinkling of
photographs; for the most part either of very debonair-looking
young ladies or old women of the lodging-house persuasion. 
But one among them was the means of our crowning discovery.

"They're not pretty, are they, Mr. Dodd?" said Nares, as he
passed it over.

"Who?" I asked, mechanically taking the card (it was a quarter-
plate) in hand, and smothering a yawn; for the hour was late,
the day had been laborious, and I was wearying for bed.

"Trent and Company," said he.  "That's a historic picture of the
gang."

I held it to the light, my curiosity at a low ebb: I had seen
Captain Trent once, and had no delight in viewing him again. 
It was a photograph of the deck of the brig, taken from forward:
all in apple-pie order; the hands gathered in the waist, the
officers on the poop.  At the foot of the card was written "Brig
Flying Scud, Rangoon," and a date; and above or below each
individual figure the name had been carefully noted.

As I continued to gaze, a shock went through me; the dimness
of sleep and fatigue lifted from my eyes, as fog lifts in the
channel; and I beheld with startled clearness the photographic
presentment of a crowd of strangers.  "J. Trent, Master" at the
top of the card directed me to a smallish, weazened man, with
bushy eyebrows and full white beard, dressed in a frock coat
and white trousers; a flower stuck in his button-hole, his
bearded chin set forward, his mouth clenched with habitual
determination.  There was not much of the sailor in his looks,
but plenty of the martinet:  a dry, precise man, who might pass
for a preacher in some rigid sect; and whatever he was, not the
Captain Trent of San Francisco.  The men, too, were all new to
me:  the cook, an unmistakable Chinaman, in his characteristic
dress, standing apart on the poop steps.  But perhaps I turned
on the whole with the greatest curiosity to the figure labelled
"E. Goddedaal, 1st off."  He whom I had never seen, he might
be the identical; he might be the clue and spring of all this
mystery; and I scanned his features with the eye of a detective. 
He was of great stature, seemingly blonde as a viking, his hair
clustering round his head in frowsy curls, and two enormous
whiskers, like the tusks of some strange animal, jutting from
his cheeks.  With these virile appendages and the defiant
attitude in which he stood, the expression of his face only
imperfectly harmonised.  It was wild, heroic, and womanish
looking; and I felt I was prepared to hear he was a
sentimentalist, and to see him weep. 

For some while I digested my discovery in private, reflecting
how best, and how with most of drama, I might share it with
the captain.  Then my sketch-book came in my head; and I
fished it out from where it lay, with other miscellaneous
possessions, at the foot of my bunk and turned to my sketch of
Captain Trent and the survivors of the British brig Flying Scud
in the San Francisco bar-room.

"Nares," said I, "I've told you how I first saw Captain Trent in
that saloon in 'Frisco? how he came with his men, one of them
a Kanaka with a canary-bird in a cage? and how I saw him
afterwards at the auction, frightened to death, and as much
surprised at how the figures skipped up as anybody there? 
Well," said I, "there's the man I saw"--and I laid the sketch
before him--"there's Trent of 'Frisco and there are his three
hands.  Find one of them in the photograph, and I'll be
obliged."

Nares compared the two in silence.  "Well," he said at last, "I
call this rather a relief:  seems to clear the horizon.  We might
have guessed at something of the kind from the double ration of
chests that figured."

"Does it explain anything?" I asked.

"It would explain everything," Nares replied, "but for the
steam-crusher.  It'll all tally as neat as a patent puzzle, if you
leave out the way these people bid the wreck up.  And there we
come to a stone wall.  But whatever it is, Mr. Dodd, it's on the
crook."

"And looks like piracy," I added.

"Looks like blind hookey!" cried the captain.  "No, don't you
deceive yourself; neither your head nor mine is big enough to
put a name on this business."



 CHAPTER XV.

 THE CARGO OF THE "FLYING SCUD."


In my early days I was a man, the most wedded to his idols of
my generation.  I was a dweller under roofs:  the gull of that
which we call civilisation; a superstitious votary of the plastic
arts; a cit; and a prop of restaurants.  I had a comrade in those
days, somewhat of an outsider, though he moved in the
company of artists, and a man famous in our small world for
gallantry, knee breeches, and dry and pregnant sayings.  He,
looking on the long meals and waxing bellies of the French,
whom I confess I somewhat imitated, branded me as "a
cultivator of restaurant fat."  And I believe he had his finger on
the dangerous spot; I believe, if things had gone smooth with
me, I should be now swollen like a prize-ox in body, and fallen
in mind to a thing perhaps as low as many types of bourgeois
--the implicit or exclusive artist.  That was a home word of
Pinkerton's, deserving to be writ in letters of gold on the portico
of every school of art:  "What I can't see is why you should
want to do nothing else."  The dull man is made, not by the
nature, but by the degree of his immersion in a single business. 
And all the more if that be sedentary, uneventful, and
ingloriously safe.  More than one half of him will then remain
unexercised and undeveloped; the rest will be distended and
deformed by over-nutrition, over-cerebration, and the heat of
rooms.  And I have often marvelled at the impudence of
gentlemen, who describe and pass judgment on the life of man,
in almost perfect ignorance of all its necessary elements and
natural careers.  Those who dwell in clubs and studios may
paint excellent pictures or write enchanting novels.  There is
one thing that they should not do:  they should pass no
judgment on man's destiny, for it is a thing with which they are
unacquainted.  Their own life is an excrescence of the moment,
doomed, in the vicissitude of history, to pass and disappear: 
the eternal life of man, spent under sun and rain and in rude
physical effort, lies upon one side, scarce changed since the
beginning.

I would I could have carried along with me to Midway Island
all the writers and the prating artists of my time.  Day after day
of hope deferred, of heat, of unremitting toil; night after night of
aching limbs, bruised hands, and a mind obscured with the
grateful vacancy of physical fatigue:  the scene, the nature of 
my employment; the rugged speech and faces of my fellow-
toilers, the glare of the day on deck, the stinking twilight in the
bilge, the shrill myriads of the ocean-fowl:  above all, the sense
of our immitigable isolation from the world and from the
current epoch;--keeping another time, some eras old; the new
day heralded by no daily paper, only by the rising sun; and the
State, the churches, the peopled empires, war, and the rumours
of war, and the voices of the arts, all gone silent as in the days
ere they were yet invented.  Such were the conditions of my
new experience in life, of which (if I had been able) I would
have had all my confreres and contemporaries to partake:
forgetting, for that while, the orthodoxies of the moment, and
devoted to a single and material purpose under the eye of
heaven.

Of the nature of our task, I must continue to give some
summary idea.  The forecastle was lumbered with ship's
chandlery, the hold nigh full of rice, the lazarette crowded with
the teas and silks.  These must all be dug out; and that made
but a fraction of our task.  The hold was ceiled throughout; a
part, where perhaps some delicate cargo was once stored, had
been lined, in addition, with inch boards; and between every
beam there was a movable panel into the bilge.  Any of these,
the bulkheads of the cabins, the very timbers of the hull itself,
might be the place of hiding.  It was therefore necessary to
demolish, as we proceeded, a great part of the ship's inner skin
and fittings, and to auscultate what remained, like a doctor
sounding for a lung disease.  Upon the return, from any beam
or bulkhead, of a flat or doubtful sound, we must up axe and
hew into the timber:  a violent and--from the amount of dry rot
in the wreck--a mortifying exercise.  Every night saw a deeper
inroad into the bones of the Flying Scud--more beams tapped
and hewn in splinters, more planking peeled away and tossed
aside --and every night saw us as far as ever from the end and
object of our arduous devastation.  In this perpetual
disappointment, my courage did not fail me, but my spirits
dwindled; and Nares himself grew silent and morose.  At night,
when supper was done, we passed an hour in the cabin, mostly
without speech:  I, sometimes dozing over a book; Nares,
sullenly but busily drilling sea-shells with the instrument called
a Yankee Fiddle.  A stranger might have supposed we were
estranged; as a matter of fact, in this silent comradeship of
labour, our intimacy grew.

I had been struck, at the first beginning of our enterprise upon
the wreck, to find the men so ready at the captain's lightest
word.  I dare not say they liked, but I can never deny that they
admired him thoroughly.  A mild word from his mouth was
more valued than flattery and half a dollar from myself; if he
relaxed at all from his habitual attitude of censure, smiling
alacrity surrounded him; and I was led to think his theory of
captainship, even if pushed to excess, reposed upon some
ground of reason.  But even terror and admiration of the captain
failed us before the end.  The men wearied of the hopeless,
unremunerative quest and the long strain of labour.  They
began to shirk and grumble.  Retribution fell on them at once,
and retribution multiplied the grumblings.  With every day it
took harder driving to keep them to the daily drudge; and we,
in our narrow boundaries, were kept conscious every moment
of the ill-will of our assistants.

In spite of the best care, the object of our search was perfectly
well known to all on board; and there had leaked out besides
some knowledge of those inconsistencies that had so greatly
amazed the captain and myself.  I could overhear the men
debate the character of Captain Trent, and set forth competing 
theories of where the opium was stowed; and as they seemed to
have been eavesdropping on ourselves, I thought little shame to
prick up my ears when I had the return chance of spying upon
them, in this way.  I could diagnose their temper and judge
how far they were informed upon the mystery of the Flying
Scud.  It was after having thus overheard some almost
mutinous speeches that a fortunate idea crossed my mind.  At
night, I matured it in my bed, and the first thing the next
morning, broached it to the captain.

"Suppose I spirit up the hands a bit," I asked, "by the offer of a
reward?"

"If you think you're getting your month's wages out of them the
way it is, I don't," was his reply.  "However, they are all the
men you've got, and you're the supercargo."

This, from a person of the captain's character, might be
regarded as complete adhesion; and the crew were accordingly
called aft.  Never had the captain worn a front more menacing. 
It was supposed by all that some misdeed had been discovered,
and some surprising punishment was to be announced.

"See here, you!" he threw at them over his shoulder as he
walked the deck, "Mr. Dodd here is going to offer a reward to
the first man who strikes the opium in that wreck.  There's two
ways of making a donkey go; both good, I guess:  the one's
kicks and the other's carrots.  Mr. Dodd's going to try the
carrots.  Well, my sons,"--and here he faced the men for the
first time with his hands behind him--"if that opium's not found
in five days, you can come to me for the kicks."

He nodded to the present narrator, who took up the tale.  "Here
is what I propose, men," said I:  "I put up one hundred and fifty
dollars.  If any man can lay hands on the stuff right away, and
off his own club, he shall have the hundred and fifty down.  If
any one can put us on the scent of where to look, he shall have
a hundred and twenty-five, and the balance shall be for the
lucky one who actually picks it up.  We'll call it the Pinkerton
Stakes, captain," I added, with a smile.

"Call it the Grand Combination Sweep, then," cries he. "For I
go you better.--Look here, men, I make up this jack-pot to two
hundred and fifty dollars, American gold coin."

"Thank you, Captain Nares," said I; "that was handsomely
done."

"It was kindly meant," he returned.

The offer was not made in vain; the hands had scarce yet
realised the magnitude of the reward, they had scarce begun to
buzz aloud in the extremity of hope and wonder, ere the
Chinese cook stepped forward with gracious gestures and
explanatory smiles.

"Captain," he began, "I serv-um two year Melican navy;
serv-um six year mail-boat steward.  Savvy plenty."

"Oho!" cried Nares, "you savvy plenty, do you? (Beggar's seen
this trick in the mail-boats, I guess.) Well, why you no savvy a
little sooner, sonny?"

"I think bimeby make-um reward," replied the cook, with
smiling dignity.

"Well, you can't say fairer than that," the captain admitted, "and
now the reward's offered, you'll talk?  Speak up, then.  Suppose
you speak true, you get reward.  See?"

"I think long time," replied the Chinaman.  "See plenty litty mat
lice; too-muchy plenty litty mat lice; sixty ton, litty mat lice.  I
think all-e-time:  perhaps plenty opium plenty litty mat lice."

"Well, Mr. Dodd, how does that strike you?" asked the captain. 
"He may be right, he may be wrong.  He's likely to be right:  for
if he isn't, where can the stuff be?  On the other hand, if he's
wrong, we destroy a hundred and fifty tons of good rice for
nothing.  It's a point to be considered." 

"I don't hesitate," said I.  "Let's get to the bottom of the thing. 
The rice is nothing; the rice will neither make nor break us."

"That's how I expected you to see it," returned Nares.

And we called the boat away and set forth on our new quest.

The hold was now almost entirely emptied; the mats (of which
there went forty to the short ton) had been stacked on deck, and
now crowded the ship's waist and forecastle.  It was our task to
disembowel and explore six thousand individual mats, and
incidentally to destroy a hundred and fifty tons of valuable
food.  Nor were the circumstances of the day's business less
strange than its essential nature.  Each man of us, armed with a
great knife, attacked the pile from his own quarter, slashed into
the nearest mat, burrowed in it with his hands, and shed forth
the rice upon the deck, where it heaped up, overflowed, and
was trodden down, poured at last into the scuppers, and
occasionally spouted from the vents.  About the wreck, thus
transformed into an overflowing granary, the sea-fowl swarmed
in myriads and with surprising insolence.  The sight of so much
food confounded them; they deafened us with their shrill
tongues, swooped in our midst, dashed in our faces, and
snatched the grain from between our fingers.  The men--their
hands bleeding from these assaults--turned savagely on the
offensive, drove their knives into the birds, drew them out
crimsoned, and turned again to dig among the rice, unmindful
of the gawking creatures that struggled and died among their
feet.  We made a singular picture:  the hovering and diving
birds; the bodies of the dead discolouring the rice with blood;
the scuppers vomiting breadstuff; the men, frenzied by the gold
hunt, toiling, slaying, and shouting aloud:  over all, the lofty
intricacy of rigging and the radiant heaven of the Pacific.  Every
man there toiled in the immediate hope of fifty dollars; and I, of
fifty thousand.  Small wonder if we waded callously in blood
and food.

It was perhaps about ten in the forenoon when the scene was
interrupted.  Nares, who had just ripped open a fresh mat, drew
forth, and slung at his feet, among the rice, a papered tin box.

"How's that?" he shouted.

A cry broke from all hands:  the next moment, forgetting their
own disappointment, in that contagious sentiment of success,
they gave three cheers that scared the sea-birds; and the next,
they had crowded round the captain, and were jostling together
and groping with emulous hands in the new-opened mat.  Box
after box rewarded them, six in all; wrapped, as I have said, in
a paper envelope, and the paper printed on, in Chinese
characters.

Nares turned to me and shook my hand.  "I began to think we
should never see this day," said he.  "I congratulate you, Mr.
Dodd, on having pulled it through."

The captain's tones affected me profoundly; and when Johnson
and the men pressed round me in turn with congratulations, the
tears came in my eyes.

"These are five-tael boxes, more than two pounds," said Nares,
weighing one in his hand.  "Say two hundred and fifty dollars
to the mat.  Lay into it, boys! We'll make Mr. Dodd a
millionnaire before dark."

It was strange to see with what a fury we fell to.  The men had
now nothing to expect; the mere idea of great sums inspired
them with disinterested ardour.  Mats were slashed and
disembowelled, the rice flowed to our knees in the ship's waist,
the sweat ran in our eyes and blinded us, our arms ached to
agony; and yet our fire abated not.  Dinner came; we were too
weary to eat, too hoarse for conversation; and yet dinner was
scarce done, before we were afoot again and delving in the rice. 
Before nightfall not a mat was unexplored, and we were face to
face with the astonishing result.

For of all the inexplicable things in the story of the Flying
Scud, here was the most inexplicable.  Out of the six thousand
mats, only twenty were found to have been sugared; in each we
found the same amount, about twelve pounds of drug; making
a grand total of two hundred and forty pounds.  By the last San
Francisco quotation, opium was selling for a fraction over
twenty dollars a pound; but it had been known not long before
to bring as much as forty in Honolulu, where it was
contraband.

Taking, then, this high Honolulu figure, the value of the opium
on board the Flying Scud fell considerably short of ten
thousand dollars, while at the San Francisco rate it lacked a
trifle of five thousand.  And fifty thousand was the price that
Jim and I had paid for it.  And Bellairs had been eager to go
higher!  There is no language to express the stupor with which I
contemplated this result.

It may be argued we were not yet sure; there might be yet
another cache; and you may be certain in that hour of my
distress the argument was not forgotten.  There was never a
ship more ardently perquested; no stone was left unturned, and
no expedient untried; day after day of growing despair, we
punched and dug in the brig's vitals, exciting the men with
promises and presents; evening after evening Nares and I sat
face to face in the narrow cabin, racking our minds for some
neglected possibility of search.  I could stake my salvation on
the certainty of the result:  in all that ship there was nothing left
of value but the timber and the copper nails.  So that our case
was lamentably plain; we had paid fifty thousand dollars, borne
the charges of the schooner, and paid fancy interest on money;
and if things went well with us, we might realise fifteen per
cent of the first outlay.  We were not merely bankrupt, we were
comic bankrupts:  a fair butt for jeering in the streets.  I hope I
bore the blow with a good countenance; indeed, my mind had
long been quite made up, and since the day we found the opium
I had known the result.  But the thought of Jim and Mamie
ached in me like a physical pain, and I shrank from speech and
companionship.

I was in this frame of mind when the captain proposed that we
should land upon the island.  I saw he had something to say,
and only feared it might be consolation; for I could just bear my
grief, not bungling sympathy; and yet I had no choice but to 
accede to his proposal.

We walked awhile along the beach in silence.  The sun
overhead reverberated rays of heat; the staring sand, the glaring
lagoon, tortured our eyes; and the birds and the boom of the
far-away breakers made a savage symphony.

"I don't require to tell you the game's up?" Nares asked.

"No," said I.

"I was thinking of getting to sea to-morrow," he pursued.

"The best thing you can do," said I.

"Shall we say Honolulu?" he inquired.


"O, yes; let's stick to the programme," I cried.  "Honolulu be it!"

There was another silence, and then Nares cleared his throat.

"We've been pretty good friends, you and me, Mr. Dodd," he
resumed.  "We've been going through the kind of thing that
tries a man.  We've had the hardest kind of work, we've been
badly backed, and now we're badly beaten.  And we've fetched
through without a word of disagreement.  I don't say this to
praise myself:  it's my trade; it's what I'm paid for, and trained
for, and brought up to.  But it was another thing for you; it was
all new to you; and it did me good to see you stand right up to
it and swing right into it, day in, day out.  And then see how
you've taken this disappointment, when everybody knows you
must have been tautened up to shying-point!  I wish you'd let
me tell you, Mr. Dodd, that you've stood out mighty manly and
handsomely in all this business, and made every one like you
and admire you.  And I wish you'd let me tell you, besides, that
I've taken this wreck business as much to heart as you have;
something kind of rises in my throat when I think we're beaten;
and if I thought waiting would do it, I would stick on this reef
until we starved."

I tried in vain to thank him for these generous words, but he
was beforehand with me in a moment.

"I didn't bring you ashore to sound my praises," he interrupted. 
"We understand one another now, that's all; and I guess you
can trust me.  What I wished to speak about is more important,
and it's got to be faced.  What are we to do about the Flying
Scud and the dime novel?"

"I really have thought nothing about that," I replied.  "But I
expect I mean to get at the bottom of it; and if the bogus
Captain Trent is to be found on the earth's surface, I guess I
mean to find him."

"All you've got to do is talk," said Nares; "you can make the
biggest kind of boom; it isn't often the reporters have a chance
at such a yarn as this; and I can tell you how it will go.  It will
go by telegraph, Mr. Dodd; it'll be telegraphed by the column,
and head-lined, and frothed up, and denied by authority, and
it'll hit bogus Captain Trent in a Mexican bar-room, and knock
over bogus Goddedaal in a slum somewhere up the Baltic, and
bowl down Hardy and Brown in sailors' music halls round
Greenock.  O, there's no doubt you can have a regular domestic
Judgment Day.  The only point is whether you deliberately
want to."

"Well," said I, "I deliberately don't want one thing:  I
deliberately don't want to make a public exhibition of myself
and Pinkerton:  so moral--smuggling opium; such damned
fools--paying fifty thousand for a 'dead horse'!"

"No doubt it might damage you in a business sense," the
captain agreed.  "And I'm pleased you take that view; for I've
turned kind of soft upon the job.  There's been some
crookedness about, no doubt of it; but, Law bless you! if we
dropped upon the troupe, all the premier artists would slip right
out with the boodle in their grip-sacks, and you'd only collar a
lot of old mutton-headed shell-backs that didn't know the back
of the business from the front.  I don't take much stock in
Mercantile Jack, you know that; but, poor devil, he's got to go
where he's told; and if you make trouble, ten to one it'll make
you sick to see the innocents who have to stand the racket.  It
would be different if we understood the operation; but we don't,
you see:  there's a lot of queer corners in life; and my vote is to
let the blame' thing lie."

"You speak as if we had that in our power," I objected.

"And so we have," said he.

"What about the men?" I asked.  "They know too much by half;
and you can't keep them from talking."

"Can't I?" returned Nares.  "I bet a boarding-master can!  They
can be all half-seas-over, when they get ashore, blind drunk by
dark, and cruising out of the Golden Gate in different deep-sea
ships by the next morning.  Can't keep them from talking, can't
I?  Well, I can make 'em talk separate, leastways.  If a whole
crew came talking, parties would listen; but if it's only one lone
old shell-back, it's the usual yarn.  And at least, they needn't
talk before six months, or--if we have luck, and there's a whaler
handy--three years.  And by that time, Mr. Dodd, it's ancient
history."

"That's what they call Shanghaiing, isn't it?" I asked.  "I
thought it belonged to the dime novel."

"O, dime novels are right enough," returned the captain. 
"Nothing wrong with the dime novel, only that things happen
thicker than they do in life, and the practical seamanship is off-
colour."

"So we can keep the business to ourselves," I mused.

"There's one other person that might blab," said the captain. 
"Though I don't believe she has anything left to tell."

"And who is SHE?" I asked.

"The old girl there," he answered, pointing to the wreck.  "I
know there's nothing in her; but somehow I'm afraid of some
one else--it's the last thing you'd expect, so it's just the first
that'll happen--some one dropping into this God-forgotten
island where nobody drops in, waltzing into that wreck that
we've grown old with searching, stooping straight down, and
picking right up the very thing that tells the story.  What's that
to me? you may ask, and why am I gone Soft Tommy on this
Museum of Crooks?  They've smashed up you and Mr.
Pinkerton; they've turned my hair grey with conundrums;
they've been up to larks, no doubt; and that's all I know of them
--you say.  Well, and that's just where it is.  I don't know
enough; I don't know what's uppermost; it's just such a lot of
miscellaneous eventualities as I don't care to go stirring up; and 
I ask you to let me deal with the old girl after a patent of my
own."

"Certainly--what you please," said I, scarce with attention, for a
new thought now occupied my brain.  "Captain," I broke out,
"you are wrong: we cannot hush this up.  There is one thing
you have forgotten."

"What is that?" he asked.

"A bogus Captain Trent, a bogus Goddedaal, a whole bogus
crew, have all started home," said I.  "If we are right, not one of
them will reach his journey's end.  And do you mean to say that
such a circumstance as that can pass without remark?"

"Sailors," said the captain, "only sailors!  If they were all bound
for one place, in a body, I don't say so; but they're all going
separate--to Hull, to Sweden, to the Clyde, to the Thames. 
Well, at each place, what is it?  Nothing new.  Only one sailor
man missing:  got drunk, or got drowned, or got left:  the
proper sailor's end."


Something bitter in the thought and in the speaker's tones
struck me hard.  "Here is one that has got left!" I cried, getting
sharply to my feet; for we had been some time seated.  "I wish
it were the other.  I don't--don't relish going home to Jim with
this!"

"See here," said Nares, with ready tact, "I must be getting
aboard.  Johnson's in the brig annexing chandlery and canvas,
and there's some things in the Norah that want fixing against
we go to sea.  Would you like to be left here in the chicken-
ranch?  I'll send for you to supper."

I embraced the proposal with delight.  Solitude, in my frame of
mind, was not too dearly purchased at the risk of sunstroke or
sand-blindness; and soon I was alone on the ill-omened islet.  I
should find it hard to tell of what I thought--of Jim, of Mamie,
of our lost fortune, of my lost hopes, of the doom before me:  to
turn to at some mechanical occupation in some subaltern rank,
and to toil there, unremarked and unamused, until the hour of
the last deliverance.  I was, at least, so sunk in sadness that I
scarce remarked where I was going; and chance (or some finer
sense that lives in us, and only guides us when the mind is in
abeyance) conducted my steps into a quarter of the island
where the birds were few.  By some devious route, which I was
unable to retrace for my return, I was thus able to mount,
without interruption, to the highest point of land.  And here I
was recalled to consciousness by a last discovery.

The spot on which I stood was level, and commanded a wide
view of the lagoon, the bounding reef, the round horizon. 
Nearer hand I saw the sister islet, the wreck, the Norah Creina,
and the Norah's boat already moving shoreward.  For the sun
was now low, flaming on the sea's verge; and the galley
chimney smoked on board the schooner.

It thus befell that though my discovery was both affecting and
suggestive, I had no leisure to examine further.  What I saw
was the blackened embers of fire of wreck.  By all the signs, it
must have blazed to a good height and burned for days; from
the scantling of a spar that lay upon the margin only half
consumed, it must have been the work of more than one; and I
received at once the image of a forlorn troop of castaways,
houseless in that lost corner of the earth, and feeding there their
fire of signal.  The next moment a hail reached me from the
boat; and bursting through the bushes and the rising sea-fowl, I
said farewell (I trust for ever) to that desert isle.



 CHAPTER XVI.

IN WHICH I TURN SMUGGLER, AND THE CAPTAIN CASUIST


The last night at Midway, I had little sleep; the next morning,
after the sun was risen, and the clatter of departure had begun
to reign on deck, I lay a long while dozing; and when at last I
stepped from the companion, the schooner was already leaping
through the pass into the open sea.  Close on her board, the
huge scroll of a breaker unfurled itself along the reef with a
prodigious clamour; and behind I saw the wreck vomiting into
the morning air a coil of smoke.  The wreaths already blew out
far to leeward, flames already glittered in the cabin skylight;
and the sea-fowl were scattered in surprise as wide as the
lagoon.  As we drew farther off, the conflagration of the Flying
Scud flamed higher; and long after we had dropped all signs of
Midway Island, the smoke still hung in the horizon like that of
a distant steamer.  With the fading out of that last vestige, the
Norah Creina, passed again into the empty world of cloud and
water by which she had approached; and the next features that
appeared, eleven days later, to break the line of sky, were the
arid mountains of Oahu.

It has often since been a comfortable thought to me that we had
thus destroyed the tell-tale remnants of the Flying Scud; and
often a strange one that my last sight and reminiscence of that
fatal ship should be a pillar of smoke on the horizon.  To so
many others besides myself the same appearance had played a
part in the various stages of that business:  luring some to what
they little imagined, filling some with unimaginable terrors. 
But ours was the last smoke raised in the story; and with its
dying away the secret of the Flying Scud became a private
property.

It was by the first light of dawn that we saw, close on board,
the metropolitan island of Hawaii.  We held along the coast, as
near as we could venture, with a fresh breeze and under an
unclouded heaven; beholding, as we went, the arid mountain
sides and scrubby cocoa-palms of that somewhat melancholy
archipelago.  About four of the afternoon we turned Waimanolo
Point, the westerly headland of the great bight of Honolulu;
showed ourselves for twenty minutes in full view; and then fell
again to leeward, and put in the rest of daylight, plying under
shortened sail under the lee of Waimanolo.

A little after dark we beat once more about the point, and crept
cautiously toward the mouth of the Pearl Lochs, where Jim and
I had arranged I was to meet the smugglers.  The night was
happily obscure, the water smooth.  We showed, according to
instructions, no light on deck:  only a red lantern dropped from
either cathead to within a couple of feet of the water.  A lookout
was stationed on the bowsprit end, another in the crosstrees;
and the whole ship's company crowded forward, scouting for
enemies or friends.  It was now the crucial moment of our
enterprise; we were now risking liberty and credit; and that for
a sum so small to a man in my bankrupt situation, that I could
have laughed aloud in bitterness.  But the piece had been
arranged, and we must play it to the finish.

For some while, we saw nothing but the dark mountain outline
of the island, the torches of native fishermen glittering here and
there along the foreshore, and right in the midst that cluster of
brave lights with which the town of Honolulu advertises itself
to the seaward.  Presently a ruddy star appeared inshore of us,
and seemed to draw near unsteadily.  This was the anticipated
signal; and we made haste to show the countersign, lowering a
white light from the quarter, extinguishing the two others, and
laying the schooner incontinently to.  The star approached
slowly; the sounds of oars and of men's speech came to us
across the water; and then a voice hailed us.

"Is that Mr. Dodd?"

"Yes," I returned.  "Is Jim Pinkerton there?"

"No, sir," replied the voice.  "But there's one of his crowd here;
name of Speedy."

"I'm here, Mr. Dodd," added Speedy himself.   "I have letters
for you."

"All right," I replied.  "Come aboard, gentlemen, and let me see
my mail."

A whaleboat accordingly ranged alongside, and three men
boarded us:  my old San Francisco friend, the stock-gambler
Speedy, a little wizened person of the name of Sharpe, and a
big, flourishing, dissipated-looking man called Fowler.  The
two last (I learned afterward) were frequent partners; Sharpe
supplied the capital, and Fowler, who was quite a character in
the islands and occupied a considerable station, brought
activity, daring, and a private influence, highly necessary in the
case.  Both seemed to approach the business with a keen sense
of romance; and I believe this was the chief attraction, at least
with Fowler--for whom I early conceived a sentiment of liking. 
But in that first moment I had something else to think of than
to judge my new acquaintances; and before Speedy had fished
out the letters, the full extent of our misfortune was revealed.

"We've rather bad news for you, Mr. Dodd," said Fowler. 
"Your firm's gone up."

"Already!" I exclaimed.

"Well, it was thought rather a wonder Pinkerton held on as
long as he did," was the reply.  "The wreck deal was too big for
your credit; you were doing a big business, no doubt, but you
were doing it on precious little capital; and when the strain
came, you were bound to go.  Pinkerton's through all right:
seven cents dividend; some remarks made, but nothing to hurt;
the press let you down easy--I guess Jim had relations there. 
The only trouble is, that all this Flying Scud affair got in the
papers with the rest; everybody's wide awake in Honolulu, and
the sooner we get the stuff in and the dollars out, the better for
all concerned."

"Gentlemen," said I, "you must excuse me.  My friend, the
captain here, will drink a glass of champagne with you to give
you patience; but as for myself, I am unfit even for ordinary
conversation till I have read these letters."

They demurred a little:  and indeed the danger of delay seemed
obvious; but the sight of my distress, which I was unable
entirely to control, appealed strongly to their good-nature; and I
was suffered at last to get by myself on deck, where, by the
light of a lantern smuggled under shelter of the low rail, I read
the following wretched correspondence.

  "My dear Loudon," ran the first, "this will be handed you by
your friend Speedy of the Catamount.  His sterling character
and loyal devotion to yourself pointed him out as the best man
for our purposes in Honolulu--the parties on the spot being
difficult to manipulate.  A man called Billy Fowler (you must
have heard of Billy) is the boss; he is in politics some, and
squares the officers.  I have hard times before me in the city,
but I feel as bright as a dollar and as strong as John L.
Sullivan.  What with Mamie here, and my partner speeding
over the seas, and the bonanza in the wreck, I feel like I could
juggle with the Pyramids of Egypt, same as conjurers do with
aluminium balls.  My earnest prayers follow you, Loudon, that
you may feel the way I do--just inspired!  My feet don't touch
the ground; I kind of swim.  Mamie is like Moses and Aaron
that held up the other individual's arms.  She carries me along
like a horse and buggy.  I am beating the record.   

                                                "Your true partner,

                                                          "J. PINKERTON."

Number two was in a different style:--

  "My dearest Loudon, how am I to prepare you for this dire
intelligence?  O dear me, it will strike you to the earth.  The
Fiat has gone forth; our firm went bust at a quarter before
twelve.  It was a bill of Bradley's (for $200) that brought these
vast operations to a close, and evolved liabilities of upwards of
two hundred and fifty thousand.  O, the shame and pity of it!
and you but three weeks gone!  Loudon, don't blame your
partner:  if human hands and brains could have sufficed, I
would have held the thing together.  But it just slowly
crumbled; Bradley was the last kick, but the blamed business
just MELTED.  I give the liabilities; it's supposed they're all in;
for the cowards were waiting, and the claims were filed like
taking tickets to hear Patti.  I don't quite have the hang of the
assets yet, our interests were so extended; but I am at it day and
night, and I guess will make a creditable dividend.  If the
wreck pans out only half the way it ought, we'll turn the laugh
still.  I am as full of grit and work as ever, and just tower above
our troubles.  Mamie is a host in herself.  Somehow I feel like it
was only me that had gone bust, and you and she soared clear
of it.  Hurry up.  That's all you have to do.

                                             "Yours ever,

                                                       "J. PINKERTON."

The third was yet more altered:--

"My poor Loudon," it began, "I labour far into the night getting
our affairs in order; you could not believe their vastness and
complexity.  Douglas B. Longhurst said humorously that the
receiver's work would be cut out for him.  I cannot deny that
some of them have a speculative look.  God forbid a sensitive,
refined spirit like yours should ever come face to face with a
Commissioner in Bankruptcy; these men get all the sweetness
knocked right out of them.  But I could bear up better if it
weren't for press comments.  Often and often, Loudon, I recall
to mind your most legitimate critiques of the press system. 
They published an interview with me, not the least like what I
said, and with JEERING comments; it would make your blood
boil, it was literally INHUMANE; I wouldn't have written it
about a yellow dog that was in trouble like what I am.  Mamie
just winced, the first time she has turned a hair right through
the whole catastrophe.  How wonderfully true was what you
said long ago in Paris, about touching on people's personal
appearance!  The fellow said--"  And then these words had
been scored through; and my distressed friend turned to another
subject.  "I cannot bear to dwell upon our assets.  They simply
don't show up.  Even Thirteen Star, as sound a line as can be
produced upon this coast, goes begging.  The wreck has thrown
a blight on all we ever touched.  And where's the use?  God
never made a wreck big enough to fill our deficit.  I am haunted
by the thought that you may blame me; I know how I despised
your remonstrances.  O, Loudon, don't be hard on your
miserable partner.  The funny-dog business is what kills.  I fear
your stern rectitude of mind like the eye of God.  I cannot think
but what some of my books seem mixed up; otherwise, I don't
seem to see my way as plain as I could wish to.  Or else my
brain is gone soft.  Loudon, if there should be any
unpleasantness, you can trust me to do the right thing and keep
you clear.  I've been telling them already, how you had no
business grip and never saw the books.  O, I trust I have done
right in this!  I knew it was a liberty; I know you may justly
complain; but it was some things that were said.  And mind
you, all legitimate business!  Not even your shrinking
sensitiveness could find fault with the first look of one of them,
if they had panned out right.  And you know, the Flying Scud
was the biggest gamble of the crowd, and that was your own
idea.  Mamie says she never could bear to look you in the face,
if that idea had been mine, she is SO conscientious!

                                                          "Your broken-hearted

                                                                                 "JIM."

The last began without formality:--

"This is the end of me commercially.  I give up; my nerve is
gone.  I suppose I ought to be glad; for we're through the court. 
I don't know as ever I knew how, and I'm sure I don't
remember.  If it pans out--the wreck, I mean--we'll go to
Europe, and live on the interest of our money.  No more work
for me.  I shake when people speak to me.  I have gone on,
hoping and hoping, and working and working, and the lead has
pinched right out.  I want to lie on my back in a garden and
read Shakespeare and E. P. Roe.  Don't suppose it's cowardice,
Loudon.  I'm a sick man.  Rest is what I must have.  I've
worked hard all my life; I never spared myself; every dollar I
ever made, I've coined my brains for it.  I've never done a mean
thing; I've lived respectable, and given to the poor. Who has a
better right to a holiday than I have?  And I mean to have a year
of it straight out; and if I don't, I shall lie right down here in my
tracks, and die of worry and brain trouble.  Don't mistake. 
That's so.  If there are any pickings at all, TRUST SPEEDY;
don't let the creditors get wind of what there is.  I helped you
when you were down; help me now.  Don't deceive yourself;
you've got to help me right now, or never.  I am clerking, and
NOT FIT TO CYPHER.  Mamie's typewriting at the Phoenix
Guano Exchange, down town.  The light is right out of my life. 
I know you'll not like to do what I propose.  Think only of this;
that it's life or death for

                                                                  "JIM PINKERTON.

"P.S.  Our figure was seven per cent.  O, what a fall was there!
Well, well, it's past mending; I don't want to whine.  But,
Loudon, I do want to live.  No more ambition; all I ask is life.  I
have so much to make it sweet to me!  I am clerking, and
USELESS AT THAT.  I know I would have fired such a clerk
inside of forty minutes, in MY time.  But my time's over.  I can
only cling on to you.  Don't fail 

                                                                  "JIM PINKERTON."

There was yet one more postscript, yet one more outburst of
self-pity and pathetic adjuration; and a doctor's opinion,
unpromising enough, was besides enclosed.  I pass them both
in silence.  I think shame to have shown, at so great length, the
half-baked virtues of my friend dissolving in the crucible of
sickness and distress; and the effect upon my spirits can be
judged already.  I got to my feet when I had done, drew a deep
breath, and stared hard at Honolulu.  One moment the world
seemed at an end; the next, I was conscious of a rush of
independent energy.  On Jim I could rely no longer; I must now
take hold myself.  I must decide and act on my own better
thoughts.

The word was easy to say; the thing, at the first blush, was
undiscoverable.  I was overwhelmed with miserable, womanish
pity for my broken friend; his outcries grieved my spirit; I saw
him then and now--then, so invincible; now, brought so low--
and knew neither how to refuse, nor how to consent to his
proposal.  The remembrance of my father, who had fallen in the
same field unstained, the image of his monument
incongruously rising, a fear of the law, a chill air that seemed to
blow upon my fancy from the doors of prisons, and the
imaginary clank of fetters, recalled me to a different resolve. 
And then again, the wails of my sick partner intervened.  So I
stood hesitating, and yet with a strong sense of capacity behind:
sure, if I could but choose my path, that I should walk in it with
resolution.

Then I remembered that I had a friend on board, and stepped to
the companion.

"Gentlemen," said I, "only a few moments more:  but these, I
regret to say, I must make more tedious still by removing your
companion.  It is indispensable that I should have a word or
two with Captain Nares."

Both the smugglers were afoot at once, protesting.  The
business, they declared, must be despatched at once; they had
run risk enough, with a conscience; and they must either finish
now, or go.

"The choice is yours, gentlemen," said I, "and, I believe, the
eagerness.  I am not yet sure that I have anything in your way;
even if I have, there are a hundred things to be considered; and
I assure you it is not at all my habit to do business with a pistol
to my head."

"That is all very proper, Mr. Dodd; there is no wish to coerce
you, believe me," said Fowler; "only, please consider our
position.  It is really dangerous; we were not the only people to
see your schooner off Waimanolo."

"Mr. Fowler," I replied, "I was not born yesterday.  Will you
allow me to express an opinion, in which I may be quite wrong,
but to which I am entirely wedded? If the custom-house officers
had been coming, they would have been here now.  In other
words, somebody is working the oracle, and (for a good guess)
his name is Fowler."

Both men laughed loud and long; and being supplied with
another bottle of Longhurst's champagne, suffered the captain
and myself to leave them without further word.

I gave Nares the correspondence, and he skimmed it through.

"Now, captain," said I, "I want a fresh mind on this.  What
does it mean?"

"It's large enough text," replied the captain.  "It means you're to
stake your pile on Speedy, hand him over all you can, and hold
your tongue.  I almost wish you hadn't shown it me," he added
wearily.  "What with the specie from the wreck and the opium
money, it comes to a biggish deal."

"That's supposing that I do it?" said I.

"Exactly," said he, "supposing you do it."

"And there are pros and cons to that," I observed.

"There's San Quentin, to start in with," said the captain; "and
suppose you clear the penitentiary, there's the nasty taste in the
mouth.  The figure's big enough to make bad trouble, but it's
not big enough to be picturesque; and I should guess a man
always feels kind of small who has sold himself under six
cyphers.  That would be my way, at least; there's an excitement
about a million that might carry me on; but the other way, I
should feel kind of lonely when I woke in bed.  Then there's
Speedy.  Do you know him well?"

"No, I do not," said I.

"Well, of course he can vamoose with the entire speculation, if
he chooses," pursued the captain, "and if he don't I can't see but
what you've got to support and bed and board with him to the
end of time.  I guess it would weary me.  Then there's Mr.
Pinkerton, of course.  He's been a good friend to you, hasn't he?
Stood by you, and all that? and pulled you through for all he
was worth?"


"That he has," I cried; "I could never begin telling you my debt
to him!"

"Well, and that's a consideration," said the captain.  "As a
matter of principle, I wouldn't look at this business at the
money.  'Not good enough,' would be my word.  But even
principle goes under when it comes to friends--the right sort, I
mean. This Pinkerton is frightened, and he seems sick; the
medico don't seem to care a cent about his state of health; and
you've got to figure how you would like it if he came to die. 
Remember, the risk of this little swindle is all yours; it's no sort
of risk to Mr. Pinkerton.  Well, you've got to put it that way
plainly, and see how you like the sound of it: my friend
Pinkerton is in danger of the New Jerusalem, I am in danger of
San Quentin; which risk do I propose to run?"

"That's an ugly way to put it," I objected, "and perhaps hardly
fair.  There's right and wrong to be considered."

"Don't know the parties," replied Nares; "and I'm coming to
them, anyway.  For it strikes me, when it came to smuggling
opium, you walked right up?"

"So I did," I said; "sick I am to have to say it!"

"All the same," continued Nares, "you went into the opium-
smuggling with your head down; and a good deal of fussing
I've listened to, that you hadn't more of it to smuggle.  Now,
maybe your partner's not quite fixed the same as you are;
maybe he sees precious little difference between the one thing
and the other."

"You could not say truer:  he sees none, I do believe," cried I;
"and though I see one, I could never tell you how."

"We never can," said the oracular Nares; "taste is all a matter of
opinion.  But the point is, how will your friend take it?  You
refuse a favour, and you take the high horse at the same time;
you disappoint him, and you rap him over the knuckles.  It
won't do, Mr. Dodd; no friendship can stand that.  You must be
as good as your friend, or as bad as your friend, or start on a
fresh deal without him."

"I don't see it!" said I.  "You don't know Jim!"

"Well, you WILL see," said Nares.  "And now, here's another
point.  This bit of money looks mighty big to Mr. Pinkerton; it
may spell life or health to him; but among all your creditors, I
don't see that it amounts to a hill of beans--I don't believe it'll
pay their car-fares all round.  And don't you think you'll ever
get thanked.  You were known to pay a long price for the
chance of rummaging that wreck; you do the rummaging, you
come home, and you hand over ten thousand--or twenty, if you
like--a part of which you'll have to own up you made by
smuggling; and, mind! you'll never get Billy Fowler to stick his
name to a receipt.  Now just glance at the transaction from the
outside, and see what a clear case it makes.  Your ten thousand
is a sop; and people will only wonder you were so damned
impudent as to offer such a small one!  Whichever way you
take it, Mr. Dodd, the bottom's out of your character; so there's
one thing less to be considered."

"I daresay you'll scarce believe me," said I, "but I feel that a
positive relief."

"You must be made some way different from me, then,"
returned Nares.  "And, talking about me, I might just mention
how I stand.  You'll have no trouble from me--you've trouble
enough of your own; and I'm friend enough, when a friend's in
need, to shut my eyes and go right where he tells me.  All the
same, I'm rather queerly fixed.  My owners'll have to rank with
the rest on their charter-party.  Here am I, their representative!
and I have to look over the ship's side while the bankrupt walks
his assets ashore in Mr. Speedy's hat-box.  It's a thing I
wouldn't do for James G. Blaine; but I'll do it for you, Mr.
Dodd, and only sorry I can't do more."

"Thank you, captain; my mind is made up," said I.  "I'll go
straight, RUAT COELUM!  I never understood that old tag
before to-night."

"I hope it isn't my business that decides you?" asked the
captain.

"I'll never deny it was an element," said I.  "I hope, I hope I'm
not cowardly; I hope I could steal for Jim myself; but when it
comes to dragging in you and Speedy, and this one and the
other, why, Jim has got to die, and there's an end.  I'll try and
work for him when I get to 'Frisco, I suppose; and I suppose I'll
fail, and look on at his death, and kick myself:  it can't be
helped--I'll fight it on this line."


"I don't say as you're wrong," replied Nares, "and I'll be hanged
if I know if you're right.  It suits me anyway.  And look here--
hadn't you better just show our friends over the side?" he
added; "no good of being at the risk and worry of smuggling for
the benefit of creditors."

"I don't think of the creditors," said I.  "But I've kept this pair so
long, I haven't got the brass to fire them now."

Indeed, I believe that was my only reason for entering upon a
transaction which was now outside my interest, but which (as it
chanced) repaid me fifty-fold in entertainment.  Fowler and
Sharpe were both preternaturally sharp; they did me the honour
in the beginning to attribute to myself their proper vices; and
before we were done had grown to regard me with an esteem
akin to worship.  This proud position I attained by no more
recondite arts, than telling the mere truth and unaffectedly
displaying my indifference to the result.  I have doubtless stated
the essentials of all good diplomacy, which may be rather
regarded, therefore, as a grace of state, than the effect of
management.  For to tell the truth is not in itself diplomatic,
and to have no care for the result a thing involuntary.  When I
mentioned, for instance, that I had but two hundred and forty
pounds of drug, my smugglers exchanged meaning glances, as
who should say, "Here is a foeman worthy of our steel!"  But
when I carelessly proposed thirty-five dollars a pound, as an
amendment to their offered twenty, and wound up with the
remark:  "The whole thing is a matter of moonshine to me,
gentlemen.  Take it or want it, and fill your glasses"--I had the
indescribable gratification to see Sharpe nudge Fowler
warningly, and Fowler choke down the jovial acceptance that
stood ready on his lips, and lamely substitute a "No--no more
wine, please, Mr. Dodd!" Nor was this all: for when the affair
was settled at fifty dollars a pound--a shrewd stroke of business
for my creditors--and our friends had got on board their
whaleboat and shoved off, it appeared they were imperfectly
acquainted with the conveyance of sound upon still water, and I
had the joy to overhear the following testimonial.

"Deep man, that Dodd," said Sharpe.

And the bass-toned Fowler echoed, "Damned if I understand
his game."

Thus we were left once more alone upon the Norah Creina; and
the news of the night, and the lamentations of Pinkerton, and
the thought of my own harsh decision, returned and besieged
me in the dark.  According to all the rubbish I had read, I
should have been sustained by the warm consciousness of
virtue.  Alas, I had but the one feeling:  that I had sacrificed my
sick friend to the fear of prison-cells and stupid starers.  And no
moralist has yet advanced so far as to number cowardice
amongst the things that are their own reward.



 CHAPTER XVII.

 LIGHT FROM THE MAN OF WAR.


In the early sunlight of the next day, we tossed close off the
buoy and saw the city sparkle in its groves about the foot of the
Punch-bowl, and the masts clustering thick in the small
harbour.  A good breeze, which had risen with the sea, carried
us triumphantly through the intricacies of the passage; and we
had soon brought up not far from the landing-stairs.  I
remember to have remarked an ugly horned reptile of a modern
warship in the usual moorings across the port, but my mind
was so profoundly plunged in melancholy that I paid no heed.

Indeed, I had little time at my disposal.  Messieurs Sharpe and
Fowler had left the night before in the persuasion that I was a
liar of the first magnitude; the genial belief brought them
aboard again with the earliest opportunity, proffering help to
one who had proved how little he required it, and hospitality to
so respectable a character.  I had business to mind, I had some
need both of assistance and diversion; I liked Fowler--I don't
know why; and in short, I let them do with me as they desired. 
No creditor intervening, I spent the first half of the day
inquiring into the conditions of the tea and silk market under
the auspices of Sharpe; lunched with him in a private
apartment at the Hawaiian Hotel--for Sharpe was a teetotaler in
public; and about four in the afternoon was delivered into the
hands of Fowler.  This gentleman owned a bungalow on the
Waikiki beach; and there in company with certain young
bloods of Honolulu, I was entertained to a sea-bathe,
indiscriminate cocktails, a dinner, a hula-hula, and (to round
off the night), poker and assorted liquors.  To lose money in the
small hours to pale, intoxicated youth, has always appeared to
me a pleasure overrated.  In my then frame of mind, I confess I
found it even delightful; put up my money (or rather my
creditors'), and put down Fowler's champagne with equal
avidity and success; and awoke the next morning to a mild
headache and the rather agreeable lees of the last night's
excitement.  The young bloods, many of whom were still far
from sober, had taken the kitchen into their own hands, vice the
Chinaman deposed; and since each was engaged upon a dish of
his own, and none had the least scruple in demolishing his
neighbour's handiwork, I became early convinced that many
eggs would be broken and few omelets made.  The discovery of
a jug of milk and a crust of bread enabled me to stay my
appetite; and since it was Sunday, when no business could be
done, and the festivities were to be renewed that night in the
abode of Fowler, it occurred to me to slip silently away and
enjoy some air and solitude.

I turned seaward under the dead crater known as Diamond
Head.  My way was for some time under the shade of certain
thickets of green, thorny trees, dotted with houses.  Here I
enjoyed some pictures of the native life:  wide-eyed, naked
children, mingled with pigs; a youth asleep under a tree; an old
gentleman spelling through glasses his Hawaiian Bible; the
somewhat embarrassing spectacle of a lady at her bath in a
spring; and the glimpse of gaudy-coloured gowns in the deep
shade of the houses.  Thence I found a road along the beach
itself, wading in sand, opposed and buffeted by the whole
weight of the Trade:  on one hand, the glittering and sounding
surf, and the bay lively with many sails; on the other,
precipitous, arid gullies and sheer cliffs, mounting towards the
crater and the blue sky.  For all the companionship of
skimming vessels, the place struck me with a sense of solitude. 
There came in my head what I had been told the day before at
dinner, of a cavern above in the bowels of the volcano, a place
only to be visited with the light of torches, a treasure-house of
the bones of priests and warriors, and clamorous with the voice
of an unseen river pouring seaward through the crannies of the
mountain.  At the thought, it was revealed to me suddenly, how
the bungalows, and the Fowlers, and the bright busy town and
crowding ships, were all children of yesterday; and for
centuries before, the obscure life of the natives, with its glories
and ambitions, its joys and crimes and agonies, had rolled
unseen, like the mountain river, in that sea-girt place.  Not
Chaldea appeared more ancient, nor the Pyramids of Egypt
more abstruse; and I heard time measured by "the drums and
tramplings" of immemorial conquests, and saw myself the
creature of an hour.  Over the bankruptcy of Pinkerton and
Dodd, of Montana Block, S. F., and the conscientious troubles
of the junior partner, the spirit of eternity was seen to smile. 

To this mood of philosophic sadness, my excesses of the night
before no doubt contributed; for more things than virtue are at
times their own reward:  but I was greatly healed at least of my
distresses.  And while I was yet enjoying my abstracted
humour, a turn of the beach brought me in view of the
signal-station, with its watch-house and flag-staff, perched on
the immediate margin of a cliff.  The house was new and clean
and bald, and stood naked to the Trades.  The wind beat about
it in loud squalls; the seaward windows rattled without mercy;
the breach of the surf below contributed its increment of noise;
and the fall of my foot in the narrow verandah passed unheard
by those within.

There were two on whom I thus entered unexpectedly:  the
look-out man, with grizzled beard, keen seaman's eyes, and
that brand on his countenance that comes of solitary living; and
a visitor, an oldish, oratorical fellow, in the smart tropical array
of the British man-o'-war's man, perched on a table, and
smoking a cigar.  I was made pleasantly welcome, and was
soon listening with amusement to the sea-lawyer.

"No, if I hadn't have been born an Englishman," was one of his
sentiments, "damn me!  I'd rather 'a been born a Frenchy!  I'd
like to see another nation fit to black their boots."  Presently
after, he developed his views on home politics with similar
trenchancy.  "I'd rather be a brute beast than what I'd be a
liberal," he said.  "Carrying banners and that! a pig's got more
sense.  Why, look at our chief engineer--they do say he carried
a banner with his own 'ands: "Hooroar for Gladstone!" I
suppose, or "Down with the Aristocracy!"  What 'arm does the
aristocracy do?  Show me a country any good without one!  Not
the States; why, it's the 'ome of corruption!  I knew a man--he
was a good man, 'ome born--who was signal quartermaster in
the Wyandotte.  He told me he could never have got there if he
hadn't have 'run with the boys'--told it me as I'm telling you. 
Now, we're all British subjects here----" he was going on.

"I am afraid I am an American," I said apologetically.

He seemed the least bit taken aback, but recovered himself; and
with the ready tact of his betters, paid me the usual British
compliment on the riposte.  "You don't say so!" he exclaimed.
"Well, I give you my word of honour, I'd never have guessed it. 
Nobody could tell it on you," said he, as though it were some
form of liquor.

I thanked him, as I always do, at this particular stage, with his
compatriots:  not so much perhaps for the compliment to
myself and my poor country, as for the revelation (which is ever
fresh to me) of Britannic self-sufficiency and taste.  And he was
so far softened by my gratitude as to add a word of praise on
the American method of lacing sails.  "You're ahead of us in
lacing sails," he said.  "You can say that with a clear
conscience."

"Thank you," I replied.  "I shall certainly do so."

At this rate, we got along swimmingly; and when I rose to
retrace my steps to the Fowlery, he at once started to his feet
and offered me the welcome solace of his company for the
return.  I believe I discovered much alacrity at the idea, for the
creature (who seemed to be unique, or to represent a type like
that of the dodo) entertained me hugely.  But when he had
produced his hat, I found I was in the way of more than
entertainment; for on the ribbon I could read the legend: 
"H.M.S. Tempest."

"I say," I began, when our adieus were paid, and we were
scrambling down the path from the look-out, "it was your ship
that picked up the men on board the Flying Scud, wasn't it?"

"You may say so," said he.  "And a blessed good job for the
Flying-Scuds.  It's a God-forsaken spot, that Midway Island."

"I've just come from there," said I.  "It was I who bought the
wreck."

"Beg your pardon, sir," cried the sailor: "gen'lem'n in the white
schooner?"

"The same," said I.

My friend saluted, as though we were now, for the first time,
formally introduced.

"Of course," I continued, "I am rather taken up with the whole
story; and I wish you would tell me what you can of how the
men were saved."

"It was like this," said he.  "We had orders to call at Midway
after castaways, and had our distance pretty nigh run down the
day before.  We steamed half-speed all night, looking to make
it about noon; for old Tootles--beg your pardon, sir--the captain
--was precious scared of the place at night.  Well, there's nasty,
filthy currents round that Midway; YOU know, as has been
there; and one on 'em must have set us down.  Leastways,
about six bells, when we had ought to been miles away, some
one sees a sail, and lo and be'old, there was the spars of a full-
rigged brig!  We raised her pretty fast, and the island after her;
and made out she was hard aground, canted on her bilge, and
had her ens'n flying, union down.  It was breaking 'igh on the
reef, and we laid well out, and sent a couple of boats.  I didn't
go in neither; only stood and looked on; but it seems they was
all badly scared and muddled, and didn't know which end was
uppermost.  One on 'em kep' snivelling and wringing of his
'ands; he come on board all of a sop like a monthly nurse.  That
Trent, he come first, with his 'and in a bloody rag.  I was near
'em as I am to you; and I could make out he was all to bits--
'eard his breath rattle in his blooming lungs as he come down
the ladder.  Yes, they was a scared lot, small blame to 'em, I
say!  The next after Trent, come him as was mate."

"Goddedaal!" I exclaimed.

"And a good name for him too," chuckled the man-o'-war's
man, who probably confounded the word with a familiar oath. 
"A good name too; only it weren't his. He was a gen'lem'n born,
sir, as had gone maskewerading.  One of our officers knowed
him at 'ome, reckonises him, steps up, 'olds out his 'and right
off, and says he:  ''Ullo, Norrie, old chappie!' he says.  The
other was coming up, as bold as look at it; didn't seem put
out--that's where blood tells, sir!  Well, no sooner does he 'ear
his born name given him, than he turns as white as the Day of
Judgment, stares at Mr. Sebright like he was looking at a
ghost, and then (I give you my word of honour) turned to, and
doubled up in a dead faint.  'Take him down to my berth,' says
Mr. Sebright.  ''Tis poor old Norrie Carthew,' he says."

"And what--what sort of a gentleman was this Mr. Carthew?" I
gasped.

"The ward-room steward told me he was come of the best
blood in England," was my friend's reply: "Eton and 'Arrow
bred;--and might have been a bar'net!"

"No, but to look at?" I corrected him.


"The same as you or me," was the uncompromising answer:
"not much to look at.  I didn't know he was a gen'lem'n; but
then, I never see him cleaned up."

"How was that?" I cried.  "O yes, I remember: he was sick all
the way to 'Frisco, was he not?"

"Sick, or sorry, or something," returned my informant. "My
belief, he didn't hanker after showing up.  He kep' close; the
ward-room steward, what took his meals in, told me he ate nex'
to nothing; and he was fetched ashore at 'Frisco on the quiet. 
Here was how it was.  It seems his brother had took and died,
him as had the estate.  This one had gone in for his beer, by
what I could make out; the old folks at 'ome had turned rusty;
no one knew where he had gone to.  Here he was, slaving in a
merchant brig, shipwrecked on Midway, and packing up his
duds for a long voyage in a open boat.  He comes on board our
ship, and by God, here he is a landed proprietor, and may be in
Parliament to-morrow!  It's no less than natural he should keep
dark:  so would you and me in the same box."

"I daresay," said I.  "But you saw more of the others?"

"To be sure," says he: "no 'arm in them from what I see.  There
was one 'Ardy there: colonial born he was, and had been
through a power of money.  There was no nonsense about
'Ardy; he had been up, and he had come down, and took it so. 
His 'eart was in the right place; and he was well-informed, and
knew French; and Latin, I believe, like a native!  I liked that
'Ardy; he was a good-looking boy, too."

"Did they say much about the wreck?" I asked.

"There wasn't much to say, I reckon," replied the man-o'-war's
man.  "It was all in the papers.  'Ardy used to yarn most about
the coins he had gone through; he had lived with book-makers,
and jockeys, and pugs, and actors, and all that:  a precious low
lot!" added this judicious person.  "But it's about here my 'orse
is moored, and by your leave I'll be getting ahead."

"One moment," said I.  "Is Mr. Sebright on board?"

"No, sir, he's ashore to-day," said the sailor.  "I took up a bag
for him to the 'otel."

With that we parted.  Presently after my friend overtook and
passed me on a hired steed which seemed to scorn its cavalier;
and I was left in the dust of his passage, a prey to whirling
thoughts.  For I now stood, or seemed to stand, on the
immediate threshold of these mysteries.  I knew the name of the
man Dickson--his name was Carthew; I knew where the money
came from that opposed us at the sale--it was part of Carthew's
inheritance; and in my gallery of illustrations to the history of
the wreck, one more picture hung; perhaps the most dramatic
of the series.  It showed me the deck of a warship in that distant
part of the great ocean, the officers and seamen looking
curiously on; and a man of birth and education, who had been
sailing under an alias on a trading brig, and was now rescued
from desperate peril, felled like an ox by the bare sound of his
own name.  I could not fail to be reminded of my own
experience at the Occidental telephone.  The hero of three
styles, Dickson, Goddedaal, or Carthew, must be the owner of
a lively--or a loaded--conscience, and the reflection recalled to
me the photograph found on board the Flying Scud; just such a
man, I reasoned, would be capable of just such starts and
crises, and I inclined to think that Goddedaal (or Carthew) was
the mainspring of the mystery.

One thing was plain: as long as the Tempest was in reach, I
must make the acquaintance of both Sebright and the doctor. 
To this end, I excused myself with Mr. Fowler, returned to
Honolulu, and passed the remainder of the day hanging vainly
round the cool verandahs of the hotel.  It was near nine o'clock
at night before I was rewarded.

"That is the gentleman you were asking for," said the clerk.

I beheld a man in tweeds, of an incomparable languor of
demeanour, and carrying a cane with genteel effort.  From the
name, I had looked to find a sort of Viking and young ruler of
the battle and the tempest; and I was the more disappointed,
and not a little alarmed, to come face to face with this
impracticable type. 

"I believe I have the pleasure of addressing Lieutenant
Sebright," said I, stepping forward.

"Aw, yes," replied the hero; "but, aw!  I dawn't knaw you, do
I?" (He spoke for all the world like Lord Foppington in the old
play--a proof of the perennial nature of man's affectations.  But
his limping dialect, I scorn to continue to reproduce.)


"It was with the intention of making myself known, that I have
taken this step," said I, entirely unabashed (for impudence
begets in me its like--perhaps my only martial attribute).  "We
have a common subject of interest, to me very lively; and I
believe I may be in a position to be of some service to a friend
of yours--to give him, at least, some very welcome
information."

The last clause was a sop to my conscience:  I could not
pretend, even to myself, either the power or the will to serve
Mr. Carthew; but I felt sure he would like to hear the Flying
Scud was burned.

"I don't know--I--I don't understand you," stammered my
victim.  "I don't have any friends in Honolulu, don't you know?"

"The friend to whom I refer is English," I replied.  "It is Mr.
Carthew, whom you picked up at Midway.  My firm has
bought the wreck; I am just returned from breaking her up; and
--to make my business quite clear to you--I have a
communication it is necessary I should make; and have to
trouble you for Mr. Carthew's address."

It will be seen how rapidly I had dropped all hope of interesting
the frigid British bear.  He, on his side, was plainly on thorns at
my insistence; I judged he was suffering torments of alarm lest
I should prove an undesirable acquaintance; diagnosed him for
a shy, dull, vain, unamiable animal, without adequate defence--
a sort of dishoused snail; and concluded, rightly enough, that
he would consent to anything to bring our interview to a
conclusion.  A moment later, he had fled, leaving me with a
sheet of paper, thus inscribed:--

                                           Norris Carthew,

                                               Stallbridge-le-Carthew,

                                                         Dorset.

I might have cried victory, the field of battle and some of the
enemy's baggage remaining in my occupation.  As a matter of
fact, my moral sufferings during the engagement had rivalled
those of Mr. Sebright; I was left incapable of fresh hostilities; I
owned that the navy of old England was (for me) invincible as
of yore; and giving up all thought of the doctor, inclined to
salute her veteran flag, in the future, from a prudent distance. 
Such was my inclination, when I retired to rest; and my first
experience the next morning strengthened it to certainty.  For I
had the pleasure of encountering my fair antagonist on his way
on board; and he honoured me with a recognition so
disgustingly dry, that my impatience overflowed, and (recalling
the tactics of Nelson) I neglected to perceive or to return it.

Judge of my astonishment, some half-hour later, to receive a
note of invitation from the Tempest.

"Dear Sir," it began, "we are all naturally very much interested
in the wreck of the Flying Scud, and as soon as I mentioned
that I had the pleasure of making your acquaintance, a very
general wish was expressed that you would come and dine on
board.  It will give us all the greatest pleasure to see you
to-night, or in case you should be otherwise engaged, to
luncheon either to-morrow or to-day." A note of the hours
followed, and the document wound up with the name of "J.
Lascelles Sebright," under an undeniable statement that he was
sincerely mine. 

"No, Mr. Lascelles Sebright," I reflected, "you are not, but I
begin to suspect that (like the lady in the song) you are
another's.  You have mentioned your adventure, my friend; you
have been blown up; you have got your orders; this note has
been dictated; and I am asked on board (in spite of your
melancholy protests) not to meet the men, and not to talk about
the Flying Scud, but to undergo the scrutiny of some one
interested in Carthew:  the doctor, for a wager.  And for a
second wager, all this springs from your facility in giving the
address."  I lost no time in answering the billet, electing for the
earliest occasion; and at the appointed hour, a somewhat
blackguard-looking boat's crew from the Norah Creina
conveyed me under the guns of the Tempest.

The ward-room appeared pleased to see me; Sebright's brother
officers, in contrast to himself, took a boyish interest in my
cruise; and much was talked of the Flying Scud; of how she
had been lost, of how I had found her, and of the weather, the
anchorage, and the currents about Midway Island.  Carthew
was referred to more than once without embarrassment; the
parallel case of a late Earl of Aberdeen, who died mate on
board a Yankee schooner, was adduced.  If they told me little of
the man, it was because they had not much to tell, and only felt
an interest in his recognition and pity for his prolonged ill-
health.  I could never think the subject was avoided; and it was
clear that the officers, far from practising concealment, had
nothing to conceal.

So far, then, all seemed natural, and yet the doctor troubled me. 
This was a tall, rugged, plain man, on the wrong side of fifty,
already gray, and with a restless mouth and bushy eyebrows: he
spoke seldom, but then with gaiety; and his great, quaking,
silent laughter was infectious.  I could make out that he was at
once the quiz of the ward-room and perfectly respected; and I
made sure that he observed me covertly.  It is certain I returned
the compliment.  If Carthew had feigned sickness--and all
seemed to point in that direction--here was the man who knew
all--or certainly knew much.  His strong, sterling face
progressively and silently persuaded of his full knowledge. 
That was not the mouth, these were not the eyes, of one who
would act in ignorance, or could be led at random.  Nor again
was it the face of a man squeamish in the case of malefactors;
there was even a touch of Brutus there, and something of the
hanging judge.  In short, he seemed the last character for the
part assigned him in my theories; and wonder and curiosity
contended in my mind.

Luncheon was over, and an adjournment to the smoking-room
proposed, when (upon a sudden impulse) I burned my ships,
and pleading indisposition, requested to consult the doctor.

"There is nothing the matter with my body, Dr. Urquart," said I,
as soon as we were alone.

He hummed, his mouth worked, he regarded me steadily with
his gray eyes, but resolutely held his peace.


"I want to talk to you about the Flying Scud and Mr. Carthew,"
I resumed.  "Come:  you must have expected this.  I am sure
you know all; you are shrewd, and must have a guess that I
know much.  How are we to stand to one another? and how am
I to stand to Mr. Carthew?"

"I do not fully understand you," he replied, after a pause; and
then, after another: "It is the spirit I refer to, Mr. Dodd."

"The spirit of my inquiries?" I asked.

He nodded.


"I think we are at cross-purposes," said I.  "The spirit is
precisely what I came in quest of.  I bought the Flying Scud at
a ruinous figure, run up by Mr. Carthew through an agent; and
I am, in consequence, a bankrupt.  But if I have found no
fortune in the wreck, I have found unmistakable evidences of
foul play.  Conceive my position:  I am ruined through this
man, whom I never saw; I might very well desire revenge or
compensation; and I think you will admit I have the means to
extort either."

He made no sign in answer to this challenge.

"Can you not understand, then," I resumed, "the spirit in which
I come to one who is surely in the secret, and ask him, honestly
and plainly: How do I stand to Mr. Carthew?"

"I must ask you to be more explicit," said he.

"You do not help me much," I retorted.  "But see if you can
understand:  my conscience is not very fine-spun; still, I have
one.  Now, there are degrees of foul play, to some of which I
have no particular objection. I am sure with Mr. Carthew, I am
not at all the person to forgo an advantage; and I have much
curiosity.  But on the other hand, I have no taste for
persecution; and I ask you to believe that I am not the man to
make bad worse, or heap trouble on the unfortunate."

"Yes; I think I understand," said he.  "Suppose I pass you my
word that, whatever may have occurred, there were excuses--
great excuses--I may say, very great?"

"It would have weight with me, doctor," I replied.

"I may go further," he pursued.  "Suppose I had been there, or
you had been there:  after a certain event had taken place, it's a
grave question what we might have done--it's even a question
what we could have done--ourselves.  Or take me.  I will be
plain with you, and own that I am in possession of the facts. 
You have a shrewd guess how I have acted in that knowledge.
May I ask you to judge from the character of my action,
something of the nature of that knowledge, which I have no
call, nor yet no title, to share with you?"

I cannot convey a sense of the rugged conviction and judicial
emphasis of Dr. Urquart's speech.  To those who did not hear
him, it may appear as if he fed me on enigmas; to myself, who
heard, I seemed to have received a lesson and a compliment.

"I thank you," I said.  "I feel you have said as much as possible,
and more than I had any right to ask.  I take that as a mark of
confidence, which I will try to deserve.  I hope, sir, you will let 
me regard you as a friend."

He evaded my proffered friendship with a blunt proposal to
rejoin the mess; and yet a moment later, contrived to alleviate
the snub.  For, as we entered the smoking-room, he laid his
hand on my shoulder with a kind familiarity.

"I have just prescribed for Mr. Dodd," says he, "a glass of our
Madeira."

I have never again met Dr. Urquart:  but he wrote himself so
clear upon my memory that I think I see him still.  And indeed
I had cause to remember the man for the sake of his
communication.  It was hard enough to make a theory fit the
circumstances of the Flying Scud; but one in which the chief
actor should stand the least excused, and might retain the
esteem or at least the pity of a man like Dr. Urquart, failed me
utterly.  Here at least was the end of my discoveries; I learned
no more, till I learned all; and my reader has the evidence
complete.  Is he more astute than I was? or, like me, does he
give it up?



 CHAPTER XVIII.

 CROSS-QUESTIONS AND CROOKED ANSWERS.


I have said hard words of San Francisco; they must scarce be
literally understood (one cannot suppose the Israelites did
justice to the land of Pharaoh); and the city took a fine revenge
of me on my return.  She had never worn a more becoming
guise; the sun shone, the air was lively, the people had flowers
in their button-holes and smiles upon their faces; and as I made
my way towards Jim's place of employment, with some very
black anxieties at heart, I seemed to myself a blot on the
surrounding gaiety.

My destination was in a by-street in a mean, rickety building; 
"The Franklin H. Dodge Steam Printing Company" appeared
upon its front, and in characters of greater freshness, so as to
suggest recent conversion, the watch-cry, "White Labour Only."
In the office, in a dusty pen, Jim sat alone before a table.  A
wretched change had overtaken him in clothes, body, and
bearing; he looked sick and shabby; he who had once rejoiced
in his day's employment, like a horse among pastures, now sat
staring on a column of accounts, idly chewing a pen, at times
heavily sighing, the picture of inefficiency and inattention.  He
was sunk deep in a painful reverie; he neither saw nor heard
me; and I stood and watched him unobserved.  I had a sudden
vain relenting.  Repentance bludgeoned me.  As I had predicted
to Nares, I stood and kicked myself.  Here was I come home
again, my honour saved; there was my friend in want of rest,
nursing, and a generous diet; and I asked myself with Falstaff,
"What is in that word honour? what is that honour?" and, like
Falstaff, I told myself that it was air.

"Jim!" said I.

"Loudon!" he gasped, and jumped from his chair and stood
shaking.

The next moment I was over the barrier, and we were hand in
hand.

"My poor old man!" I cried.

"Thank God, you're home at last!" he gulped, and kept patting
my shoulder with his hand.

"I've no good news for you, Jim!" said I.

"You've come--that's the good news that I want," he replied. 
"O, how I've longed for you, Loudon!"

"I couldn't do what you wrote me," I said, lowering my voice. 
"The creditors have it all.  I couldn't do it."

"Ssh!" returned Jim.  "I was crazy when wrote.  I could never
have looked Mamie in the face if we had done it.  O, Loudon,
what a gift that woman is!  You think you know something of
life:  you just don't know anything.  It's the GOODNESS of the
woman, it's a revelation!"

"That's all right," said I.  "That's how I hoped to hear you, Jim."

"And so the Flying Scud was a fraud," he resumed.  "I didn't
quite understand your letter, but I made out that."

"Fraud is a mild term for it," said I.  "The creditors will never
believe what fools we were.  And that reminds me," I
continued, rejoicing in the transition, "how about the
bankruptcy?"

"You were lucky to be out of that," answered Jim, shaking his
head; "you were lucky not to see the papers.  The _Occidental_
called me a fifth-rate Kerbstone broker with water on the brain;
another said I was a tree-frog that had got into the same
meadow with Longhurst, and had blown myself out till I went
pop.  It was rough on a man in his honeymoon; so was what
they said about my looks, and what I had on, and the way I
perspired.  But I braced myself up with the Flying Scud.  How
did it exactly figure out anyway?  I don't seem to catch on to
that story, Loudon."

"The devil you don't!" thinks I to myself; and then aloud:  "You
see we had neither one of us good luck.  I didn't do much more
than cover current expenses; and you got floored immediately. 
How did we come to go so soon?"

"Well, we'll have to have a talk over all this," said Jim with a
sudden start.  "I should be getting to my books; and I guess you
had better go up right away to Mamie.  She's at Speedy's.  She
expects you with impatience.  She regards you in the light of a
favourite brother, Loudon."

Any scheme was welcome which allowed me to postpone the
hour of explanation, and avoid (were it only for a breathing
space) the topic of the Flying Scud.  I hastened accordingly to
Bush Street.  Mrs. Speedy, already rejoicing in the return of a
spouse, hailed me with acclamation.  "And it's beautiful you're
looking, Mr. Dodd, my dear," she was kind enough to say. 
"And a miracle they naygur waheenies let ye lave the oilands.  I
have my suspicions of Shpeedy," she added, roguishly.  "Did ye
see him after the naygresses now?"

I gave Speedy an unblemished character.

"The one of ye will niver bethray the other," said the playful
dame, and ushered me into a bare room, where Mamie sat
working a type-writer.

I was touched by the cordiality of her greeting.  With the
prettiest gesture in the world she gave me both her hands;
wheeled forth a chair; and produced, from a cupboard, a tin of 
my favourite tobacco, and a book of my exclusive cigarette
papers.

"There!" she cried; "you see, Mr. Loudon, we were all prepared
for you; the things were bought the very day you sailed."

I imagined she had always intended me a pleasant welcome;
but the certain fervour of sincerity, which I could not help
remarking, flowed from an unexpected source.  Captain Nares,
with a kindness for which I can never be sufficiently grateful,
had stolen a moment from his occupations, driven to call on
Mamie, and drawn her a generous picture of my prowess at the
wreck.  She was careful not to breathe a word of this interview,
till she had led me on to tell my adventures for myself.

"Ah! Captain Nares was better," she cried, when I had done. 
"From your account, I have only learned one new thing, that
you are modest as well as brave."

I cannot tell with what sort of disclamation I sought to reply.

"It is of no use," said Mamie.  "I know a hero.  And when I
heard of you working all day like a common labourer, with
your hands bleeding and your nails broken--and how you told
the captain to 'crack on' (I think he said) in the storm, when he
was terrified himself--and the danger of that horrid mutiny"--
(Nares had been obligingly dipping his brush in earthquake
and eclipse)--"and how it was all done, in part at least, for Jim
and me--I felt we could never say how we admired and thanked
you."

"Mamie," I cried, "don't talk of thanks; it is not a word to be
used between friends.  Jim and I have been prosperous
together; now we shall be poor together.  We've done our best,
and that's all that need be said.  The next thing is for me to find
a situation, and send you and Jim up country for a long holiday
in the redwoods--for a holiday Jim has got to have."

"Jim can't take your money, Mr. Loudon," said Mamie.

"Jim?" cried I.  "He's got to.  Didn't I take his?"

Presently after, Jim himself arrived, and before he had yet done
mopping his brow, he was at me with the accursed subject. 
"Now, Loudon," said he, "here we are all together, the day's
work done and the evening before us; just start in with the
whole story."

"One word on business first," said I, speaking from the lips
outward, and meanwhile (in the private apartments of my
brain) trying for the thousandth time to find some plausible
arrangement of my story.  "I want to have a notion how we
stand about the bankruptcy."

"O, that's ancient history," cried Jim.  "We paid seven cents,
and a wonder we did as well.  The receiver----" (methought a
spasm seized him at the name of this official, and he broke off). 
"But it's all past and done with anyway; and what I want to get
at is the facts about the wreck.  I don't seem to understand it;
appears to me like as there was something underneath."

"There was nothing IN it, anyway," I said, with a forced laugh.

"That's what I want to judge of," returned Jim.

"How the mischief is it I can never keep you to that
bankruptcy?  It looks as if you avoided it," said I--for a man in
my situation, with unpardonable folly.

"Don't it look a little as if you were trying to avoid the wreck?"
asked Jim.

It was my own doing; there was no retreat.  "My dear fellow, if
you make a point of it, here goes!" said I, and launched with
spurious gaiety into the current of my tale.  I told it with point
and spirit; described the island and the wreck, mimicked
Anderson and the Chinese, maintained the suspense....  My pen
has stumbled on the fatal word.  I maintained the suspense so
well that it was never relieved; and when I stopped--I dare not
say concluded, where there was no conclusion--I found Jim and
Mamie regarding me with surprise.

"Well?" said Jim.

"Well, that's all," said I.

"But how do you explain it?" he asked.

"I can't explain it," said I.


Mamie wagged her head ominously.

"But, great Caesar's ghost! the money was offered!" cried Jim. 
"It won't do, Loudon; it's nonsense, on the face of it!  I don't say
but what you and Nares did your best; I'm sure, of course, you
did; but I do say, you got fooled.  I say the stuff is in that ship
to-day, and I say I mean to get it."

"There is nothing in the ship, I tell you, but old wood and iron!"
said I.

"You'll see," said Jim.  "Next time I go myself.  I'll take Mamie
for the trip; Longhurst won't refuse me the expense of a
schooner.  You wait till I get the searching of her."

"But you can't search her!" cried I.  "She's burned."

"Burned!" cried Mamie, starting a little from the attitude of
quiescent capacity in which she had hitherto sat to hear me, her
hands folded in her lap.

There was an appreciable pause.

"I beg your pardon, Loudon," began Jim at last, "but why in
snakes did you burn her?"

"It was an idea of Nares's," said I.

"This is certainly the strangest circumstance of all," observed
Mamie.

"I must say, Loudon, it does seem kind of unexpected," added
Jim.  "It seems kind of crazy even.  What did you--what did
Nares expect to gain by burning her?"

"I don't know; it didn't seem to matter; we had got all there was
to get," said I.

"That's the very point," cried Jim.  "It was quite plain you
hadn't."

"What made you so sure?" asked Mamie.

"How can I tell you?" I cried.  "We had been all through her. 
We WERE sure; that's all that I can say."


"I begin to think you were," she returned, with a significant
emphasis.

Jim hurriedly intervened.  "What I don't quite make out,
Loudon, is that you don't seem to appreciate the peculiarities of
the thing," said he.  "It doesn't seem to have struck you same as
it does me."

"Pshaw! why go on with this?" cried Mamie, suddenly rising. 
"Mr. Dodd is not telling us either what he thinks or what he
knows."

"Mamie!" cried Jim.

"You need not be concerned for his feelings, James; he is not
concerned for yours," returned the lady.  "He dare not deny it,
besides.  And this is not the first time he has practised
reticence.  Have you forgotten that he knew the address, and
did not tell it you until that man had escaped?"

Jim turned to me pleadingly--we were all on our feet.
"Loudon," he said, "you see Mamie has some fancy; and I must
say there's just a sort of a shadow of an excuse; for it IS
bewildering--even to me, Loudon, with my trained business
intelligence.  For God's sake, clear it up."

"This serves me right," said I.  "I should not have tried to keep
you in the dark; I should have told you at first that I was
pledged to secrecy; I should have asked you to trust me in the
beginning.  It is all I can do now.  There is more of the story,
but it concerns none of us, and my tongue is tied.  I have given
my word of honour.  You must trust me and try to forgive me."

"I daresay I am very stupid, Mr. Dodd," began Mamie, with an
alarming sweetness, "but I thought you went upon this trip as
my husband's representative and with my husband's money?
You tell us now that you are pledged, but I should have thought
you were pledged first of all to James.  You say it does not
concern us; we are poor people, and my husband is sick, and it
concerns us a great deal to understand how we come to have
lost our money, and why our representative comes back to us
with nothing.  You ask that we should trust you; you do not
seem to understand; the question we are asking ourselves is
whether we have not trusted you too much."

"I do not ask you to trust me," I replied.  "I ask Jim.  He knows
me."

"You think you can do what you please with James; you trust to
his affection, do you not?  And me, I suppose, you do not
consider," said Mamie.  "But it was perhaps an unfortunate day
for you when we were married, for I at least am not blind.  The
crew run away, the ship is sold for a great deal of money, you
know that man's address and you conceal it, you do not find
what you were sent to look for, and yet you burn the ship; and
now, when we ask explanations, you are pledged to secrecy!
But I am pledged to no such thing; I will not stand by in silence
and see my sick and ruined husband betrayed by his
condescending friend.  I will give you the truth for once.  Mr.
Dodd, you have been bought and sold."

"Mamie," cried Jim, "no more of this!  It's me you're striking;
it's only me you hurt.  You don't know, you cannot understand
these things.  Why, to-day, if it hadn't been for Loudon, I
couldn't have looked you in the face.  He saved my honesty."

"I have heard plenty of this talk before," she replied.  "You are
a sweet-hearted fool, and I love you for it.  But I am a clear-
headed woman; my eyes are open, and I understand this man's
hypocrisy.  Did he not come here to-day and pretend he would
take a situation--pretend he would share his hard-earned wages
with us until you were well?  Pretend!  It makes me furious!
His wages! a share of his wages!  That would have been your
pittance, that would have been your share of the Flying
Scud--you who worked and toiled for him when he was a
beggar in the streets of Paris.  But we do not want your charity;
thank God, I can work for my own husband!  See what it is to
have obliged a gentleman.  He would let you pick him up when
he was begging; he would stand and look on, and let you black
his shoes, and sneer at you.  For you were always sneering at
my James; you always looked down upon him in your heart,
you know it!"  She turned back to Jim.  "And now when he is
rich," she began, and then swooped again on me.  "For you are
rich, I dare you to deny it; I defy you to look me in the face and
try to deny that you are rich--rich with our money--my
husband's money----"

Heaven knows to what a height she might have risen, being, by
this time, bodily whirled away in her own hurricane of words. 
Heart-sickness, a black depression, a treacherous sympathy
with my assailant, pity unutterable for poor Jim, already filled,
divided, and abashed my spirit.  Flight seemed the only
remedy; and making a private sign to Jim, as if to ask
permission, I slunk from the unequal field.

I was but a little way down the street, when I was arrested by
the sound of some one running, and Jim's voice calling me by
name.  He had followed me with a letter which had been long
awaiting my return.

I took it in a dream.  "This has been a devil of a business," said
I.

"Don't think hard of Mamie," he pleaded.  "It's the way she's
made; it's her high-toned loyalty.  And of course I know it's all
right.  I know your sterling character; but you didn't, somehow,
make out to give us the thing straight, Loudon.  Anybody might
have--I mean it--I mean----"

"Never mind what you mean, my poor Jim," said I.  "She's a
gallant little woman and a loyal wife:  and I thought her
splendid.  My story was as fishy as the devil.  I'll never think
the less of either her or you."

"It'll blow over; it must blow over," said he.

"It never can," I returned, sighing:  "and don't you try to make
it!  Don't name me, unless it's with an oath.  And get home to
her  right away.  Good by, my best of friends.  Good by, and
God bless you.  We shall never meet again."

"O Loudon, that we should live to say such words!" he cried.

I had no views on life, beyond an occasional impulse to commit
suicide, or to get drunk, and drifted down the street, semi-
conscious, walking apparently on air, in the light-headedness of
grief.  I had money in my pocket, whether mine or my creditors'
I had no means of guessing; and, the Poodle Dog lying in my
path, I went mechanically in and took a table.  A waiter
attended me, and I suppose I gave my orders; for presently I
found myself, with a sudden return of consciousness, beginning
dinner.  On the white cloth at my elbow lay the letter,
addressed in a clerk's hand, and bearing an English stamp and
the Edinburgh postmark.  A bowl of bouillon and a glass of
wine awakened in one corner of my brain (where all the rest
was in mourning, the blinds down as for a funeral) a faint stir
of curiosity; and while I waited the next course, wondering the
while what I had ordered, I opened and began to read the epoch
-making document.
 
"DEAR SIR:  I am charged with the melancholy duty of
announcing to you the death of your excellent grandfather, Mr.
Alexander Loudon, on the 17th ult. On Sunday the 13th, he
went to church as usual in the forenoon, and stopped on his
way home, at the corner of Princes Street, in one of our
seasonable east winds, to talk with an old friend.  The same
evening acute bronchitis declared itself; from the first, Dr.
M'Combie anticipated a fatal result, and the old gentleman
appeared to have no illusion as to his own state.  He repeatedly
assured me it was 'by' with him now; 'and high time, too,' he
once added with characteristic asperity.  He was not in the least
changed on the approach of death:  only (what I am sure must
be very grateful to your feelings) he seemed to think and speak
even more kindly than usual of yourself:  referring to you as
'Jeannie's yin,' with strong expressions of regard.  'He was the
only one I ever liket of the hale jing-bang,'  was one of his
expressions; and you will be glad to know that he dwelt
particularly on the dutiful respect you had always displayed in
your relations.  The small codicil, by which he bequeaths you
his Molesworth and other professional works, was added (you
will observe) on the day before his death; so that you were in
his thoughts until the end.  I should say that, though rather a
trying patient, he was most tenderly nursed by your uncle, and
your cousin, Miss Euphemia.  I enclose a copy of the testament,
by which you will see that you share equally with Mr. Adam,
and that I hold at your disposal a sum nearly approaching
seventeen thousand pounds.  I beg to congratulate you on this
considerable acquisition, and expect your orders, to which I
shall hasten to give my best attention.  Thinking that you might
desire to return at once to this country, and not knowing how
you may be placed, I enclose a credit for six hundred pounds. 
Please sign the accompanying slip, and let me have it at your
earliest convenience.

                         "I am, dear sir, yours truly,

                                       "W. RUTHERFORD GREGG."

"God bless the old gentleman!" I thought; "and for that matter
God bless Uncle Adam! and my cousin Euphemia! and Mr.
Gregg!"  I had a vision of that grey old life now brought to an
end--"and high time too"--a vision of those Sabbath streets
alternately vacant and filled with silent people; of the babel of
the bells, the long-drawn psalmody, the shrewd sting of the
east wind, the hollow, echoing, dreary house to which "Ecky"
had returned with the hand of death already on his shoulder; a
vision, too, of the long, rough country lad, perhaps a serious
courtier of the lasses in the hawthorn den, perhaps a rustic
dancer on the green, who had first earned and answered to that
harsh diminutive.  And I asked myself  if, on the whole, poor
Ecky had succeeded in life; if the last state of that man were not
on the whole worse than the first; and the house in Randolph
Crescent a less admirable dwelling than the hamlet where he
saw the day and grew to manhood.  Here was a consolatory
thought for one who was himself a failure.

Yes, I declare the word came in my mind; and all the while, in
another partition of the brain, I was glowing and singing for my
new-found opulence.  The pile of gold--four thousand two
hundred and fifty double eagles, seventeen thousand ugly
sovereigns, twenty-one thousand two hundred and fifty
Napoleons--danced, and rang and ran molten, and lit up life
with their effulgence, in the eye of fancy.  Here were all things
made plain to me:  Paradise--Paris, I mean--Regained, Carthew
protected, Jim restored, the creditors...

"The creditors!" I repeated, and sank back benumbed. It was all
theirs to the last farthing:  my grandfather had died too soon to
save me.

I must have somewhere a rare vein of decision.  In that
revolutionary moment, I found myself prepared for all extremes
except the one:  ready to do anything, or to go anywhere, so
long as I might save my money.  At the worst, there was flight,
flight to some of those blest countries where the serpent,
extradition, has not yet entered in.

          On no condition is extradition
               Allowed in Callao!

--the old lawless words haunted me; and I saw myself hugging
my gold in the company of such men as had once made and
sung them, in the rude and bloody wharfside drinking-shops of
Chili and Peru.  The run of my ill-luck, the breach of my old
friendship, this bubble fortune flaunted for a moment in my
eyes and snatched again, had made me desperate and (in the
expressive vulgarism) ugly.  To drink vile spirits among vile
companions by the flare of a pine-torch; to go burthened with
my furtive treasure in a belt; to fight for it knife in hand, rolling
on a clay floor; to flee perpetually in fresh ships and to be
chased through the sea from isle to isle, seemed, in my then
frame of mind, a welcome series of events.

That was for the worst; but it began to dawn slowly on my
mind that there was yet a possible better.  Once escaped, once
safe in Callao, I might approach my creditors with a good
grace; and properly handled by a cunning agent, it was just
possible they might accept some easy composition.  The hope
recalled me to the bankruptcy.  It was strange, I reflected:  often
as I had questioned Jim, he had never obliged me with an
answer.  In his haste for news about the wreck, my own no less
legitimate curiosity had gone disappointed.  Hateful as the
thought was to me, I must return at once and find out where I
stood.

I left my dinner still unfinished, paying for the whole, of
course, and tossing the waiter a gold piece.  I was reckless; I
knew not what was mine and cared not:  I must take what I
could get and give as I was able; to rob and to squander
seemed the complementary parts of my new destiny.  I walked
up Bush Street, whistling, brazening myself to confront Mamie
in the first place, and the world at large and a certain visionary
judge upon a bench in the second.  Just outside, I stopped and
lighted a cigar to give me greater countenance; and puffing this
and wearing what (I am sure) was a wretched assumption of
braggadocio, I reappeared on the scene of my disgrace.

My friend and his wife were finishing a poor meal--rags of old
mutton, the remainder cakes from breakfast eaten cold, and a
starveling pot of coffee.

"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Pinkerton," said I.  "Sorry to inflict my
presence where it cannot be desired; but there is a piece of
business necessary to be discussed."

"Pray do not consider me," said Mamie, rising, and she sailed
into the adjoining bedroom.

Jim watched her go and shook his head; he looked miserably
old and ill.

"What is it, now?" he asked.

"Perhaps you remember you answered none of my questions,"
said I.


"Your questions?" faltered Jim.

"Even so, Jim.  My questions," I repeated.  "I put questions as
well as yourself; and however little I may have satisfied Mamie
with my answers, I beg to remind you that you gave me none at
all."

"You mean about the bankruptcy?" asked Jim.

I nodded.

He writhed in his chair.  "The straight truth is, I was ashamed,"
he said.  "I was trying to dodge you.  I've been playing fast and
loose with you, Loudon; I've deceived you from the first, I
blush to own it.  And here you came home and put the very
question I was fearing.  Why did we bust so soon?  Your keen
business eye had not deceived you.  That's the point, that's my
shame; that's what killed me this afternoon when Mamie was
treating you so, and my conscience was telling me all the time,
Thou art the man."

"What was it, Jim?" I asked.

"What I had been at all the time, Loudon," he wailed; "and I
don't know how I'm to look you in the face and say it, after my
duplicity.  It was stocks," he added in a whisper.

"And you were afraid to tell me that!" I cried.  "You poor, old,
cheerless dreamer! what would it matter what you did or didn't?
Can't you see we're doomed?  And anyway, that's not my point. 
It's how I stand that I want to know.  There is a particular
reason.  Am I clear?  Have I a certificate, or what have I to do
to get one?  And when will it be dated?  You can't think what
hangs by it!"

"That's the worst of all," said Jim, like a man in a dream, "I
can't see how to tell him!"

"What do you mean?" I cried, a small pang of terror at my
heart.

"I'm afraid I sacrificed you, Loudon," he said, looking at me
pitifully.

"Sacrificed me?" I repeated.  "How? What do you mean by
sacrifice?"

"I know it'll shock your delicate self-respect," he said; "but
what was I to do?  Things looked so bad.  The receiver----" (as
usual, the name stuck in his throat, and he began afresh). 
"There was a lot of talk; the reporters were after me already;
there was the trouble and all about the Mexican business; and I
got scared right out, and I guess I lost my head.  You weren't
there, you see, and that was my temptation."

I did not know how long he might thus beat about the bush
with dreadful hintings, and I was already beside myself with
terror.  What had he done?  I saw he had been tempted; I knew
from his letters that he was in no condition to resist.  How had
he sacrificed the absent?

"Jim," I said, "you must speak right out.  I've got all that I can
carry."

"Well," he said--"I know it was a liberty--I made it out you
were no business man, only a stone-broke painter; that half the
time you didn't know anything anyway, particularly money and
accounts.  I said you never could be got to understand whose
was whose.  I had to say that because of some entries in the
books----"

"For God's sake," I cried, "put me out of this agony!  What did
you accuse me of?"

"Accuse you of?" repeated Jim.  "Of what I'm telling you.  And
there being no deed of partnership, I made out you were only a
kind of clerk that I called a partner just to give you taffy; and so
I got you ranked a creditor on the estate for your wages and the
money you had lent.  And----"

I believe I reeled.  "A creditor!" I roared; "a creditor!  I'm not in
the bankruptcy at all?"

"No," said Jim.  "I know it was a liberty----"

"O, damn your liberty! read that," I cried, dashing the letter
before him on the table, "and call in your wife, and be done
with eating this truck "--as I spoke, I slung the cold mutton in
the empty grate--"and let's all go and have a champagne
supper.  I've dined--I'm sure I don't remember what I had; I'd
dine again ten scores of times upon a night like this.  Read it,
you blaying ass!  I'm not insane.  Here, Mamie," I continued,
opening the bedroom door, "come out and make it up with me,
and go and kiss your husband; and I'll tell you what, after the
supper, let's go to some place where there's a band, and I'll
waltz with you till sunrise."

"What does it all mean?" cried Jim.

"It means we have a champagne supper to-night, and all go to
Napa Valley or to Monterey to-morrow," said I.  "Mamie, go
and get your things on; and you, Jim, sit down right where you
are, take a sheet of paper, and tell Franklin Dodge to go to
Texas.  Mamie, you were right, my dear; I was rich all the time,
and didn't know it."



 CHAPTER XIX.

 TRAVELS WITH A SHYSTER.


The absorbing and disastrous adventure of the Flying Scud was
now quite ended; we had dashed into these deep waters and we
had escaped again to starve, we had been ruined and were
saved, had quarrelled and made up; there remained nothing but
to sing Te Deum, draw a line, and begin on a fresh page of my
unwritten diary.  I do not pretend that I recovered all I had lost
with Mamie; it would have been more than I had merited; and I
had certainly been more uncommunicative than became either
the partner or the friend.  But she accepted the position
handsomely; and during the week that I now passed with them,
both she and Jim had the grace to spare me questions.  It was
to Calistoga that we went; there was some rumour of a Napa
land-boom at the moment, the possibility of stir attracted Jim,
and he informed me he would find a certain joy in looking on,
much as Napoleon on St. Helena took a pleasure to read
military works.  The field of his ambition was quite closed; he
was done with action; and looked forward to a ranch in a
mountain dingle, a patch of corn, a pair of kine, a leisurely and
contemplative age in the green shade of forests.  "Just let me
get down on my back in a hayfield," said he, "and you'll find
there's no more snap to me than that much putty."

And for two days the perfervid being actually rested.  The third,
he was observed in consultation with the local editor, and
owned he was in two minds about purchasing the press and
paper.  "It's a kind of a hold for an idle man," he said,
pleadingly; "and if the section was to open up the way it ought
to, there might be dollars in the thing."  On the fourth day he
was gone till dinner-time alone; on the fifth we made a long
picnic drive to the fresh field of enterprise; and the sixth was
passed entirely in the preparation of prospectuses.  The pioneer
of McBride City was already upright and self-reliant as of yore;
the fire rekindled in his eye, the ring restored to his voice; a
charger sniffing battle and saying ha-ha, among the spears.  On
the seventh morning we signed a deed of partnership, for Jim
would not accept a dollar of my money otherwise; and having
once more engaged myself--or that mortal part of me, my
purse--among the wheels of his machinery, I returned alone to
San Francisco and took quarters in the Palace Hotel.

The same night I had Nares to dinner.  His sunburnt face, his
queer and personal strain of talk, recalled days that were scarce
over and that seemed already distant.  Through the music of the
band outside, and the chink and clatter of the dining-room, it
seemed to me as if I heard the foaming of the surf and the
voices of the sea-birds about Midway Island.  The bruises on
our hands were not yet healed; and there we sat, waited on by
elaborate darkies, eating pompano and drinking iced
champagne.

"Think of our dinners on the Norah, captain, and then oblige
me by looking round the room for contrast."

He took the scene in slowly.  "Yes, it is like a dream," he said:
"like as if the darkies were really about as big as dimes; and a
great big scuttle might open up there, and Johnson stick in a
great big head and shoulders, and cry, 'Eight bells!'--and the
whole thing vanish."

"Well, it's the other thing that has done that," I replied.  "It's all
bygone now, all dead and buried.  Amen! say I."

"I don't know that, Mr. Dodd; and to tell you the fact, I don't
believe it," said Nares.  "There's more Flying Scud in the oven;
and the baker's name, I take it, is Bellairs.  He tackled me the
day we came in:  sort of a razee of poor old humanity--jury
clothes--full new suit of pimples:  knew him at once from your 
description.  I let him pump me till I saw his game.  He knows
a good deal that we don't know, a good deal that we do, and
suspects the balance.  There's trouble brewing for somebody."

I was surprised I had not thought of this before.  Bellairs had
been behind the scenes; he had known Dickson; he knew the
flight of the crew; it was hardly possible but what he should
suspect; it was certain if he suspected, that he would seek to
trade on the suspicion.  And sure enough, I was not yet dressed
the next morning ere the lawyer was knocking at my door.  I let
him in, for I was curious; and he, after some ambiguous
prolegomena, roundly proposed I should go shares with him. 

"Shares in what?" I inquired.

"If you will allow me to clothe my idea in a somewhat vulgar
form," said he, "I might ask you, did you go to Midway for your
health?"

"I don't know that I did," I replied.

"Similarly, Mr. Dodd, you may be sure I would never have
taken the present step without influential grounds," pursued the
lawyer.  "Intrusion is foreign to my character.  But you and I,
sir, are engaged on the same ends.  If we can continue to work
the thing in company, I place at your disposal my knowledge of
the law and a considerable practice in delicate negotiations
similar to this.  Should you refuse to consent, you might find in
me a formidable and"--he hesitated--"and to my own regret,
perhaps a dangerous competitor."

"Did you get this by heart?" I asked, genially.

"I advise YOU to!" he said, with a sudden sparkle of temper
and menace, instantly gone, instantly succeeded by fresh
cringing.  "I assure you, sir, I arrive in the character of a friend;
and I believe you underestimate my information.  If I may
instance an example, I am acquainted to the last dime with
what you made (or rather lost), and I know you have since
cashed a considerable draft on London."

"What do you infer?" I asked.

"I know where that draft came from," he cried, wincing back
like one who has greatly dared, and instantly regrets the
venture.

"So?" said I.

"You forget I was Mr. Dickson's confidential agent," he
explained.  "You had his address, Mr. Dodd.  We were the only
two that he communicated with in San Francisco.  You see my
deductions are quite obvious:  you see how open and frank I
deal with you, as I should wish to do with any gentleman with
whom I was conjoined in business.  You see how much I
know; and it can scarcely escape your strong common-sense,
how much better it would be if I knew all.  You cannot hope to
get rid of me at this time of day, I have my place in the affair, I
cannot be shaken off; I am, if you will excuse a rather technical
pleasantry, an encumbrance on the estate.  The actual harm I
can do, I leave you to valuate for yourself.  But without going
so far, Mr. Dodd, and without in any way inconveniencing
myself, I could make things very uncomfortable.  For instance,
Mr. Pinkerton's liquidation.  You and I know, sir--and you
better than I--on what a large fund you draw.  Is Mr. Pinkerton
in the thing at all?  It was you only who knew the address, and
you were concealing it.  Suppose I should communicate with
Mr. Pinkerton----"

"Look here!" I interrupted, "communicate with him (if you will
permit me to clothe my idea in a vulgar shape) till you are blue
in the face.  There is only one person with whom I refuse to
allow you to communicate further, and that is myself.   Good
morning."

He could not conceal his rage, disappointment, and surprise;
and in the passage (I have no doubt) was shaken by St. Vitus.

I was disgusted by this interview; it struck me hard to be
suspected on all hands, and to hear again from this trafficker
what I had heard already from Jim's wife; and yet my strongest
impression was different and might rather be described as an
impersonal fear.  There was something against nature in the
man's craven impudence; it was as though a lamb had butted
me; such daring at the hands of such a dastard, implied
unchangeable resolve, a great pressure of necessity, and
powerful means.  I thought of the unknown Carthew, and it
sickened me to see this ferret on his trail. 

Upon inquiry I found the lawyer was but just disbarred for
some malpractice; and the discovery added excessively to my
disquiet.  Here was a rascal without money or the means of
making it, thrust out of the doors of his own trade, publicly
shamed, and doubtless in a deuce of a bad temper with the
universe.  Here, on the other hand, was a man with a secret;
rich, terrified, practically in hiding; who had been willing to
pay ten thousand pounds for the bones of the Flying Scud.  I
slipped insensibly into a mental alliance with the victim; the
business weighed on me; all day long, I was wondering how
much the lawyer knew, how much he guessed, and when he
would open his attack.

Some of these problems are unsolved to this day; others were
soon made clear.  Where he got Carthew's name is still a
mystery; perhaps some sailor on the Tempest, perhaps my own
sea-lawyer served him for a tool; but I was actually at his
elbow when he learned the address.  It fell so.  One evening,
when I had an engagement and was killing time until the hour,
I chanced to walk in the court of the hotel while the band
played.  The place was bright as day with the electric light; and
I recognised, at some distance among the loiterers, the person
of Bellairs in talk with a gentleman whose face appeared
familiar.  It was certainly some one I had seen, and seen
recently; but who or where, I knew not.  A porter standing hard
by, gave me the necessary hint.  The stranger was an English
navy man, invalided home from Honolulu, where he had left
his ship; indeed, it was only from the change of clothes and the
effects of sickness, that I had not immediately recognised my
friend and correspondent, Lieutenant Sebright.

The conjunction of these planets seeming ominous, I drew
near; but it seemed Bellairs had done his business; he vanished
in the crowd, and I found my officer alone.

"Do you know whom you have been talking to, Mr. Sebright?"
I began.

"No," said he; "I don't know him from Adam.  Anything
wrong?"

"He is a disreputable lawyer, recently disbarred," said I.  "I
wish I had seen you in time.  I trust you told him nothing about
Carthew?"

He flushed to his ears.  "I'm awfully sorry," he said.  "He
seemed civil, and I wanted to get rid of him.  It was only the
address he asked."

"And you gave it?" I cried.

"I'm really awfully sorry," said Sebright.  "I'm afraid I did." 

"God forgive you!" was my only comment, and I turned my
back upon the blunderer.

The fat was in the fire now:  Bellairs had the address, and I was
the more deceived or Carthew would have news of him.  So
strong was this impression, and so painful, that the next
morning I had the curiosity to pay the lawyer's den a visit.  An
old woman was scrubbing the stair, and the board was down.

"Lawyer Bellairs?" said the old woman.  "Gone East this
morning.  There's Lawyer Dean next block up."

I did not trouble Lawyer Dean, but walked slowly back to my
hotel, ruminating as I went.  The image of the old woman
washing that desecrated stair had struck my fancy; it seemed
that all the water-supply of the city and all the soap in the State
would scarce suffice to cleanse it, it had been so long a clearing
-house of dingy secrets and a factory of sordid fraud.  And now
the corner was untenanted; some judge, like a careful
housewife, had knocked down the web, and the bloated spider
was scuttling elsewhere after new victims.  I had of late (as I
have said) insensibly taken sides with Carthew; now when his
enemy was at his heels, my interest grew more warm; and I
began to wonder if I could not help.  The drama of the Flying
Scud was entering on a new phase.  It had been singular from
the first:  it promised an extraordinary conclusion; and I, who
had paid so much to learn the beginning, might pay a little
more and see the end.  I lingered in San Francisco,
indemnifying myself after the hardships of the cruise, spending
money, regretting it, continually promising departure for the
morrow.  Why not go indeed, and keep a watch upon Bellairs?
If I missed him, there was no harm done, I was the nearer
Paris.  If I found and kept his trail, it was hard if I could not put
some stick in his machinery, and at the worst I could promise
myself interesting scenes and revelations.

In such a mixed humour, I made up what it pleases me to call
my mind, and once more involved myself in the story of
Carthew and the Flying Scud.  The same night I wrote a letter
of farewell to Jim, and one of anxious warning to Dr. Urquart
begging him to set Carthew on his guard; the morrow saw me
in the ferry-boat; and ten days later, I was walking the
hurricane deck on the City of Denver.  By that time my mind
was pretty much made down again, its natural condition:  I told
myself that I was bound for Paris or Fontainebleau to resume
the study of the arts; and I thought no more of Carthew or
Bellairs, or only to smile at my own fondness.  The one I could
not serve, even if I wanted; the other I had no means of finding,
even if I could have at all influenced him after he was found.

And for all that, I was close on the heels of an absurd
adventure.  My neighbour at table that evening was a 'Frisco
man whom I knew slightly.  I found he had crossed the plains
two days in front of me, and this was the first steamer that had
left New York for Europe since his arrival.  Two days before
me meant a day before Bellairs; and dinner was scarce done
before I was closeted with the purser.

"Bellairs?" he repeated.  "Not in the saloon, I am sure.  He may
be in the second class.  The lists are not made out, but--Hullo! 
'Harry D. Bellairs?'  That the name?  He's there right enough."

And the next morning I saw him on the forward deck, sitting in
a chair, a book in his hand, a shabby puma skin rug about his
knees:  the picture of respectable decay.  Off and on, I kept him
in my eye.  He read a good deal, he stood and looked upon the
sea, he talked occasionally with his neighbours, and once when
a child fell he picked it up and soothed it.  I damned him in my
heart; the book, which I was sure he did not read--the sea, to
which I was ready to take oath he was indifferent--the child,
whom I was certain he would as lieve have tossed overboard
--all seemed to me elements in a theatrical performance; and I
made no doubt he was already nosing after the secrets of his
fellow-passengers.  I took no pains to conceal myself, my scorn
for the creature being as strong as my disgust.  But he never
looked my way, and it was night before I learned he had
observed me.

I was smoking by the engine-room door, for the air was a little
sharp, when a voice rose close beside me in the darkness.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Dodd," it said.

"That you, Bellairs?" I replied.

"A single word, sir.  Your presence on this ship has no
connection with our interview?" he asked.  "You have no idea,
Mr. Dodd, of returning upon your determination?"

"None," said I; and then, seeing he still lingered, I was polite
enough to add "Good evening;" at which he sighed and went
away.


The next day, he was there again with the chair and the puma
skin; read his book and looked at the sea with the same
constancy; and though there was no child to be picked up, I
observed him to attend repeatedly on a sick woman.  Nothing
fosters suspicion like the act of watching; a man spied upon
can hardly blow his nose but we accuse him of designs; and I
took an early opportunity to go forward and see the woman for
myself.  She was poor, elderly, and painfully plain; I stood
abashed at the sight, felt I owed Bellairs amends for the
injustice of my thoughts, and seeing him standing by the rail in
his usual attitude of contemplation, walked up and addressed
him by name.

"You seem very fond of the sea," said I.

"I may really call it a passion, Mr. Dodd," he replied.  "And the
tall cataract haunted me like a passion," he quoted.  "I never
weary of the sea, sir. This is my first ocean voyage.  I find it a
glorious experience."  And once more my disbarred lawyer
dropped into poetry:  "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean,
roll!"

Though I had learned the piece in my reading-book at school, I
came into the world a little too late on the one hand--and I
daresay a little too early on the other--to think much of Byron;
and the sonorous verse, prodigiously well delivered, struck me
with surprise.

"You are fond of poetry, too?" I asked.

"I am a great reader," he replied.  "At one time I had begun to
amass quite a small but well selected library; and when that
was scattered, I still managed to preserve a few volumes--
chiefly of pieces designed for recitation--which have been my
travelling companions."

"Is that one of them?" I asked, pointing to the volume in his
hand.

"No, sir," he replied, showing me a translation of the _Sorrows
of Werther_, "that is a novel I picked up some time ago.  It has
afforded me great pleasure, though immoral."

"O, immoral!" cried I, indignant as usual at any complication of
art and ethics.


"Surely you cannot deny that, sir--if you know the book," he
said.  "The passion is illicit, although certainly drawn with a
good deal of pathos.  It is not a work one could possibly put
into the hands of a lady; which is to be regretted on all
accounts, for I do not know how it may strike you; but it seems
to me--as a depiction, if I make myself clear--to rise high above
its compeers--even famous compeers.  Even in Scott, Dickens,
Thackeray, or Hawthorne, the sentiment of love appears to me
to be frequently done less justice to."

"You are expressing a very general opinion," said I.

"Is that so, indeed, sir?" he exclaimed, with unmistakable
excitement.  "Is the book well known? and who was
GO-EATH?  I am interested in that, because upon the title-page
the usual initials are omitted, and it runs simply 'by
GO-EATH.'  Was he an author of distinction?  Has he written
other works?"

Such was our first interview, the first of many; and in all he
showed the same attractive qualities and defects.  His taste for
literature was native and unaffected; his sentimentality,
although extreme and a thought ridiculous, was plainly
genuine.  I wondered at my own innocent wonder.  I knew that
Homer nodded, that Caesar had compiled a jest-book, that
Turner lived by preference the life of Puggy Booth, that Shelley
made paper boats, and Wordsworth wore green spectacles! and
with all this mass of evidence before me, I had expected
Bellairs to be entirely of one piece, subdued to what he worked
in, a spy all through.  As I abominated the man's trade, so I had
expected to detest the man himself; and behold, I liked him. 
Poor devil! he was essentially a man on wires, all sensibility
and tremor, brimful of a cheap poetry, not without parts, quite
without courage.  His boldness was despair; the gulf behind
him thrust him on; he was one of those who might commit a
murder rather than confess the theft of a postage-stamp.  I was
sure that his coming interview with Carthew rode his
imagination like a nightmare; when the thought crossed his
mind, I used to think I knew of it, and that the qualm appeared
in his face visibly.  Yet he would never flinch:  necessity
stalking at his back, famine (his old pursuer) talking in his ear;
and I used to wonder whether I most admired, or most
despised, this quivering heroism for evil.  The image that
occurred to me after his visit was just; I had been butted by a
lamb; and the phase of life that I was now studying might be
called the Revolt of a Sheep.

It could be said of him that he had learned in sorrow what he
taught in song--or wrong; and his life was that of one of his
victims.  He was born in the back parts of the State of New
York; his father a farmer, who became subsequently bankrupt
and went West.  The lawyer and money-lender who had ruined
this poor family seems to have conceived in the end a feeling of
remorse; he turned the father out indeed, but he offered, in 
compensation, to charge himself with one of the sons:  and
Harry, the fifth child and already sickly, was chosen to be left
behind.  He made himself useful in the office; picked up the
scattered rudiments of an education; read right and left;
attended and debated at the Young Men's Christian
Association; and in all his early years, was the model for a
good story-book.  His landlady's daughter was his bane.  He
showed me her photograph; she was a big, handsome, dashing,
dressy, vulgar hussy, without character, without tenderness,
without mind, and (as the result proved) without virtue.  The
sickly and timid boy was in the house; he was handy; when she
was otherwise unoccupied, she used and played with him: 
Romeo and Cressida; till in that dreary life of a poor boy in a
country town, she grew to be the light of his days and the
subject of his dreams.  He worked hard, like Jacob, for a wife;
he surpassed his patron in sharp practice; he was made head
clerk; and the same night, encouraged by a hundred freedoms,
depressed by the sense of his youth and his infirmities, he
offered marriage and was received with laughter.  Not a year
had passed, before his master, conscious of growing infirmities,
took him for a partner; he proposed again; he was accepted; led
two years of troubled married life; and awoke one morning to
find his wife had run away with a dashing drummer, and had
left him heavily in debt.  The debt, and not the drummer, was
supposed to be the cause of the hegira; she had concealed her
liabilities, they were on the point of bursting forth, she was
weary of Bellairs; and she took the drummer as she might have
taken a cab.  The blow disabled her husband, his partner was
dead; he was now alone in the business, for which he was no
longer fit; the debts hampered him; bankruptcy followed; and
he fled from city to city, falling daily into lower practice.  It is
to be considered that he had been taught, and had learned as a
delightful duty, a kind of business whose highest merit is to
escape the commentaries of the bench:  that of the usurious
lawyer in a county town.  With this training, he was now shot,
a penniless stranger, into the deeper gulfs of cities; and the
result is scarce a thing to be surprised at. 


"Have you heard of your wife again?" I asked.

He displayed a pitiful agitation.  "I am afraid you will think ill
of me," he said.

"Have you taken her back?" I asked.

"No, sir.  I trust I have too much self-respect," he answered,
"and, at least, I was never tempted.  She won't come, she
dislikes, she seems to have conceived a positive distaste for me,
and yet I was considered an indulgent husband."

"You are still in relations, then?" I asked.

"I place myself in your hands, Mr. Dodd," he replied.  "The
world is very hard; I have found it bitter hard myself--bitter
hard to live.  How much worse for a woman, and one who has
placed herself (by her own misconduct, I am far from denying
that) in so unfortunate a position!"

"In short, you support her?" I suggested.

"I cannot deny it.  I practically do," he admitted. "It has been a
mill-stone round my neck.  But I think she is grateful.  You can
see for yourself."

He handed me a letter in a sprawling, ignorant hand, but
written with violet ink on fine, pink paper with a monogram.  It
was very foolishly expressed, and I thought (except for a few
obvious cajoleries) very heartless and greedy in meaning.  The
writer said she had been sick, which I disbelieved; declared the
last remittance was all gone in doctor's bills, for which I took
the liberty of substituting dress, drink, and monograms; and
prayed for an increase, which I could only hope had been
denied her.

"I think she is really grateful?" he asked, with some eagerness,
as I returned it.

"I daresay," said I.  "Has she any claim on you?"

"O no, sir.  I divorced her," he replied.  "I have a very strong
sense of self-respect in such matters, and I divorced her
immediately."

"What sort of life is she leading now?" I asked.

"I will not deceive you, Mr. Dodd.  I do not know, I make a
point of not knowing; it appears more dignified.  I have been
very harshly criticised," he added, sighing.

It will be seen that I had fallen into an ignominious intimacy
with the man I had gone out to thwart.  My pity for the
creature, his admiration for myself, his pleasure in my society,
which was clearly unassumed, were the bonds with which I
was fettered; perhaps I should add, in honesty, my own ill-
regulated interest in the phases of life and human character. 
The fact is (at least) that we spent hours together daily, and that
I was nearly as much on the forward deck as in the saloon.  Yet
all the while I could never forget he was a shabby trickster,
embarked that very moment in a dirty enterprise.  I used to tell
myself at first that our acquaintance was a stroke of art, and
that I was somehow fortifying Carthew.  I told myself, I say;
but I was no such fool as to believe it, even then.  In these
circumstances I displayed the two chief qualities of my
character on the largest scale--my helplessness and my
instinctive love of procrastination--and fell upon a course of
action so ridiculous that I blush when I recall it.

We reached Liverpool one forenoon, the rain falling thickly and
insidiously on the filthy town.  I had no plans, beyond a
sensible unwillingness to let my rascal escape; and I ended by
going to the same inn with him, dining with him, walking with
him in the wet streets, and hearing with him in a penny gaff
that venerable piece, _The Ticket-of-Leave Man_.  It was one
of his first visits to a theatre, against which places of
entertainment he had a strong prejudice; and his innocent,
pompous talk, innocent old quotations, and innocent reverence
for the character of Hawkshaw delighted me beyond relief.  In
charity to myself, I dwell upon and perhaps exaggerate my
pleasures.  I have need of all conceivable excuses, when I
confess that I went to bed without one word upon the matter of
Carthew, but not without having covenanted with my rascal for
a visit to Chester the next day.  At Chester we did the
Cathedral, walked on the walls, discussed Shakespeare and the
musical glasses--and made a fresh engagement for the morrow. 
I do not know, and I am glad to have forgotten, how long these
travels were continued.  We visited at least, by singular
zigzags, Stratford, Warwick, Coventry, Gloucester, Bristol,
Bath, and Wells.  At each stage we spoke dutifully of the scene
and its associations; I sketched, the Shyster spouted poetry and
copied epitaphs.  Who could doubt we were the usual
Americans, travelling with a design of self-improvement? 
Who was to guess that one was a blackmailer, trembling to
approach the scene of action--the other a helpless, amateur
detective, waiting on events?

It is unnecessary to remark that none occurred, or none the least
suitable with my design of protecting Carthew.  Two trifles,
indeed, completed though they scarcely changed my conception
of the Shyster.  The first was observed in Gloucester, where we
spent Sunday, and I proposed we should hear service in the
cathedral.  To my surprise, the creature had an ISM of his own,
to which he was loyal; and he left me to go alone to the
cathedral--or perhaps not to go at all--and stole off down a
deserted alley to some Bethel or Ebenezer of the proper shade. 
When we met again at lunch, I rallied him, and he grew restive.

"You need employ no circumlocutions with me, Mr. Dodd," he
said suddenly.  "You regard my behaviour from an
unfavourable point of view:  you regard me, I much fear, as
hypocritical."

I was somewhat confused by the attack.  "You know what I
think of your trade," I replied, lamely and coarsely.

"Excuse me, if I seem to press the subject," he continued, "but
if you think my life erroneous, would you have me neglect the
means of grace?  Because you consider me in the wrong on one
point, would you have me place myself on the wrong in all?
Surely, sir, the church is for the sinner."

"Did you ask a blessing on your present enterprise?" I sneered.

He had a bad attack of St. Vitus, his face was changed, and his
eyes flashed.  "I will tell you what I did!" he cried.  "I prayed
for an unfortunate man and a wretched woman whom he tries
to support."

I cannot pretend that I found any repartee.

The second incident was at Bristol, where I lost sight of my
gentleman some hours.  From this eclipse, he returned to me
with thick speech, wandering footsteps, and a back all
whitened with plaster.  I had half expected, yet I could have
wept to see it.  All disabilities were piled on that weak back--
domestic misfortune, nervous disease, a displeasing exterior, 
empty pockets, and the slavery of vice.

I will never deny that our prolonged conjunction was the result
of double cowardice.  Each was afraid to leave the other, each
was afraid to speak, or knew not what to say.  Save for my ill-
judged allusion at Gloucester, the subject uppermost in both
our minds was buried.  Carthew, Stallbridge-le-Carthew,
Stallbridge-Minster--which we had long since (and severally)
identified to be the nearest station--even the name of
Dorsetshire was studiously avoided.  And yet we were making
progress all the time, tacking across broad England like an
unweatherly vessel on a wind; approaching our destination, not
openly, but by a sort of flying sap.  And at length, I can scarce
tell how, we were set down by a dilatory butt-end of local train
on the untenanted platform of Stallbridge-Minster.

The town was ancient and compact:  a domino of tiled houses
and walled gardens, dwarfed by the disproportionate bigness of
the church.  From the midst of the thoroughfare which divided
it in half, fields and trees were visible at either end; and
through the sally-port of every street, there flowed in from the
country a silent invasion of green grass.  Bees and birds
appeared to make the majority of the inhabitants; every garden
had its row of hives, the eaves of every house were plastered
with the nests of swallows, and the pinnacles of the church
were flickered about all day long by a multitude of wings.  The
town was of Roman foundation; and as I looked out that
afternoon from the low windows of the inn, I should scarce
have been surprised to see a centurion coming up the street
with a fatigue draft of legionaries.  In short, Stallbridge-
Minster was one of those towns which appear to be maintained
by England for the instruction and delight of the American
rambler; to which he seems guided by an instinct not less
surprising than the setter's; and which he visits and quits with
equal enthusiasm.

I was not at all in the humour of the tourist.  I had wasted
weeks of time and accomplished nothing; we were on the eve
of the engagement, and I had neither plans nor allies.  I had
thrust myself into the trade of private providence and amateur
detective; I was spending money and I was reaping disgrace. 
All the time, I kept telling myself that I must at least speak;
that this ignominious silence should have been broken long
ago, and must be broken now.  I should have broken it when he
first proposed to come to Stallbridge-Minster; I should have
broken it in the train; I should break it there and then, on the
inn doorstep, as the omnibus rolled off.  I turned toward him at
the thought; he seemed to wince, the words died on my lips,
and I proposed instead that we should visit the Minster.

While we were engaged upon this duty, it came on to rain in a
manner worthy of the tropics.  The vault reverberated; every
gargoyle instantly poured its full discharge; we waded back to
the inn, ankle-deep in impromptu brooks; and the rest of the
afternoon sat weatherbound, hearkening to the sonorous
deluge.  For two hours I talked of indifferent matters,
laboriously feeding the conversation; for two hours my mind
was quite made up to do my duty instantly--and at each
particular instant I postponed it till the next.  To screw up my
faltering courage, I called at dinner for some sparkling wine.  It
proved when it came to be detestable; I could not put it to my
lips; and Bellairs, who had as much palate as a weevil, was left
to finish it himself.  Doubtless the wine flushed him; doubtless
he may have observed my embarrassment of the afternoon;
doubtless he was conscious that we were approaching a crisis,
and that that evening, if I did not join with him, I must declare
myself an open enemy.  At least he fled.  Dinner was done; this
was the time when I had bound myself to break my silence; no
more delays were to be allowed, no more excuses received.  I
went upstairs after some tobacco; which I felt to be a mere
necessity in the circumstances; and when I returned, the man
was gone.  The waiter told me he had left the house.

The rain still plumped, like a vast shower-bath, over the
deserted town.  The night was dark and windless:  the street lit
glimmeringly from end to end, lamps, house windows, and the
reflections in the rain-pools all contributing.  From a public-
house on the other side of the way, I heard a harp twang and a
doleful voice upraised in the "Larboard Watch," "The Anchor's
Weighed," and other naval ditties.  Where had my Shyster
wandered?  In all likelihood to that lyrical tavern; there was no
choice of diversion; in comparison with Stallbridge-Minster on
a rainy night, a sheepfold would seem gay.

Again I passed in review the points of my interview, on which I
was always constantly resolved so long as my adversary was
absent from the scene:  and again they struck me as inadequate. 
From this dispiriting exercise I turned to the native
amusements of the inn coffee-room, and studied for some time
the mezzotints that frowned upon the wall.  The railway guide,
after showing me how soon I could leave Stallbridge and how
quickly I could reach Paris, failed to hold my attention.  An
illustrated advertisement book of hotels brought me very low
indeed; and when it came to the local paper, I could have wept. 
At this point, I found a passing solace in a copy of Whittaker's
Almanac, and obtained in fifty minutes more information than I
have yet been able to use.

Then a fresh apprehension assailed me.  Suppose Bellairs had
given me the slip? suppose he was now rolling on the road to
Stallbridge-le-Carthew? or perhaps there already and laying
before a very white-faced auditor his threats and propositions?
A hasty person might have instantly pursued.  Whatever I am, I
am not hasty, and I was aware of three grave objections.  In the
first place, I could not be certain that Bellairs was gone.  In the
second, I had no taste whatever for a long drive at that hour of
the night and in so merciless a rain.  In the third, I had no idea
how I was to get admitted if I went, and no idea what I should
say if I got admitted.  "In short," I concluded, "the whole
situation is the merest farce.  You have thrust yourself in where
you had no business and have no power.  You would be quite
as useful in San Francisco; far happier in Paris; and being (by
the wrath of God) at Stallbridge-Minster, the wisest thing is to
go quietly to bed."  On the way to my room, I saw (in a flash)
that which I ought to have done long ago, and which it was
now too late to think of--written to Carthew, I mean, detailing
the facts and describing Bellairs, letting him defend himself if
he were able, and giving him time to flee if he were not.  It was
the last blow to my self-respect; and I flung myself into my bed
with contumely.

I have no guess what hour it was, when I was wakened by the
entrance of Bellairs carrying a candle.  He had been drunk, for
he was bedaubed with mire from head to foot; but he was now
sober and under the empire of some violent emotion which he
controlled with difficulty.  He trembled visibly; and more than
once, during the interview which followed, tears suddenly and
silently overflowed his cheeks.

"I have to ask your pardon, sir, for this untimely visit," he said. 
"I make no defence, I have no excuse, I have disgraced myself,
I am properly punished; I appear before you to appeal to you in
mercy for the most trifling aid or, God help me! I fear I may go
mad."

"What on earth is wrong?" I asked.

"I have been robbed," he said.  "I have no defence to offer; it
was of my own fault, I am properly punished."

"But, gracious goodness me!" I cried, "who is there to rob you
in a place like this?"

"I can form no opinion," he replied.  "I have no idea.  I was
lying in a ditch inanimate.  This is a degrading confession, sir;
I can only say in self-defence that perhaps (in your good nature)
you have made yourself partly responsible for my shame.  I am
not used to these rich wines."

"In what form was your money?  Perhaps it may be traced," I
suggested.

"It was in English sovereigns.  I changed it in New York; I got
very good exchange," he said, and then, with a momentary
outbreak, "God in heaven, how I toiled for it!" he cried.

"That doesn't sound encouraging," said I.  "It may be worth
while to apply to the police, but it doesn't sound a hopeful
case."

"And I have no hope in that direction," said Bellairs. "My
hopes, Mr. Dodd, are all fixed upon yourself.  I could easily
convince you that a small, a very small advance, would be in
the nature of an excellent investment; but I prefer to rely on
your humanity.  Our acquaintance began on an unusual footing;
but you have now known me for some time, we have been
some time--I was going to say we had been almost intimate. 
Under the impulse of instinctive sympathy, I have bared my
heart to you, Mr. Dodd, as I have done to few; and I believe--I
trust--I may say that I feel sure--you heard me with a kindly
sentiment.  This is what brings me to your side at this most
inexcusable hour.  But put yourself in my place--how could I
sleep--how could I dream of sleeping, in this blackness of
remorse and despair?  There was a friend at hand--so I ventured
to think of you; it was instinctive; I fled to your side, as the
drowning man clutches at a straw.  These expressions are not
exaggerated, they scarcely serve to express the agitation of my
mind.  And think, sir, how easily you can restore me to hope
and, I may say, to reason.  A small loan, which shall be
faithfully repaid.  Five hundred dollars would be ample."  He
watched me with burning eyes.  "Four hundred would do.  I
believe, Mr. Dodd, that I could manage with economy on two."

"And then you will repay me out of Carthew's pocket?" I said. 
"I am much obliged.  But I will tell you what I will do:  I will
see you on board a steamer, pay your fare through to San
Francisco, and place fifty dollars in the purser's hands, to be
given you in New York."

He drank in my words; his face represented an ecstasy of
cunning thought.  I could read there, plain as print, that he but
thought to overreach me.

"And what am I to do in 'Frisco?" he asked.  "I am disbarred, I
have no trade, I cannot dig, to beg----" he paused in the
citation.  "And you know that I am not alone," he added,
"others depend upon me."

"I will write to Pinkerton," I returned.  "I feel sure he can help
you to some employment, and in the meantime, and for three
months after your arrival, he shall pay to yourself personally, on
the first and the fifteenth, twenty-five dollars."

"Mr. Dodd, I scarce believe you can be serious in this offer," he
replied.  "Have you forgotten the circumstances of the case? 
Do you know these people are the magnates of the section?
They were spoken of to-night in the saloon; their wealth must
amount to many millions of dollars in real estate alone; their
house is one of the sights of the locality, and you offer me a
bribe of a few hundred!"

"I offer you no bribe, Mr. Bellairs, I give you alms," I returned. 
"I will do nothing to forward you in your hateful business; yet I
would not willingly have you starve."

"Give me a hundred dollars then, and be done with it," he cried. 

"I will do what I have said, and neither more nor less," said I.

"Take care," he cried.  "You are playing a fool's game; you are
making an enemy for nothing; you will gain nothing by this, I
warn you of it!"  And then with one of his changes, "Seventy
dollars--only seventy--in mercy, Mr. Dodd, in common charity. 
Don't dash the bowl from my lips!  You have a kindly heart. 
Think of my position, remember my unhappy wife."

"You should have thought of her before," said I.  "I have made
my offer, and I wish to sleep."

"Is that your last word, sir?  Pray consider; pray weigh both
sides:  my misery, your own danger.  I warn you--I beseech
you; measure it well before you answer," so he half pleaded,
half threatened me, with clasped hands.

"My first word, and my last," said I.

The change upon the man was shocking.  In the storm of anger
that now shook him, the lees of his intoxication rose again to
the surface; his face was deformed, his words insane with fury;
his pantomime excessive in itself, was distorted by an access of
St. Vitus.

"You will perhaps allow me to inform you of my cold opinion,"
he began, apparently self-possessed, truly bursting with rage:
"when I am a glorified saint, I shall see you howling for a drop
of water and exult to see you.  That your last word!  Take it in
your face, you spy, you false friend, you fat hypocrite!  I defy, I
defy and despise and spit upon you!  I'm on the trail, his trail or
yours, I smell blood, I'll follow it on my hands and knees, I'll
starve to follow it!  I'll hunt you down, hunt you, hunt you
down!  If I were strong, I'd tear your vitals out, here in this
room--tear them out--I'd tear them out!  Damn, damn, damn!
You think me weak!  I can bite, bite to the blood, bite you, hurt
you, disgrace you ..."

He was thus incoherently raging, when the scene was
interrupted by the arrival of the landlord and inn servants in
various degrees of deshabille, and to them I gave my temporary
lunatic in charge.

"Take him to his room," I said, "he's only drunk."

These were my words; but I knew better.  After all my study of
Mr. Bellairs, one discovery had been reserved for the last
moment:  that of his latent and essential madness.



 CHAPTER XX.

 STALLBRIDGE-LE-CARTHEW.


Long before I was awake, the shyster had disappeared, leaving
his bill unpaid.  I did not need to inquire where he was gone, I
knew too well, I knew there was nothing left me but to follow;
and about ten in the morning, set forth in a gig for Stallbridge
-le-Carthew.

The road, for the first quarter of the way, deserts the valley of
the river, and crosses the summit of a chalk-down, grazed over
by flocks of sheep and haunted by innumerable larks.  It was a
pleasant but a vacant scene, arousing but not holding the
attention; and my mind returned to the violent passage of the
night before.  My thought of the man I was pursuing had been 
greatly changed.  I conceived of him, somewhere in front of me,
upon his dangerous errand, not to be turned aside, not to be
stopped, by either fear or reason.  I had called him a ferret; I
conceived him now as a mad dog.  Methought he would run,
not walk; methought, as he ran, that he would bark and froth at
the lips; methought, if the great wall of China were to rise
across his path, he would attack it with his nails.

Presently the road left the down, returned by a precipitous
descent into the valley of the Stall, and ran thenceforward
among enclosed fields and under the continuous shade of trees. 
I was told we had now entered on the Carthew property.  By
and by, a battlemented wall appeared on the left hand, and a
little after I had my first glimpse of the mansion.  It stood in a
hollow of a bosky park, crowded to a degree that surprised and
even displeased me, with huge timber and dense shrubberies of
laurel and rhododendron.  Even from this low station and the
thronging neighbourhood of the trees, the pile rose conspicuous
like a cathedral.  Behind, as we continued to skirt the park
wall, I began to make out a straggling town of offices which
became conjoined to the rear with those of the home farm.  On
the left was an ornamental water sailed in by many swans.  On
the right extended a flower garden, laid in the old manner, and
at this season of the year, as brilliant as stained glass.  The
front of the house presented a facade of more than sixty
windows, surmounted by a formal pediment and raised upon a
terrace.  A wide avenue, part in gravel, part in turf, and
bordered by triple alleys, ran to the great double gateways.  It
was impossible to look without surprise on a place that had
been prepared through so many generations, had cost so many
tons of minted gold, and was maintained in order by so great a
company of emulous servants.  And yet of these there was no
sign but the perfection of their work.  The whole domain was
drawn to the line and weeded like the front plot of some
suburban amateur; and I looked in vain for any belated
gardener, and listened in vain for any sounds of labour.  Some
lowing of cattle and much calling of birds alone disturbed the
stillness, and even the little hamlet, which clustered at the
gates, appeared to hold its breath in awe of its great neighbour,
like a troop of children who should have strayed into a king's
anteroom.

The Carthew Arms, the small but very comfortable inn, was a
mere appendage and outpost of the family whose name it bore. 
Engraved portraits of by-gone Carthews adorned the walls;
Fielding Carthew, Recorder of the city of London; Major-
General John Carthew in uniform, commanding some military
operations; the Right Honourable Bailley Carthew, Member of
Parliament for Stallbridge, standing by a table and brandishing
a document; Singleton Carthew, Esquire, represented in the
foreground of a herd of cattle--doubtless at the desire of his
tenantry, who had made him a compliment of this work of art;
and the Venerable Archdeacon Carthew, D.D., LL.D., A.M.,
laying his hand on the head of a little child in a manner highly
frigid and ridiculous.  So far as my memory serves me, there
were no other pictures in this exclusive hostelry; and I was not
surprised to learn that the landlord was an ex-butler, the
landlady an ex-lady's-maid, from the great house; and that the
bar-parlour was a sort of perquisite of former servants.

To an American, the sense of the domination of this family over
so considerable a tract of earth was even oppressive; and as I
considered their simple annals, gathered from the legends of
the engravings, surprise began to mingle with my disgust. 
"Mr. Recorder" doubtless occupies an honourable post; but I
thought that, in the course of so many generations, one Carthew
might have clambered higher.  The soldier had stuck at Major-
General; the churchman bloomed unremarked in an
archidiaconate; and though the Right Honourable Bailley
seemed to have sneaked into the privy council, I have still to
learn what he did when he had got there.  Such vast means, so
long a start, and such a modest standard of achievement, struck
in me a strong sense of the dulness of that race.

I found that to come to the hamlet and not visit the Hall, would
be regarded as a slight.  To feed the swans, to see the peacocks
and the Raphaels--for these commonplace people actually
possessed two Raphaels--to risk life and limb among a famous
breed of cattle called the Carthew Chillinghams, and to do
homage to the sire (still living) of Donibristle, a renowned
winner of the oaks:  these, it seemed, were the inevitable
stations of the pilgrimage.  I was not so foolish as to resist, for I
might have need before I was done of general good-will; and
two pieces of news fell in which changed my resignation to
alacrity.  It appeared in the first place, that Mr. Norris was from
home "travelling "; in the second, that a visitor had been before
me and already made the tour of the Carthew curiosities.  I
thought I knew who this must be; I was anxious to learn what
he had done and seen; and fortune so far favoured me that the
under-gardener singled out to be my guide had already
performed the same function for my predecessor.

"Yes, sir," he said, "an American gentleman right enough.  At
least, I don't think he was quite a gentleman, but a very civil
person."

The person, it seems, had been civil enough to be delighted
with the Carthew Chillinghams, to perform the whole
pilgrimage with rising admiration, and to have almost
prostrated himself before the shrine of Donibristle's sire.

"He told me, sir," continued the gratified under-gardener, "that
he had often read of the 'stately 'omes of England,' but ours was
the first he had the chance to see.  When he came to the 'ead of
the long alley, he fetched his breath.  'This is indeed a lordly
domain!' he cries.  And it was natural he should be interested in
the place, for it seems Mr. Carthew had been kind to him in the
States.  In fact, he seemed a grateful kind of person, and
wonderful taken up with flowers."

I heard this story with amazement.  The phrases quoted told
their own tale; they were plainly from the shyster's mint.  A few
hours back I had seen him a mere bedlamite and fit for a strait-
waistcoat; he was penniless in a strange country; it was highly
probable he had gone without breakfast; the absence of Norris
must have been a crushing blow; the man (by all reason)
should have been despairing.  And now I heard of him, clothed
and in his right mind, deliberate, insinuating, admiring vistas,
smelling flowers, and talking like a book.  The strength of
character implied amazed and daunted me.

"This is curious," I said to the under-gardener.  "I have had the
pleasure of some acquaintance with Mr. Carthew myself; and I
believe none of our western friends ever were in England.  Who
can this person be?  He couldn't--no, that's impossible, he could
never have had the impudence.  His name was not Bellairs?" 

"I didn't 'ear the name, sir.  Do you know anything against
him?" cried my guide.

"Well," said I, "he is certainly not the person Carthew would
like to have here in his absence."

"Good gracious me!" exclaimed the gardener.  "He was so
pleasant spoken, too; I thought he was some form of a
schoolmaster.  Perhaps, sir, you wouldn't mind going right up
to Mr. Denman?  I recommended him to Mr. Denman, when he
had done the grounds.  Mr. Denman is our butler, sir," he
added.

The proposal was welcome, particularly as affording me a
graceful retreat from the neighbourhood of the Carthew
Chillinghams; and, giving up our projected circuit, we took a
short cut through the shrubbery and across the bowling green to
the back quarters of the Hall.

The bowling green was surrounded by a great hedge of yew,
and entered by an archway in the quick.  As we were issuing
from this passage, my conductor arrested me. 

"The Honourable Lady Ann Carthew," he said, in an august
whisper.  And looking over his shoulder, I was aware of an old
lady with a stick, hobbling somewhat briskly along the garden
path.  She must have been extremely handsome in her youth;
and even the limp with which she walked could not deprive her
of an unusual and almost menacing dignity of bearing. 
Melancholy was impressed besides on every feature, and her
eyes, as she looked straight before her, seemed to contemplate
misfortune.

"She seems sad," said I, when she had hobbled past and we
had resumed our walk.

"She enjoy rather poor spirits, sir," responded the under-
gardener.  "Mr. Carthew--the old gentleman, I mean--died less
than a year ago; Lord Tillibody, her ladyship's brother, two
months after; and then there was the sad business about the
young gentleman.  Killed in the 'unting-field, sir; and her
ladyship's favourite.  The present Mr. Norris has never been so
equally."

"So I have understood," said I, persistently, and (I think)
gracefully pursuing my inquiries and fortifying my position as a
family friend.  "Dear, dear, how sad! And has this change--poor
Carthew's return, and all--has this not mended matters?"

"Well, no, sir, not a sign of it," was the reply.  "Worse, we
think, than ever."

"Dear, dear!" said I again.

"When Mr. Norris arrived, she DID seem glad to see him," he
pursued; "and we were all pleased, I'm sure; for no one knows
the young gentleman but what likes him.  Ah, sir, it didn't last
long!  That very night they had a talk, and fell out or
something; her ladyship took on most painful; it was like old
days, but worse.  And the next morning Mr. Norris was off
again upon his travels.  "Denman," he said to Mr. Denman,
"Denman, I'll never come back," he said, and shook him by the
'and.  I wouldn't be saying all this to a stranger, sir," added my
informant, overcome with a sudden fear lest he had gone too
far.

He had indeed told me much, and much that was unsuspected
by himself.  On that stormy night of his return, Carthew had
told his story; the old lady had more upon her mind than mere
bereavements; and among the mental pictures on which she
looked, as she walked staring down the path, was one of
Midway Island and the Flying Scud.

Mr. Denman heard my inquiries with discomposure, but
informed me the shyster was already gone. 

"Gone?" cried I.  "Then what can he have come for?  One thing
I can tell you, it was not to see the house."

"I don't see it could have been anything else," replied the butler.

"You may depend upon it it was," said I.  "And whatever it
was, he has got it.  By the way, where is Mr. Carthew at
present?  I was sorry to find he was from home."

"He is engaged in travelling, sir," replied the butler, dryly.

"Ah, bravo!" cried I.  "I laid a trap for you there, Mr. Denman. 
Now I need not ask you; I am sure you did not tell this prying
stranger."

"To be sure not, sir," said the butler.

I went through the form of "shaking him by the 'and"--like Mr.
Norris--not, however, with genuine enthusiasm. For I had
failed ingloriously to get the address for myself; and I felt a
sure conviction that Bellairs had done better, or he had still
been here and still cultivating Mr. Denman.

I had escaped the grounds and the cattle; I could not escape the
house.  A lady with silver hair, a slender silver voice, and a
stream of insignificant information not to be diverted, led me
through the picture gallery, the music-room, the great dining-
room, the long drawing-room, the Indian room, the theatre, and
every corner (as I thought) of that interminable mansion.  There
was but one place reserved; the garden-room, whither Lady
Ann had now retired.  I paused a moment on the outside of the
door, and smiled to myself.  The situation was indeed strange,
and these thin boards divided the secret of the Flying Scud.

All the while, as I went to and fro, I was considering the visit
and departure of Bellairs.  That he had got the address, I was
quite certain:  that he had not got it by direct questioning, I was
convinced; some ingenuity, some lucky accident, had served
him.  A similar chance, an equal ingenuity, was required; or I
was left helpless, the ferret must run down his prey, the great
oaks fall, the Raphaels be scattered, the house let to some
stockbroker suddenly made rich, and the name which now
filled the mouths of five or six parishes dwindle to a memory. 
Strange that such great matters, so old a mansion, a family so
ancient and so dull, should come to depend for perpetuity upon
the intelligence, the discretion, and the cunning of a Latin-
Quarter student!  What Bellairs had done, I must do likewise. 
Chance or ingenuity, ingenuity or chance--so I continued to
ring the changes as I walked down the avenue, casting back
occasional glances at the red brick facade and the twinkling
windows of the house.  How was I to command chance? where
was I to find the ingenuity?

These reflections brought me to the door of the inn.  And here,
pursuant to my policy of keeping well with all men, I
immediately smoothed my brow, and accepted (being the only
guest in the house) an invitation to dine with the family in the
bar-parlour.  I sat down accordingly with Mr. Higgs the
ex-butler, Mrs. Higgs the ex-lady's-maid, and Miss Agnes
Higgs their frowsy-headed little girl, the least promising and
(as the event showed) the most useful of the lot.  The talk ran
endlessly on the great house and the great family; the roast
beef, the Yorkshire pudding, the jam-roll, and the cheddar
cheese came and went, and still the stream flowed on; near four
generations of Carthews were touched upon without eliciting
one point of interest; and we had killed Mr. Henry in "the
'unting-field," with a vast elaboration of painful circumstance,
and buried him in the midst of a whole sorrowing county,
before I could so much as manage to bring upon the stage my
intimate friend, Mr. Norris.  At the name, the ex-butler grew
diplomatic, and the ex-lady's-maid tender.  He was the only
person of the whole featureless series who seemed to have
accomplished anything worth mention; and his achievements,
poor dog, seemed to have been confined to going to the devil
and leaving some regrets.  He had been the image of the Right
Honourable Bailley, one of the lights of that dim house, and a
career of distinction had been predicted of him in consequence
almost from the cradle.  But before he was out of long clothes,
the cloven foot began to show; he proved to be no Carthew,
developed a taste for low pleasures and bad company, went
birdnesting with a stable-boy before he was eleven, and when
he was near twenty, and might have been expected to display at 
least some rudiments of the family gravity, rambled the country
over with a knapsack, making sketches and keeping company
in wayside inns.  He had no pride about him, I was told; he
would sit down with any man; and it was somewhat
woundingly implied that I was indebted to this peculiarity for
my own acquaintance with the hero. Unhappily, Mr. Norris
was not only eccentric, he was fast.  His debts were still
remembered at the University; still more, it appeared, the
highly humorous circumstances attending his expulsion.  "He
was always fond of his jest," commented Mrs. Higgs. 

"That he were!" observed her lord.

But it was after he went into the diplomatic service that the real
trouble began.

"It seems, sir, that he went the pace extraordinary," said the
ex-butler, with a solemn gusto.

"His debts were somethink awful," said the lady's-maid.  "And
as nice a young gentleman all the time as you would wish to
see!"

"When word came to Mr. Carthew's ears, the turn up was
'orrible," continued Mr. Higgs.  "I remember it as if it was
yesterday.  The bell was rung after her la'ship was gone, which
I answered it myself, supposing it were the coffee.  There was
Mr. Carthew on his feet.  ''Iggs,' he says, pointing with his
stick, for he had a turn of the gout, 'order the dog-cart instantly
for this son of mine which has disgraced hisself.'  Mr. Norris
say nothink:  he sit there with his 'ead down, making belief to
be looking at a walnut.  You might have bowled me over with
a straw," said Mr. Higgs.

"Had he done anything very bad?" I asked.

"Not he, Mr. Dodsley!" cried the lady--it was so she had
conceived my name.  "He never did anythink to all really wrong
in his poor life.  The 'ole affair was a disgrace.  It was all rank
favouritising."

"Mrs. 'Iggs!  Mrs. 'Iggs!" cried the butler warningly.

"Well, what do I care?" retorted the lady, shaking her ringlets. 
"You know it was yourself, Mr. 'Iggs, and so did every member
of the staff."

While I was getting these facts and opinions, I by no means
neglected the child.  She was not attractive; but fortunately she
had reached the corrupt age of seven, when half a crown
appears about as large as a saucer and is fully as rare as the
dodo.  For a shilling down, sixpence in her money-box, and an
American gold dollar which I happened to find in my pocket, I
bought the creature soul and body.  She declared her intention
to accompany me to the ends of the earth; and had to be
chidden by her sire for drawing comparisons between myself
and her uncle William, highly damaging to the latter.

Dinner was scarce done, the cloth was not yet removed, when
Miss Agnes must needs climb into my lap with her stamp
album, a relic of the generosity of Uncle William.  There are
few things I despise more than old stamps, unless perhaps it be
crests; for cattle (from the Carthew Chillinghams down to the
old gate-keeper's milk-cow in the lane) contempt is far from
being my first sentiment.  But it seemed I was doomed to pass
that day in viewing curiosities, and smothering a yawn, I
devoted myself once more to tread the well-known round.  I
fancy Uncle William must have begun the collection himself
and tired of it, for the book (to my surprise) was quite
respectably filled.  There were the varying shades of the
English penny, Russians with the coloured heart, old
undecipherable Thurn-und-Taxis, obsolete triangular Cape of
Good Hopes, Swan Rivers with the Swan, and Guianas with
the sailing ship.  Upon all these I looked with the eyes of a fish
and the spirit of a sheep; I think indeed I was at times asleep;
and it was probably in one of these moments that I capsized the
album, and there fell from the end of it, upon the floor, a
considerable number of what I believe to be called
"exchanges."

Here, against all probability, my chance had come to me; for as
I gallantly picked them up, I was struck with the
disproportionate amount of five-sous French stamps.  Some
one, I reasoned, must write very regularly from France to the
neighbourhood of Stallbridge-le-Carthew.  Could it be Norris?
On one stamp I made out an initial C; upon a second I got as
far as CH; beyond which point, the postmark used was in every
instance undecipherable.  CH, when you consider that about a
quarter of the towns in France begin with "chateau," was an
insufficient clue; and I promptly annexed the plainest of the
collection in order to consult the post-office.

The wretched infant took me in the fact.  "Naughty man, to 'teal
my 'tamp!" she cried; and when I would have brazened it off
with a denial, recovered and displayed the stolen article.

My position was now highly false; and I believe it was in mere
pity that Mrs. Higgs came to my rescue with a welcome
proposition.  If the gentleman was really interested in stamps,
she said, probably supposing me a monomaniac on the point,
he should see Mr. Denman's album.  Mr. Denman had been
collecting forty years, and his collection was said to be worth a
mint of money.  "Agnes," she went on, "if you were a kind little
girl, you would run over to the 'All, tell Mr. Denman there's a
connaisseer in the 'ouse, and ask him if one of the young
gentlemen might bring the album down."

"I should like to see his exchanges too," I cried, rising to the
occasion.  "I may have some of mine in my pocket-book and we
might trade."

Half an hour later Mr. Denman arrived himself with a most
unconscionable volume under his arm.  "Ah, sir," he cried,
"when I 'eard you was a collector, I dropped all.  It's a saying of
mine, Mr. Dodsley, that collecting stamps makes all collectors
kin.  It's a bond, sir; it creates a bond."

Upon the truth of this, I cannot say; but there is no doubt that
the attempt to pass yourself off for a collector falsely creates a
precarious situation.

"Ah, here's the second issue!" I would say, after consulting the
legend at the side.  "The pink--no, I mean the mauve--yes,
that's the beauty of this lot.  Though of course, as you say," I
would hasten to add, "this yellow on the thin paper is more
rare."

Indeed I must certainly have been detected, had I not plied Mr.
Denman in self-defence with his favourite liquor--a port so
excellent that it could never have ripened in the cellar of the
Carthew Arms, but must have been transported, under cloud of
night, from the neighbouring vaults of the great house.  At each
threat of exposure, and in particular whenever I was directly
challenged for an opinion, I made haste to fill the butler's glass,
and by the time we had got to the exchanges, he was in a
condition in which no stamp collector need be seriously feared. 
God forbid I should hint that he was drunk; he seemed
incapable of the necessary liveliness; but the man's eyes were
set, and so long as he was suffered to talk without interruption,
he seemed careless of my heeding him.

In Mr. Denman's exchanges, as in those of little Agnes, the
same peculiarity was to be remarked, an undue preponderance
of that despicably common stamp, the French twenty-five
centimes.  And here joining them in stealthy review, I found the
C and the CH; then something of an A just following; and then
a terminal Y.  Here was also the whole name spelt out to me; it
seemed familiar, too; and yet for some time I could not bridge
the imperfection.  Then I came upon another stamp, in which
an L was legible before the Y, and in a moment the word
leaped up complete.  Chailly, that was the name; Chailly-
en-Biere, the post town of Barbizon--ah, there was the very
place for any man to hide himself--there was the very place for
Mr. Norris, who had rambled over England making sketches--
the very place for Goddedaal, who had left a palette-knife on
board the Flying Scud.  Singular, indeed, that while I was
drifting over England with the shyster, the man we were in
quest of awaited me at my own ultimate destination.

Whether Mr. Denman had shown his album to Bellairs,
whether, indeed, Bellairs could have caught (as I did) this hint
from an obliterated postmark, I shall never know, and it
mattered not.  We were equal now; my task at Stallbridge-le-
Carthew was accomplished; my interest in postage-stamps died
shamelessly away; the astonished Denman was bowed out; and
ordering the horse to be put in, I plunged into the study of the
time-table.




 CHAPTER XXI.

 FACE TO FACE.


I fell from the skies on Barbizon about two o'clock of a
September afternoon.  It is the dead hour of the day; all the
workers have gone painting, all the idlers strolling, in the forest
or the plain; the winding causewayed street is solitary, and the
inn deserted.  I was the more pleased to find one of my old
companions in the dining-room; his town clothes marked him
for a man in the act of departure; and indeed his portmanteau
lay beside him on the floor.

"Why, Stennis," I cried, "you're the last man I expected to find
here."

"You won't find me here long," he replied.  "King Pandion he is
dead; all his friends are lapped in lead.  For men of our
antiquity, the poor old shop is played out."

"I have had playmates, I have had companions," I quoted in
return.  We were both moved, I think, to meet again in this
scene of our old pleasure parties so unexpectedly, after so long
an interval, and both already so much altered.

"That is the sentiment," he replied.  "All, all are gone, the old
familiar faces.  I have been here a week, and the only living
creature who seemed to recollect me was the Pharaon.  Bar the
Sirons, of course, and the perennial Bodmer."

"Is there no survivor?" I inquired.

"Of our geological epoch? not one," he replied.  "This is the city
of Petra in Edom."

"And what sort of Bedouins encamp among the ruins?" I asked.

"Youth, Dodd, youth; blooming, conscious youth," he returned. 
"Such a gang, such reptiles! to think we were like that!  I
wonder Siron didn't sweep us from his premises."

"Perhaps we weren't so bad," I suggested.

"Don't let me depress you," said he.  "We were both Anglo-
Saxons, anyway, and the only redeeming feature to-day is
another."

The thought of my quest, a moment driven out by this
rencounter, revived in my mind.  "Who is he?" I cried.  "Tell
me about him."

"What, the Redeeming Feature?" said he.  "Well, he's a very
pleasing creature, rather dim, and dull, and genteel, but really
pleasing.  He is very British, though, the artless Briton! 
Perhaps you'll find him too much so for the transatlantic nerves. 
Come to think of it, on the other hand, you ought to get on
famously.   He is an admirer of your great republic in one of its
(excuse me) shoddiest features; he takes in and sedulously
reads a lot of American papers.  I warned you he was artless."

"What papers are they?" cried I.

"San Francisco papers," said he.  "He gets a bale of them about
twice a week, and studies them like the Bible.  That's one of his
weaknesses; another is to be incalculably rich.  He has taken
Masson's old studio--you remember?--at the corner of the road;
he has furnished it regardless of expense, and lives there
surrounded with vins fins and works of art.  When the youth of
to-day goes up to the Caverne des Brigands to make punch--
they do all that we did, like some nauseous form of ape (I never
appreciated before what a creature of tradition mankind is)
--this Madden follows with a basket of champagne.  I told him
he was wrong, and the punch tasted better; but he thought the
boys liked the style of the thing, and I suppose they do.  He is a
very good-natured soul, and a very melancholy, and rather a
helpless.  O, and he has a third weakness which I came near
forgetting.  He paints.  He has never been taught, and he's past
thirty, and he paints."

"How?" I asked.

"Rather well, I think," was the reply.  "That's the annoying part
of it.  See for yourself.  That panel is his."

I stepped toward the window.  It was the old familiar room,
with the tables set like a Greek P, and the sideboard, and the
aphasiac piano, and the panels on the wall.  There were Romeo
and Juliet, Antwerp from the river, Enfield's ships among the
ice, and the huge huntsman winding a huge horn; mingled with
them a few new ones, the thin crop of a succeeding generation,
not better and not worse.  It was to one of these I was directed;
a thing coarsely and wittily handled, mostly with the palette-
knife, the colour in some parts excellent, the canvas in others
loaded with mere clay.  But it was the scene, and not the art or
want of it, that riveted my notice.  The foreground was of sand
and scrub and wreckwood; in the middle distance the many-
hued and smooth expanse of a lagoon, enclosed by a wall of
breakers; beyond, a blue strip of ocean.  The sky was cloudless,
and I could hear the surf break.  For the place was Midway
Island; the point of view the very spot at which I had landed
with the captain for the first time, and from which I had
re-embarked the day before we sailed.  I had already been
gazing for some seconds, before my attention was arrested by a
blur on the sea-line; and stooping to look, I recognised the
smoke of a steamer.

"Yes," said I, turning toward Stennis, "it has merit. What is it?"

"A fancy piece," he returned.  "That's what pleased me. So few
of the fellows in our time had the imagination of a garden
snail."

"Madden, you say his name is?" I pursued.

"Madden," he repeated.

"Has he travelled much?" I inquired.

"I haven't an idea.  He is one of the least autobiographical of
men.  He sits, and smokes, and giggles, and sometimes he
makes small jests; but his contributions to the art of pleasing
are generally confined to looking like a gentleman and being
one.  No," added Stennis, "he'll never suit you, Dodd; you like
more head on your liquor.  You'll find him as dull as ditch
water."

"Has he big blonde side-whiskers like tusks?" I asked, mindful
of the photograph of Goddedaal.

"Certainly not:  why should he?" was the reply.

"Does he write many letters?" I continued.

"God knows," said Stennis.  "What is wrong with you?  I never
saw you taken this way before."


"The fact is, I think I know the man," said I.  "I think I'm
looking for him.  I rather think he is my long-lost brother."

"Not twins, anyway," returned Stennis.

And about the same time, a carriage driving up to the inn, he
took his departure.

I walked till dinner-time in the plain, keeping to the fields; for I
instinctively shunned observation, and was racked by many
incongruous and impatient feelings.  Here was a man whose
voice I had once heard, whose doings had filled so many days
of my life with interest and distress, whom I had lain awake to
dream of like a lover; and now his hand was on the door; now
we were to meet; now I was to learn at last the mystery of the
substituted crew.  The sun went down over the plain of the
Angelus, and as the hour approached, my courage lessened.  I
let the laggard peasants pass me on the homeward way.  The
lamps were lit, the soup was served, the company were all at
table, and the room sounded already with multitudinous talk
before I entered.  I took my place and found I was opposite to
Madden.  Over six feet high and well set up, the hair dark and
streaked with silver, the eyes dark and kindly, the mouth very
good-natured, the teeth admirable; linen and hands exquisite;
English clothes, an English voice, an English bearing:  the man
stood out conspicuous from the company.  Yet he had made
himself at home, and seemed to enjoy a certain quiet popularity
among the noisy boys of the table d'hote.  He had an odd, silver
giggle of a laugh, that sounded nervous even when he was
really amused, and accorded ill with his big stature and manly,
melancholy face.  This laugh fell in continually all through
dinner like the note of the triangle in a piece of modern French
music; and he had at times a kind of pleasantry, rather of
manner than of words, with which he started or maintained the
merriment.  He took his share in these diversions, not so much
like a man in high spirits, but like one of an approved good 
nature, habitually self-forgetful, accustomed to please and to
follow others.  I have remarked in old soldiers much the same
smiling sadness and sociable self-effacement.

I feared to look at him, lest my glances should betray my deep
excitement, and chance served me so well that the soup was
scarce removed before we were naturally introduced.  My first
sip of Chateau Siron, a vintage from which I had been long
estranged, startled me into speech.


"O, this'll never do!" I cried, in English.

"Dreadful stuff, isn't it?" said Madden, in the same language. 
"Do let me ask you to share my bottle.  They call it Chambertin,
which it isn't; but it's fairly palatable, and there's nothing in this
house that a man can drink at all."

I accepted; anything would do that paved the way to better
knowledge.

"Your name is Madden, I think," said I.  "My old friend Stennis
told me about you when I came."

"Yes, I am sorry he went; I feel such a Grandfather William,
alone among all these lads," he replied.

"My name is Dodd," I resumed.

"Yes," said he, "so Madame Siron told me."

"Dodd, of San Francisco," I continued.  "Late of Pinkerton and
Dodd."

"Montana Block, I think?" said he.

"The same," said I.

Neither of us looked at each other; but I could see his hand
deliberately making bread pills.

"That's a nice thing of yours," I pursued, "that panel. The
foreground is a little clayey, perhaps, but the lagoon is
excellent."

"You ought to know," said he.

"Yes," returned I, "I'm rather a good judge of--that panel."

There was a considerable pause.

"You know a man by the name of Bellairs, don't you?" he
resumed.

"Ah!" cried I, "you have heard from Doctor Urquart?"

"This very morning," he replied.

"Well, there is no hurry about Bellairs," said I.  "It's rather a
long story and rather a silly one.  But I think we have a good
deal to tell each other, and perhaps we had better wait till we
are more alone."

"I think so," said he.  "Not that any of these fellows know
English, but we'll be more comfortable over at my place.  Your
health, Dodd."

And we took wine together across the table.

Thus had this singular introduction passed unperceived in the
midst of more than thirty persons, art students, ladies in
dressing-gowns and covered with rice powder, six foot of Siron
whisking dishes over our head, and his noisy sons clattering in
and out with fresh relays.

"One question more," said I: "Did you recognise my voice?"

"Your voice?" he repeated.  "How should I?  I had never heard
it--we have never met."

"And yet, we have been in conversation before now," said I,
"and I asked you a question which you never answered, and
which I have since had many thousand better reasons for
putting to myself."

He turned suddenly white.  "Good God!" he cried, "are you the
man in the telephone?"

I nodded.

"Well, well!" said he.  "It would take a good deal of
magnanimity to forgive you that.  What nights I have passed!
That little whisper has whistled in my ear ever since, like the
wind in a keyhole.  Who could it be?  What could it mean?  I
suppose I have had more real, solid misery out of that ..."  He
paused, and looked troubled.  "Though I had more to bother
me, or ought to have," he added, and slowly emptied his glass.

"It seems we were born to drive each other crazy with
conundrums," said I.  "I have often thought my head would
split."

Carthew burst into his foolish laugh.  "And yet neither you nor
I had the worst of the puzzle," he cried. "There were others
deeper in."

"And who were they?" I asked.

"The underwriters," said he.

"Why, to be sure!" cried I, "I never thought of that. What could
they make of it?"

"Nothing," replied Carthew.  "It couldn't be explained.  They
were a crowd of small dealers at Lloyd's who took it up in
syndicate; one of them has a carriage now; and people say he is
a deuce of a deep fellow, and has the makings of a great
financier.  Another furnished a small villa on the profits.  But
they're all hopelessly muddled; and when they meet each other,
they don't know where to look, like the Augurs."

Dinner was no sooner at an end than he carried me across the
road to Masson's old studio.  It was strangely changed.  On the
walls were tapestry, a few good etchings, and some amazing
pictures--a Rousseau, a Corot, a really superb old Crome, a
Whistler, and a piece which my host claimed (and I believe) to
be a Titian.  The room was furnished with comfortable English
smoking-room chairs, some American rockers, and an
elaborate business table; spirits and soda-water (with the mark
of Schweppe, no less) stood ready on a butler's tray, and in one
corner, behind a half-drawn curtain, I spied a camp-bed and a
capacious tub.  Such a room in Barbizon astonished the
beholder, like the glories of the cave of Monte Cristo.

"Now," said he, "we are quiet.  Sit down, if you don't mind, and
tell me your story all through."

I did as he asked, beginning with the day when Jim showed me
the passage in the _Daily Occidental_, and winding up with the
stamp album and the Chailly postmark.  It was a long business;
and Carthew made it longer, for he was insatiable of details;
and it had struck midnight on the old eight-day clock in the
corner, before I had made an end.

"And now," said he, "turn about: I must tell you my side, much
as I hate it.  Mine is a beastly story.  You'll wonder how I can
sleep.  I've told it once before, Mr. Dodd."

"To Lady Ann?" I asked.

"As you suppose," he answered; "and to say the truth, I had
sworn never to tell it again.  Only, you seem somehow entitled
to the thing; you have paid dear enough, God knows; and God
knows I hope you may like it, now you've got it!"

With that he began his yarn.  A new day had dawned, the cocks
crew in the village and the early woodmen were afoot, when he
concluded.



 CHAPTER XXII.

 THE REMITTANCE MAN.


Singleton Carthew, the father of Norris, was heavily built and
feebly vitalised, sensitive as a musician, dull as a sheep, and
conscientious as a dog.  He took his position with seriousness,
even with pomp; the long rooms, the silent servants, seemed in
his eyes like the observances of some religion of which he was
the mortal god.  He had the stupid man's intolerance of
stupidity in others; the vain man's exquisite alarm lest it should
be detected in himself.  And on both sides Norris irritated and
offended him.  He thought his son a fool, and he suspected that
his son returned the compliment with interest.  The history of
their relation was simple; they met seldom, they quarrelled
often.  To his mother, a fiery, pungent, practical woman,
already disappointed in her husband and her elder son, Norris
was only a fresh disappointment. 

Yet the lad's faults were no great matter; he was diffident,
placable, passive, unambitious, unenterprising; life did not
much attract him; he watched it like a curious and dull
exhibition, not much amused, and not tempted in the least to
take a part.  He beheld his father ponderously grinding sand,
his mother fierily breaking butterflies, his brother labouring at
the pleasures of the Hawbuck with the ardour of a soldier in a
doubtful battle; and the vital sceptic looked on wondering. 
They were careful and troubled about many things; for him
there seemed not even one thing needful.  He was born
disenchanted, the world's promises awoke no echo in his
bosom, the world's activities and the world's distinctions
seemed to him equally without a base in fact.  He liked the
open air; he liked comradeship, it mattered not with whom, his
comrades were only a remedy for solitude.  And he had a taste
for painted art.  An array of fine pictures looked upon his
childhood, and from these roods of jewelled canvas he received
an indelible impression.  The gallery at Stallbridge betokened
generations of picture lovers; Norris was perhaps the first of his
race to hold the pencil.  The taste was genuine, it grew and
strengthened with his growth; and yet he suffered it to be
suppressed with scarce a struggle.  Time came for him to go to
Oxford, and he resisted faintly.  He was stupid, he said; it was
no good to put him through the mill; he wished to be a painter. 
The words fell on his father like a thunderbolt, and Norris
made haste to give way.  "It didn't really matter, don't you
know?" said he.  "And it seemed an awful shame to vex the old
boy."

To Oxford he went obediently, hopelessly; and at Oxford
became the hero of a certain circle.  He was active and adroit;
when he was in the humour, he excelled in many sports; and
his singular melancholy detachment gave him a place apart. 
He set a fashion in his clique.  Envious undergraduates sought
to parody his unaffected lack of zeal and fear; it was a kind of
new Byronism more composed and dignified.  "Nothing really
mattered"; among other things, this formula embraced the
dons; and though he always meant to be civil, the effect on the
college authorities was one of startling rudeness.  His
indifference cut like insolence; and in some outbreak of his
constitutional levity (the complement of his melancholy) he
was "sent down" in the middle of the second year.

The event was new in the annals of the Carthews, and
Singleton was prepared to make the most of it.  It had been
long his practice to prophesy for his second son a career of ruin
and disgrace.  There is an advantage in this artless parental
habit.  Doubtless the father is interested in his son; but
doubtless also the prophet grows to be interested in his
prophecies.  If the one goes wrong, the others come true.  Old
Carthew drew from this source esoteric consolations; he dwelt
at length on his own foresight; he produced variations hitherto
unheard from the old theme "I told you so," coupled his son's
name with the gallows and the hulks, and spoke of his small
handful of college debts as though he must raise money on a
mortgage to discharge them.

"I don't think that is fair, sir," said Norris.  "I lived at college
exactly as you told me.  I am sorry I was sent down, and you
have a perfect right to blame me for that; but you have no right
to pitch into me about these debts."

The effect upon a stupid man not unjustly incensed need
scarcely be described.  For a while Singleton raved.

"I'll tell you what, father," said Norris at last, "I don't think this
is going to do.  I think you had better let me take to painting. 
It's the only thing I take a spark of interest in.  I shall never be
steady as long as I'm at anything else."

"When you stand here, sir, to the neck in disgrace," said the
father, "I should have hoped you would have had more good
taste than to repeat this levity."

The hint was taken; the levity was never more obtruded on the
father's notice, and Norris was inexorably launched upon a
backward voyage.  He went abroad to study foreign languages,
which he learned, at a very expensive rate; and a fresh crop of
debts fell soon to be paid, with similar lamentations, which
were in this case perfectly justified, and to which Norris paid
no regard.  He had been unfairly treated over the Oxford affair;
and with a spice of malice very surprising in one so placable,
and an obstinacy remarkable in one so weak, refused from that
day forward to exercise the least captaincy on his expenses.  He
wasted what he would; he allowed his servants to despoil him
at their pleasure; he sowed insolvency; and when the crop was
ripe, notified his father with exasperating calm.  His own
capital was put in his hands, he was planted in the diplomatic
service and told he must depend upon himself.
  
He did so till he was twenty-five; by which time he had spent
his money, laid in a handsome choice of debts, and acquired
(like so many other melancholic and uninterested persons) a
habit of gambling.  An Austrian colonel--the same who
afterwards hanged himself at Monte Carlo--gave him a lesson
which lasted two-and-twenty hours, and left him wrecked and
helpless.  Old Singleton once more repurchased the honour of
his name, this time at a fancy figure; and Norris was set afloat
again on stern conditions.  An allowance of three hundred
pounds in the year was to be paid to him quarterly by a lawyer
in Sydney, New South Wales.  He was not to write.  Should he
fail on any quarter-day to be in Sydney, he was to be held for
dead, and the allowance tacitly withdrawn.  Should he return to
Europe, an advertisement publicly disowning him was to
appear in every paper of repute. 

It was one of his most annoying features as a son, that he was
always polite, always just, and in whatever whirlwind of
domestic anger, always calm.  He expected trouble; when
trouble came, he was unmoved:  he might have said with
Singleton, "I told you so"; he was content with thinking, "just
as I expected."  On the fall of these last thunderbolts, he bore
himself like a person only distantly interested in the event;
pocketed the money and the reproaches, obeyed orders
punctually; took ship and came to Sydney.  Some men are still
lads at twenty-five; and so it was with Norris.  Eighteen days
after he landed, his quarter's allowance was all gone, and with
the light-hearted hopefulness of strangers in what is called a
new country, he began to besiege offices and apply for all
manner of incongruous situations.  Everywhere, and last of all
from his lodgings, he was bowed out; and found himself
reduced, in a very elegant suit of summer tweeds, to herd and
camp with the degraded outcasts of the city. 

In this strait, he had recourse to the lawyer who paid him his
allowance.

"Try to remember that my time is valuable, Mr. Carthew," said
the lawyer.  "It is quite unnecessary you should enlarge on the
peculiar position in which you stand.  Remittance men, as we
call them here, are not so rare in my experience; and in such
cases I act upon a system.  I make you a present of a sovereign;
here it is.  Every day you choose to call, my clerk will advance
you a shilling; on Saturday, since my office is closed on
Sunday, he will advance you half a crown.  My conditions are
these:  that you do not come to me, but to my clerk; that you do
not come here the worse of liquor; and you go away the
moment you are paid and have signed a receipt.  I wish you a
good-morning."

"I have to thank you, I suppose," said Carthew.  "My position is
so wretched that I cannot even refuse this starvation
allowance."

"Starvation!" said the lawyer, smiling.  "No man will starve
here on a shilling a day.  I had on my hands another young
gentleman, who remained continuously intoxicated for six years
on the same allowance."  And he once more busied himself
with his papers.

In the time that followed, the image of the smiling lawyer
haunted Carthew's memory.  "That three minutes' talk was all
the education I ever had worth talking of," says he.  "It was all
life in a nut-shell.  Confound it!  I thought, have I got to the
point of envying that ancient fossil?"

Every morning for the next two or three weeks, the stroke of ten
found Norris, unkempt and haggard, at the lawyer's door.  The
long day and longer night he spent in the Domain, now on a
bench, now on the grass under a Norfolk Island pine, the
companion of perhaps the lowest class on earth, the Larrikins
of Sydney.  Morning after morning, the dawn behind the
lighthouse recalled him from slumber; and he would stand and
gaze upon the changing east, the fading lenses, the smokeless
city, and the many-armed and many-masted harbour growing
slowly clear under his eyes.  His bed-fellows (so to call them)
were less active; they lay sprawled upon the grass and benches,
the dingy men, the frowsy women, prolonging their late repose;
and Carthew wandered among the sleeping bodies alone, and
cursed the incurable stupidity of his behaviour.  Day brought a
new society of nursery-maids and children, and fresh-dressed
and (I am sorry to say) tight-laced maidens, and gay people in
rich traps; upon the skirts of which Carthew and "the other
blackguards"--his own bitter phrase--skulked, and chewed
grass, and looked on.  Day passed, the light died, the green and
leafy precinct sparkled with lamps or lay in shadow, and the
round of the night began again, the loitering women, the
lurking men, the sudden outburst of screams, the sound of
flying feet.  "You mayn't believe it," says Carthew, "but I got to
that pitch that I didn't care a hang.  I have been wakened out of
my sleep to hear a woman screaming, and I have only turned
upon my other side.  Yes, it's a queer place, where the
dowagers and the kids walk all day, and at night you can hear
people bawling for help as if it was the Forest of Bondy, with
the lights of a great town all round, and parties spinning
through in cabs from Government House and dinner with my
lord!"

It was Norris's diversion, having none other, to scrape
acquaintance, where, how, and with whom he could.  Many a
long dull talk he held upon the benches or the grass; many a
strange waif he came to know; many strange things he heard,
and saw some that were abominable.  It was to one of these last
that he owed his deliverance from the Domain.  For some time
the rain had been merciless; one night after another he had been
obliged to squander fourpence on a bed and reduce his board to
the remaining eightpence:  and he sat one morning near the
Macquarrie Street entrance, hungry, for he had gone without
breakfast, and wet, as he had already been for several days,
when the cries of an animal in distress attracted his attention. 
Some fifty yards away, in the extreme angle of the grass, a
party of the chronically unemployed had got hold of a dog,
whom they were torturing in a manner not to be described.  The
heart of Norris, which had grown indifferent to the cries of
human anger or distress, woke at the appeal of the dumb
creature.  He ran amongst the Larrikins, scattered them,
rescued the dog, and stood at bay.  They were six in number,
shambling gallowsbirds; but for once the proverb was right,
cruelty was coupled with cowardice, and the wretches cursed
him and made off.  It chanced that this act of prowess had not
passed unwitnessed.  On a bench near by there was seated a
shopkeeper's assistant out of employ, a diminutive, cheerful,
red-headed creature by the name of Hemstead.  He was the last
man to have interfered himself, for his discretion more than
equalled his valour; but he made haste to congratulate Carthew,
and to warn him he might not always be so fortunate.

"They're a dyngerous lot of people about this park.  My word! it
doesn't do to ply with them!" he observed, in that RYCY
AUSTRYLIAN English, which (as it has received the
imprimatur of Mr. Froude) we should all make haste to imitate. 

"Why, I'm one of that lot myself," returned Carthew.

Hemstead laughed and remarked that he knew a gentleman
when he saw one.

"For all that, I am simply one of the unemployed," said
Carthew, seating himself beside his new acquaintance, as he
had sat (since this experience began) beside so many dozen
others.

"I'm out of a plyce myself," said Hemstead.

"You beat me all the way and back," says Carthew.  "My
trouble is that I have never been in one."

"I suppose you've no tryde?" asked Hemstead.

"I know how to spend money," replied Carthew, "and I really
do know something of horses and something of the sea.  But
the unions head me off; if it weren't for them, I might have had
a dozen berths."

"My word!" cried the sympathetic listener.  "Ever try the
mounted police?" he inquired.

"I did, and was bowled out," was the reply; "couldn't pass the
doctors."

"Well, what do you think of the ryleways, then?" asked
Hemstead.

"What do YOU think of them, if you come to that?" asked
Carthew.

"O, _I_ don't think of them; I don't go in for manual labour,"
said the little man proudly.  "But if a man don't mind that, he's
pretty sure of a job there."

"By George, you tell me where to go!" cried Carthew, rising.

The heavy rains continued, the country was already overrun
with floods; the railway system daily required more hands,
daily the superintendent advertised; but "the unemployed"
preferred the resources of charity and rapine, and a navvy, even
an amateur navvy, commanded money in the market.  The
same night, after a tedious journey, and a change of trains to
pass a landslip, Norris found himself in a muddy cutting
behind South Clifton, attacking his first shift of manual labour.

For weeks the rain scarce relented.  The whole front of the
mountain slipped seaward from above, avalanches of clay,
rock, and uprooted forest spewed over the cliffs and fell upon
the beach or in the breakers.  Houses were carried bodily away
and smashed like nuts; others were menaced and deserted, the
door locked, the chimney cold, the dwellers fled elsewhere for
safety.  Night and day the fire blazed in the encampment; night
and day hot coffee was served to the overdriven toilers in the
shift; night and day the engineer of the section made his rounds
with words of encouragement, hearty and rough and well suited
to his men.  Night and day, too, the telegraph clicked with
disastrous news and anxious inquiry.  Along the terraced line
of rail, rare trains came creeping and signalling; and paused at
the threatened corner, like living things conscious of peril.  The
commandant of the post would hastily review his labours,
make (with a dry throat) the signal to advance; and the whole
squad line the way and look on in a choking silence, or burst
into a brief cheer as the train cleared the point of danger and
shot on, perhaps through the thin sunshine between squalls,
perhaps with blinking lamps into the gathering, rainy twilight. 

One such scene Carthew will remember till he dies.  It blew
great guns from the seaward; a huge surf bombarded, five
hundred feet below him, the steep mountain's foot; close in was
a vessel in distress, firing shots from a fowling-piece, if any
help might come.  So he saw and heard her the moment before
the train appeared and paused, throwing up a Babylonian tower
of smoke into the rain, and oppressing men's hearts with the
scream of her whistle.  The engineer was there himself; he
paled as he made the signal:  the engine came at a foot's pace;
but the whole bulk of mountain shook and seemed to nod
seaward, and the watching navvies instinctively clutched at
shrubs and trees:  vain precautions, vain as the shots from the
poor sailors.  Once again fear was disappointed; the train
passed unscathed; and Norris, drawing a long breath,
remembered the labouring ship and glanced below.  She was
gone.

So the days and the nights passed:  Homeric labour in Homeric
circumstance.  Carthew was sick with sleeplessness and coffee;
his hands, softened by the wet, were cut to ribbons; yet he
enjoyed a peace of mind and health of body hitherto unknown. 
Plenty of open air, plenty of physical exertion, a continual
instancy of toil; here was what had been hitherto lacking in that
misdirected life, and the true cure of vital scepticism.  To get
the train through:  there was the recurrent problem; no time
remained to ask if it were necessary.  Carthew, the idler, the
spendthrift, the drifting dilettant, was soon remarked, praised,
and advanced.  The engineer swore by him and pointed him out
for an example.  "I've a new chum, up here," Norris overheard
him saying, "a young swell.  He's worth any two in the squad."
The words fell on the ears of the discarded son like music; and
from that moment, he not only found an interest, he took a
pride, in his plebeian tasks.

The press of work was still at its highest when quarter-day
approached.  Norris was now raised to a position of some trust;
at his discretion, trains were stopped or forwarded at the
dangerous cornice near North Clifton; and he found in this
responsibility both terror and delight.  The thought of the
seventy-five pounds that would soon await him at the lawyer's,
and of his own obligation to be present every quarter-day in
Sydney, filled him for a little with divided councils.  Then he
made up his mind, walked in a slack moment to the inn at
Clifton, ordered a sheet of paper and a bottle of beer, and wrote,
explaining that he held a good appointment which he would
lose if he came to Sydney, and asking the lawyer to accept this
letter as an evidence of his presence in the colony, and retain
the money till next quarter-day.  The answer came in course of
post, and was not merely favourable but cordial.  "Although
what you propose is contrary to the terms of my instructions," it
ran, "I willingly accept the responsibility of granting your
request.  I should say I am agreeably disappointed in your
behaviour.  My experience has not led me to found much
expectations on gentlemen in your position." 

The rains abated, and the temporary labour was discharged; not
Norris, to whom the engineer clung as to found money; not
Norris, who found himself a ganger on the line in the regular
staff of navvies.  His camp was pitched in a grey wilderness of
rock and forest, far from any house; as he sat with his mates
about the evening fire, the trains passing on the track were their
next and indeed their only neighbours, except the wild things of
the wood.  Lovely weather, light and monotonous employment,
long hours of somnolent camp-fire talk, long sleepless nights,
when he reviewed his foolish and fruitless career as he rose and
walked in the moonlit forest, an occasional paper of which he
would read all, the advertisements with as much relish as the
text:  such was the tenor of an existence which soon began to
weary and harass him.  He lacked and regretted the fatigue, the
furious hurry, the suspense, the fires, the midnight coffee, the
rude and mud-bespattered poetry of the first toilful weeks.  In
the quietness of his new surroundings, a voice summoned him
from this exorbital part of life, and about the middle of October
he threw up his situation and bade farewell to the camp of tents
and the shoulder of Bald Mountain.

Clad in his rough clothes, with a bundle on his shoulder and
his accumulated wages in his pocket, he entered Sydney for the
second time, and walked with pleasure and some bewilderment
in the cheerful streets, like a man landed from a voyage.  The
sight of the people led him on.  He forgot his necessary errands,
he forgot to eat.  He wandered in moving multitudes like a stick
upon a river.  Last he came to the Domain and strolled there,
and remembered his shame and sufferings, and looked with
poignant curiosity at his successors.  Hemstead, not much
shabbier and no less cheerful than before, he recognised and
addressed like an old family friend.

"That was a good turn you did me," said he.  "That railway was
the making of me.  I hope you've had luck yourself."


"My word, no!" replied the little man.  "I just sit here and read
the _Dead Bird_.  It's the depression in tryde, you see.  There's
no positions goin' that a man like me would care to look at."
And he showed Norris his certificates and written characters,
one from a grocer in Wooloomooloo, one from an ironmonger,
and a third from a billiard saloon.  "Yes," he said, "I tried bein'
a billiard marker.  It's no account; these lyte hours are no use
for a man's health.  I won't be no man's slyve," he added firmly.

On the principle that he who is too proud to be a slave is
usually not too modest to become a pensioner, Carthew gave
him half a sovereign, and departed, being suddenly struck with
hunger, in the direction of the Paris House.  When he came to
that quarter of the city, the barristers were trotting in the streets
in wig and gown, and he stood to observe them with his bundle
on his shoulder, and his mind full of curious recollections of the
past.

"By George!" cried a voice, "it's Mr. Carthew!"

And turning about he found himself face to face with a
handsome sunburnt youth, somewhat fatted, arrayed in the
finest of fine raiment, and sporting about a sovereign's worth of
flowers in his buttonhole. Norris had met him during his first
days in Sydney at a farewell supper; had even escorted him on
board a schooner full of cockroaches and black-boy sailors, in
which he was bound for six months among the islands; and had
kept him ever since in entertained remembrance.  Tom Hadden
(known to the bulk of Sydney folk as Tommy) was heir to a
considerable property, which a prophetic father had placed in
the hands of rigorous trustees.  The income supported Mr.
Hadden in splendour for about three months out of twelve; the
rest of the year he passed in retreat among the islands.  He was
now about a week returned from his eclipse, pervading Sydney
in hansom cabs and airing the first bloom of six new suits of
clothes; and yet the unaffected creature hailed Carthew in his
working jeans and with the damning bundle on his shoulder, as
he might have claimed acquaintance with a duke.

"Come and have a drink!" was his cheerful cry.

"I'm just going to have lunch at the Paris House," returned
Carthew.  "It's a long time since I have had a decent meal."

"Splendid scheme!" said Hadden.  "I've only had breakfast half
an hour ago; but we'll have a private room, and I'll manage to
pick something.  It'll brace me up.  I was on an awful tear last
night, and I've met no end of fellows this morning."  To meet a
fellow, and to stand and share a drink, were with Tom
synonymous terms.

They were soon at table in the corner room up-stairs, and
paying due attention to the best fare in Sydney.  The odd
similarity of their positions drew them together, and they began
soon to exchange confidences.  Carthew related his privations
in the Domain and his toils as a navvy; Hadden gave his
experience as an amateur copra merchant in the South Seas,
and drew a humorous picture of life in a coral island.  Of the
two plans of retirement, Carthew gathered that his own had
been vastly the more lucrative; but Hadden's trading outfit had
consisted largely of bottled stout and brown sherry for his own
consumption.

"I had champagne too," said Hadden, "but I kept that in case of
sickness, until I didn't seem to be going to be sick, and then I
opened a pint every Sunday.  Used to sleep all morning, then
breakfast with my pint of fizz, and lie in a hammock and read
Hallam's _Middle Ages_.  Have you read that?  I always take
something solid to the islands.  There's no doubt I did the thing
in rather a fine style; but if it was gone about a little cheaper, or
there were two of us to bear the expense, it ought to pay hand
over fist.  I've got the influence, you see.  I'm a chief now, and
sit in the speak-house under my own strip of roof.  I'd like to
see them taboo ME!  They daren't try it; I've a strong party, I
can tell you.  Why, I've had upwards of thirty cowtops sitting in
my front verandah eating tins of salmon."

"Cowtops?" asked Carthew, "what are they?"

"That's what Hallam would call feudal retainers," explained
Hadden, not without vainglory.  "They're My Followers.  They
belong to My Family.  I tell you, they come expensive, though;
you can't fill up all these retainers on tinned salmon for
nothing; but whenever I could get it, I would give 'em squid. 
Squid's good for natives, but I don't care for it, do you?--or
shark either.  It's like the working classes at home.  With copra
at the price it is, they ought to be willing to bear their share of
the loss; and so I've told them again and again.  I think it's a
man's duty to open their minds, and I try to, but you can't get
political economy into them; it doesn't seem to reach their
intelligence."


There was an expression still sticking in Carthew's memory,
and he returned upon it with a smile.  "Talking of political
economy," said he, "you said if there were two of us to bear the
expense, the profits would increase.  How do you make out
that?"

"I'll show you! I'll figure it out for you!" cried Hadden, and with
a pencil on the back of the bill of fare proceeded to perform
miracles.  He was a man, or let us rather say a lad, of unusual
projective power.  Give him the faintest hint of any speculation,
and the figures flowed from him by the page.  A lively
imagination and a ready though inaccurate memory supplied
his data; he delivered himself with an inimitable heat that made
him seem the picture of pugnacity; lavished contradiction; had
a form of words, with or without significance, for every form of
criticism; and the looker-on alternately smiled at his simplicity
and fervour, or was amazed by his unexpected shrewdness.  He
was a kind of Pinkerton in play.  I have called Jim's the
romance of business; this was its Arabian tale.

"Have you any idea what this would cost?" he asked, pausing at
an item.

"Not I," said Carthew.

"Ten pounds ought to be ample," concluded the projector.

"O, nonsense!" cried Carthew.  "Fifty at the very least."

"You told me yourself this moment you knew nothing about it!"
cried Tommy.  "How can I make a calculation, if you blow hot
and cold? You don't seem able to be serious!"

But he consented to raise his estimate to twenty; and a little
after, the calculation coming out with a deficit, cut it down
again to five pounds ten, with the remark, "I told you it was
nonsense.  This sort of thing has to be done strictly, or where's
the use?"

Some of these processes struck Carthew as unsound; and he
was at times altogether thrown out by the capricious startings
of the prophet's mind.  These plunges seemed to be gone into
for exercise and by the way, like the curvets of a willing horse. 
Gradually the thing took shape; the glittering if baseless edifice
arose; and the hare still ran on the mountains, but the soup was
already served in silver plate.  Carthew in a few days could
command a hundred and fifty pounds; Hadden was ready with
five hundred; why should they not recruit a fellow or two more,
charter an old ship, and go cruising on their own account?
Carthew was an experienced yachtsman; Hadden professed
himself able to "work an approximate sight." Money was
undoubtedly to be made, or why should so many vessels cruise
about the islands? they, who worked their own ship, were sure
of a still higher profit.

"And whatever else comes of it, you see," cried Hadden, "we
get our keep for nothing.  Come, buy some togs, that's the first
thing you have to do of course; and then we'll take a hansom
and go to the Currency Lass."

"I'm going to stick to the togs I have," said Norris.

"Are you?" cried Hadden.  "Well, I must say I admire you. 
You're a regular sage.  It's what you call Pythagoreanism, isn't
it? if I haven't forgotten my philosophy."

"Well, I call it economy," returned Carthew.  "If we are going
to try this thing on, I shall want every sixpence."

"You'll see if we're going to try it!" cried Tommy, rising radiant
from table.  "Only, mark you, Carthew, it must be all in your
name.  I have capital, you see; but you're all right.  You can
play vacuus viator, if the thing goes wrong."

"I thought we had just proved it was quite safe," said Carthew.

"There's nothing safe in business, my boy," replied the sage;
"not even bookmaking."

The public house and tea garden called the Currency Lass
represented a moderate fortune gained by its proprietor,
Captain Bostock, during a long, active, and occasionally
historic career among the islands. Anywhere from Tonga to the
Admiralty Isles, he knew the ropes and could lie in the native
dialect.  He had seen the end of sandal wood, the end of oil,
and the beginning of copra; and he was himself a commercial
pioneer, the first that ever carried human teeth into the Gilberts. 
He was tried for his life in Fiji in Sir Arthur Gordon's time; and
if ever he prayed at all, the name of Sir Arthur was certainly not
forgotten.  He was speared in seven places in New Ireland--the
same time his mate was killed--the famous "outrage on the brig
Jolly Roger"; but the treacherous savages made little by their
wickedness, and Bostock, in spite of their teeth, got seventy-
five head of volunteer labour on board, of whom not more than
a dozen died of injuries.  He had a hand, besides, in the
amiable pleasantry which cost the life of Patteson; and when
the sham bishop landed, prayed, and gave his benediction to
the natives, Bostock, arrayed in a female chemise out of the
traderoom, had stood at his right hand and boomed amens. 
This, when he was sure he was among good fellows, was his
favourite yarn.  "Two hundred head of labour for a hatful of
amens," he used to name the tale; and its sequel, the death of
the real bishop, struck him as a circumstance of extraordinary
humour.

Many of these details were communicated in the hansom, to the
surprise of Carthew.

"Why do we want to visit this old ruffian?" he asked.

"You wait till you hear him," replied Tommy.  "That man
knows everything."

On descending from the hansom at the Currency Lass, Hadden
was struck with the appearance of the cabman, a gross, salt-
looking man, red-faced, blue-eyed, short-handed and short-
winded, perhaps nearing forty.

"Surely I know you?" said he.  "Have you driven me before?"

"Many's the time, Mr. Hadden," returned the driver. "The last
time you was back from the islands, it was me that drove you to
the races, sir."

"All right:  jump down and have a drink then," said Tom, and
he turned and led the way into the garden.

Captain Bostock met the party:  he was a slow, sour old man,
with fishy eyes; greeted Tommy offhand, and (as was
afterwards remembered) exchanged winks with the driver.

"A bottle of beer for the cabman there at that table," said Tom. 
"Whatever you please from shandygaff to champagne at this
one here; and you sit down with us.  Let me make you
acquainted with my friend, Mr. Carthew.  I've come on
business, Billy; I want to consult you as a friend; I'm going into
the island trade upon my own account."


Doubtless the captain was a mine of counsel, but opportunity
was denied him.  He could not venture on a statement, he was
scarce allowed to finish a phrase, before Hadden swept him
from the field with a volley of protest and correction.  That
projector, his face blazing with inspiration, first laid before him
at inordinate length a question, and as soon as he attempted to
reply, leaped at his throat, called his facts in question, derided
his policy, and at times thundered on him from the heights of
moral indignation.

"I beg your pardon," he said once.  "I am a gentleman, Mr.
Carthew here is a gentleman, and we don't mean to do that
class of business.  Can't you see who you are talking to?  Can't
you talk sense?  Can't you give us 'a dead bird' for a good
traderoom?"

"No, I don't suppose I can," returned old Bostock; "not when I
can't hear my own voice for two seconds together.  It was gin
and guns I did it with."

"Take your gin and guns to Putney!" cried Hadden.  "It was the
thing in your times, that's right enough; but you're old now, and
the game's up.  I'll tell you what's wanted now-a-days, Bill
Bostock," said he; and did, and took ten minutes to it.

Carthew could not refrain from smiling.  He began to think less
seriously of the scheme, Hadden appearing too irresponsible a
guide; but on the other hand, he enjoyed himself amazingly.  It
was far from being the same with Captain Bostock.

"You know a sight, don't you?" remarked that gentleman,
bitterly, when Tommy paused.

"I know a sight more than you, if that's what you mean,"
retorted Tom.  "It stands to reason I do. You're not a man of any
education; you've been all your life at sea or in the islands; you
don't suppose you can give points to a man like me?"

"Here's your health, Tommy," returned Bostock.  "You'll make
an A-one bake in the New Hebrides."

"That's what I call talking," cried Tom, not perhaps grasping
the spirit of this doubtful compliment.  "Now you give me your
attention.  We have the money and the enterprise, and I have
the experience:  what we want is a cheap, smart boat, a good
captain, and an introduction to some house that will give us
credit for the trade."

"Well, I'll tell you," said Captain Bostock.  "I have seen men
like you baked and eaten, and complained of afterwards.  Some
was tough, and some hadn't no flaviour," he added grimly.

"What do you mean by that?" cried Tom.

"I mean I don't care," cried Bostock.  "It ain't any of my
interests.  I haven't underwrote your life.  Only I'm blest if I'm
not sorry for the cannibal as tries to eat your head.  And what I
recommend is a cheap, smart coffin and a good undertaker. 
See if you can find a house to give you credit for a coffin!  Look
at your friend there; HE'S got some sense; he's laughing at you
so as he can't stand."

The exact degree of ill-feeling in Mr. Bostock's mind was
difficult to gauge; perhaps there was not much, perhaps he
regarded his remarks as a form of courtly badinage.  But there
is little doubt that Hadden resented them.  He had even risen
from his place, and the conference was on the point of breaking
up, when a new voice joined suddenly in the conversation. 

The cabman sat with his back turned upon the party, smoking a
meerschaum pipe.  Not a word of Tommy's eloquence had
missed him, and he now faced suddenly about with these
amazing words:--

"Excuse me, gentlemen; if you'll buy me the ship I want, I'll get
you the trade on credit."

There was a pause.

"Well, what do YOU, mean?" gasped Tommy.

"Better tell 'em who I am, Billy," said the cabman.

"Think it safe, Joe?" inquired Mr. Bostock.

"I'll take my risk of it," returned the cabman.

"Gentlemen," said Bostock, rising solemnly, "let me make you
acquainted with Captain Wicks of the Grace Darling."

"Yes, gentlemen, that is what I am," said the cabman.  "You
know I've been in trouble; and I don't deny but what I struck
the blow, and where was I to get evidence of my provocation?
So I turned to and took a cab, and I've driven one for three year
now and nobody the wiser."

"I beg your pardon," said Carthew, joining almost for the first
time; "I'm a new chum.  What was the charge?"

"Murder," said Captain Wicks, "and I don't deny but what I
struck the blow.  And there's no sense in my trying to deny I
was afraid to go to trial, or why would I be here?  But it's a fact
it was flat mutiny.  Ask Billy here.  He knows how it was."

Carthew breathed long; he had a strange, half-pleasurable
sense of wading deeper in the tide of life.  "Well," said he, "you
were going on to say?"

"I was going on to say this," said the captain sturdily.  "I've
overheard what Mr. Hadden has been saying, and I think he
talks good sense.  I like some of his ideas first chop.  He's
sound on traderooms; he's all there on the traderoom, and I see
that he and I would pull together.  Then you're both gentlemen,
and I like that," observed Captain Wicks.  "And then I'll tell
you I'm tired of this cabbing cruise, and I want to get to work
again.  Now, here's my offer.  I've a little money I can stake up,
--all of a hundred anyway.  Then my old firm will give me
trade, and jump at the chance; they never lost by me; they know
what I'm worth as supercargo.  And, last of all, you want a
good captain to sail your ship for you.  Well, here I am.  I've
sailed schooners for ten years.  Ask Billy if I can handle a
schooner."

"No man better," said Billy.

"And as for my character as a shipmate," concluded Wicks, "go
and ask my old firm."

"But look here!" cried Hadden, "how do you mean to manage?
You can whisk round in a hansom, and no questions asked. 
But if you try to come on a quarter-deck, my boy, you'll get
nabbed."

"I'll have to keep back till the last," replied Wicks, "and take
another name."

"But how about clearing? what other name?" asked Tommy, a
little bewildered.

"I don't know yet," returned the captain, with a grin.  "I'll see
what the name is on my new certificate, and that'll be good
enough for me.  If I can't get one to buy, though I never heard
of such a thing, there's old Kirkup, he's turned some sort of
farmer down Bondi way; he'll hire me his."

"You seemed to speak as if you had a ship in view," said
Carthew.

"So I have, too," said Captain Wicks, "and a beauty.  Schooner
yacht Dream; got lines you never saw the beat of; and a witch
to go.  She passed me once off Thursday Island, doing two
knots to my one and laying a point and a half better; and the
Grace Darling was a ship that I was proud of.   I took and tore
my hair.  The Dream's been MY dream ever since.  That was in
her old days, when she carried a blue ens'n.  Grant Sanderson
was the party as owned her; he was rich and mad, and got a
fever at last somewhere about the Fly River, and took and died. 
The captain brought the body back to Sydney, and paid off. 
Well, it turned out Grant Sanderson had left any quantity of
wills and any quantity of widows, and no fellow could make
out which was the genuine article.  All the widows brought
lawsuits against all the rest, and every will had a firm of
lawyers on the quarterdeck as long as your arm.  They tell me it
was one of the biggest turns-to that ever was seen, bar
Tichborne; the Lord Chamberlain himself was floored, and so
was the Lord Chancellor; and all that time the Dream lay
rotting up by Glebe Point.  Well, it's done now; they've picked
out a widow and a will; tossed up for it, as like as not; and the
Dream's for sale.  She'll go cheap; she's had a long turn-to at
rotting."

"What size is she?"

"Well, big enough.  We don't want her bigger.  A hundred and
ninety, going two hundred," replied the captain.  "She's fully
big for us three; it would be all the better if we had another
hand, though it's a pity too, when you can pick up natives for
half nothing.  Then we must have a cook.  I can fix raw sailor-
men, but there's no going to sea with a new-chum cook.  I can
lay hands on the man we want for that:  a Highway boy, an old
shipmate of mine, of the name of Amalu.  Cooks first rate, and
it's always better to have a native; he aint fly, you can turn him
to as you please, and he don't know enough to stand out for his
rights."

From the moment that Captain Wicks joined in the
conversation, Carthew recovered interest and confidence; the
man (whatever he might have done) was plainly good-natured,
and plainly capable; if he thought well of the enterprise, offered
to contribute money, brought experience, and could thus solve
at a word the problem of the trade, Carthew was content to go
ahead.  As for Hadden, his cup was full; he and Bostock
forgave each other in champagne; toast followed toast; it was
proposed and carried amid acclamation to change the name of
the schooner (when she should be bought) to the Currency
Lass; and the Currency Lass Island Trading Company was
practically founded before dusk.

Three days later, Carthew stood before the lawyer, still in his
jean suit, received his hundred and fifty pounds, and proceeded
rather timidly to ask for more indulgence.

"I have a chance to get on in the world," he said.  "By
to-morrow evening I expect to be part owner of a ship."

"Dangerous property, Mr. Carthew," said the lawyer.

"Not if the partners work her themselves and stand to go down
along with her," was the reply.

"I conceive it possible you might make something of it in that
way," returned the other.  "But are you a seaman?  I thought
you had been in the diplomatic service."

"I am an old yachtsman," said Norris.  "And I must do the best
I can.  A fellow can't live in New South Wales upon
diplomacy.  But the point I wish to prepare you for is this.  It
will be impossible I should present myself here next quarter-
day; we expect to make a six months' cruise of it among the
islands."

"Sorry, Mr. Carthew:  I can't hear of that," replied the lawyer.

"I mean upon the same conditions as the last," said Carthew.

"The conditions are exactly opposite," said the lawyer.  "Last
time I had reason to know you were in the colony; and even
then I stretched a point.  This time, by your own confession,
you are contemplating a breach of the agreement; and I give
you warning if you carry it out and I receive proof of it (for I
will agree to regard this conversation as confidential) I shall
have no choice but to do my duty.  Be here on quarter-day, or 
your allowance ceases."

"This is very hard and, I think, rather silly," returned Carthew.

"It is not of my doing.  I have my instructions," said the lawyer.

"And you so read these instructions, that I am to be prohibited
from making an honest livelihood?" asked Carthew.

"Let us be frank," said the lawyer.  "I find nothing in these
instructions about an honest livelihood.  I have no reason to
suppose my clients care anything about that.  I have reason to
suppose only one thing,--that they mean you shall stay in this
colony, and to guess another, Mr. Carthew.  And to guess
another."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Norris.

"I mean that I imagine, on very strong grounds, that your
family desire to see no more of you," said the lawyer.  "O, they
may be very wrong; but that is the impression conveyed, that is
what I suppose I am paid to bring about, and I have no choice
but to try and earn my hire."

"I would scorn to deceive you," said Norris, with a strong flush,
"you have guessed rightly.  My family refuse to see me; but I
am not going to England, I am going to the islands.  How does
that affect the islands?"

"Ah, but I don't know that you are going to the islands," said
the lawyer, looking down, and spearing the blotting-paper with
a pencil.

"I beg your pardon.  I have the pleasure of informing you," said
Norris.

"I am afraid, Mr. Carthew, that I cannot regard that
communication as official," was the slow reply.

"I am not accustomed to have my word doubted!" cried Norris.

"Hush!  I allow no one to raise his voice in my office," said the
lawyer.  "And for that matter--you seem to be a young
gentleman of sense--consider what I know of you.  You are a
discarded son; your family pays money to be shut of you.  What
have you done?  I don't know.  But do you not see how foolish I
should be, if I exposed my business reputation on the safeguard
of the honour of a gentleman of whom I know just so much and
no more?  This interview is very disagreeable.  Why prolong it? 
Write home, get my instructions changed, and I will change my
behaviour.  Not otherwise."

"I am very fond of three hundred a year," said Norris, "but I
cannot pay the price required.  I shall not have the pleasure of
seeing you again."

"You must please yourself," said the lawyer.  "Fail to be here
next quarter-day, and the thing stops.  But I warn you, and I
mean the warning in a friendly spirit. Three months later you
will be here begging, and I shall have no choice but to show
you in the street."

"I wish you a good-evening," said Norris.

"The same to you, Mr. Carthew," retorted the lawyer, and rang
for his clerk.

So it befell that Norris during what remained to him of arduous
days in Sydney, saw not again the face of his legal adviser; and
he was already at sea, and land was out of sight, when Hadden
brought him a Sydney paper, over which he had been dozing in
the shadow of the galley, and showed him an advertisement.

"Mr. Norris Carthew is earnestly entreated to call without delay
at the office of Mr. ----, where important intelligence awaits
him."

"It must manage to wait for me six months," said Norris, lightly
enough, but yet conscious of a pang of curiosity.



 CHAPTER XXIII.

 THE BUDGET OF THE "CURRENCY LASS."


Before noon on the 26th November, there cleared from the port
of Sydney the schooner, Currency Lass.  The owner, Norris
Carthew, was on board in the somewhat unusual position of
mate; the master's name purported to be William Kirkup; the
cook was a Hawaiian boy, Joseph Amalu; and there were two
hands before the mast, Thomas Hadden and Richard Hemstead,
the latter chosen partly because of his humble character, partly
because he had an odd-job-man's handiness with tools.  The
Currency Lass was bound for the South Sea Islands, and first of
all for Butaritari in the Gilberts, on a register; but it was
understood about the harbour that her cruise was more than
half a pleasure trip.  A friend of the late Grant Sanderson (of
Auchentroon and Kilclarty) might have recognised in that
tall-masted ship, the transformed and rechristened Dream; and
the Lloyd's surveyor, had the services of such a one been called
in requisition, must have found abundant subject of remark.

For time, during her three years' inaction, had eaten deep into
the Dream and her fittings; she had sold in consequence a
shade above her value as old junk; and the three adventurers
had scarce been able to afford even the most vital repairs.  The
rigging, indeed, had been partly renewed, and the rest set up;
all Grant Sanderson's old canvas had been patched together
into one decently serviceable suit of sails; Grant Sanderson's
masts still stood, and might have wondered at themselves.  "I
haven't the heart to tap them," Captain Wicks used to observe,
as he squinted up their height or patted their rotundity; and "as
rotten as our foremast" was an accepted metaphor in the ship's
company.  The sequel rather suggests it may have been sounder
than was thought; but no one knew for certain, just as no one
except the captain appreciated the dangers of the cruise.  The
captain, indeed, saw with clear eyes and spoke his mind aloud;
and though a man of an astonishing hot-blooded courage,
following life and taking its dangers in the spirit of a hound
upon the slot, he had made a point of a big whaleboat.  "Take
your choice," he had said; "either new masts and rigging or that
boat.  I simply ain't going to sea without the one or the other. 
Chicken coops are good enough, no doubt, and so is a dinghy;
but they ain't for Joe."  And his partners had been forced to
consent, and saw six and thirty pounds of their small capital
vanish in the turn of a hand. 

All four had toiled the best part of six weeks getting ready; and
though Captain Wicks was of course not seen or heard of, a
fifth was there to help them, a fellow in a bushy red beard,
which he would sometimes lay aside when he was below, and
who strikingly resembled Captain Wicks in voice and
character.  As for Captain Kirkup, he did not appear till the last
moment, when he proved to be a burly mariner, bearded like
Abou Ben Adhem.  All the way down the harbour and through
the Heads, his milk-white whiskers blew in the wind and were
conspicuous from shore; but the Currency Lass had no sooner
turned her back upon the lighthouse, than he went below for
the inside of five seconds and reappeared clean shaven.  So
many doublings and devices were required to get to sea with an
unseaworthy ship and a captain that was "wanted." Nor might
even these have sufficed, but for the fact that Hadden was a
public character, and the whole cruise regarded with an eye of
indulgence as one of Tom's engaging eccentricities.  The ship,
besides, had been a yacht before; and it came the more natural
to allow her still some of the dangerous liberties of her old
employment.

A strange ship they had made of it, her lofty spars disfigured
with patched canvas, her panelled cabin fitted for a traderoom
with rude shelves.  And the life they led in that anomalous
schooner was no less curious than herself.   Amalu alone
berthed forward; the rest occupied staterooms, camped upon
the satin divans, and sat down in Grant Sanderson's parquetry
smoking-room to meals of junk and potatoes, bad of their kind
and often scant in quantity.  Hemstead grumbled; Tommy had
occasional moments of revolt and increased the ordinary by a
few haphazard tins or a bottle of his own brown sherry.  But
Hemstead grumbled from habit, Tommy revolted only for the
moment, and there was underneath a real and general
acquiescence in these hardships.  For besides onions and
potatoes, the Currency Lass may be said to have gone to sea
without stores.  She carried two thousand pounds' worth of
assorted trade, advanced on credit, their whole hope and
fortune.  It was upon this that they subsisted--mice in their own
granary.  They dined upon their future profits; and every scanty
meal was so much in the savings bank.

Republican as were their manners, there was no practical, at
least no dangerous, lack of discipline.  Wicks was the only
sailor on board, there was none to criticise; and besides, he was
so easy-going, and so merry-minded, that none could bear to
disappoint him.  Carthew did his best, partly for the love of
doing it, partly for love of the captain; Amalu was a willing
drudge, and even Hemstead and Hadden turned to upon
occasion with a will.  Tommy's department was the trade and
traderoom; he would work down in the hold or over the shelves
of the cabin, till the Sydney dandy was unrecognizable; come
up at last, draw a bucket of sea-water, bathe, change, and lie
down on deck over a big sheaf of Sydney _Heralds_ and _Dead
Birds_, or perhaps with a volume of Buckle's _History of
Civilisation_, the standard work selected for that cruise.  In the
latter case, a smile went round the ship, for Buckle almost
invariably laid his student out, and when Tom awoke again he
was almost always in the humour for brown sherry.  The
connection was so well established that "a glass of Buckle" or
"a bottle of civilisation" became current pleasantries on board
the Currency Lass.

Hemstead's province was that of the repairs, and he had his
hands full.  Nothing on board but was decayed in a proportion;
the lamps leaked; so did the decks; door-knobs came off in the
hand, mouldings parted company with the panels, the pump
declined to suck, and the defective bathroom came near to
swamp the ship.  Wicks insisted that all the nails were long
ago consumed, and that she was only glued together by the
rust.  "You shouldn't make me laugh so much, Tommy," he
would say.  "I'm afraid I'll shake the sternpost out of her."  And,
as Hemstead went to and fro with his tool basket on an endless
round of tinkering, Wicks lost no opportunity of chaffing him
upon his duties.  "If you'd turn to at sailoring or washing paint
or something useful, now," he would say, "I could see the fun
of it.  But to be mending things that haven't no insides to them
appears to me the height of foolishness." And doubtless these
continual pleasantries helped to reassure the landsmen, who
went to and fro unmoved, under circumstances that might have
daunted Nelson.

The weather was from the outset splendid, and the wind fair
and steady.  The ship sailed like a witch.  "This Currency Lass
is a powerful old girl, and has more complaints than I would
care to put a name on," the captain would say, as he pricked the
chart; "but she could show her blooming heels to anything of
her size in the Western Pacific."  To wash decks, relieve the
wheel, do the day's work after dinner on the smoking-room
table, and take in kites at night,--such was the easy routine of
their life.  In the evening--above all, if Tommy had produced
some of his civilisation--yarns and music were the rule.  Amalu
had a sweet Hawaiian voice; and Hemstead, a great hand upon
the banjo, accompanied his own quavering tenor with effect. 
There was a sense in which the little man could sing.  It was
great to hear him deliver _My Boy Tammie_ in Austrylian; and
the words (some of the worst of the ruffian Macneil's) were
hailed in his version with inextinguishable mirth.

     Where hye ye been a' dye?


he would ask, and answer himself:--

     I've been by burn and flowery brye,
     Meadow green an' mountain grye,
     Courtin' o' this young thing,
          Just come frye her mammie.

It was the accepted jest for all hands to greet the conclusion of
this song with the simultaneous cry: "My word!" thus winging
the arrow of ridicule with a feather from the singer's wing.  But
he had his revenge with _Home, Sweet Home,_ and _Where is
my Wandering Boy To-night?_--ditties into which he threw the
most intolerable pathos.  It appeared he had no home, nor had
ever had one, nor yet any vestige of a family, except a truculent
uncle, a baker in Newcastle, N.S.W.  His domestic sentiment
was therefore wholly in the air, and expressed an unrealised
ideal.  Or perhaps, of all his experiences, this of the Currency
Lass, with its kindly, playful, and tolerant society, approached
it the most nearly.

It is perhaps because I know the sequel, but I can never think
upon this voyage without a profound sense of pity and mystery;
of the ship (once the whim of a rich blackguard) faring with her
battered fineries and upon her homely errand, across the plains
of ocean, and past the gorgeous scenery of dawn and sunset;
and the ship's company, so strangely assembled, so Britishly
chuckle-headed, filling their days with chaff in place of
conversation; no human book on board with them except
Hadden's Buckle, and not a creature fit either to read or to
understand it; and the one mark of any civilised interest, being
when Carthew filled in his spare hours with the pencil and the
brush:  the whole unconscious crew of them posting in the
meanwhile towards so tragic a disaster.

Twenty-eight days out of Sydney, on Christmas eve, they
fetched up to the entrance of the lagoon, and plied all that night
outside, keeping their position by the lights of fishers on the
reef and the outlines of the palms against the cloudy sky.  With
the break of day, the schooner was hove to, and the signal for a
pilot shown.  But it was plain her lights must have been
observed in the darkness by the native fishermen, and word
carried to the settlement, for a boat was already under weigh. 
She came towards them across the lagoon under a great press
of sail, lying dangerously down, so that at times, in the heavier
puffs, they thought she would turn turtle; covered the distance
in fine style, luffed up smartly alongside, and emitted a
haggard looking white man in pyjamas.

"Good-mornin', Cap'n," said he, when he had made good his
entrance.  "I was taking you for a Fiji man-of-war, what with
your flush decks and them spars.  Well, gen'lemen all, here's
wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year," he
added, and lurched against a stay.

"Why, you're never the pilot?" exclaimed Wicks, studying him
with a profound disfavour.  "You've never taken a ship in--don't
tell me!"

"Well, I should guess I have," returned the pilot.  "I'm Captain
Dobbs, I am; and when I take charge, the captain of that ship
can go below and shave."

"But, man alive! you're drunk, man!" cried the captain.

"Drunk!" repeated Dobbs.  "You can't have seen much life if
you call me drunk.  I'm only just beginning.  Come night, I 
won't say; I guess I'll be properly full by then.  But now I'm the
soberest man in all Big Muggin."

"It won't do," retorted Wicks.  "Not for Joseph, sir.  I can't have
you piling up my schooner."

"All right," said Dobbs, "lay and rot where you are, or take and
go in and pile her up for yourself like the captain of the Leslie. 
That's business, I guess; grudged me twenty dollars' pilotage,
and lost twenty thousand in trade and a brand new schooner;
ripped the keel right off of her, and she went down in the inside
of four minutes, and lies in twenty fathom, trade and all."

"What's all this?" cried Wicks.  "Trade? What vessel was this
Leslie, anyhow?"

"Consigned to Cohen and Co., from 'Frisco," returned the pilot,
"and badly wanted.  There's a barque inside filling up for
Hamburg--you see her spars over there; and there's two more
ships due, all the way from Germany, one in two months, they
say, and one in three; Cohen and Co.'s agent (that's Mr.
Topelius) has taken and lain down with the jaundice on the
strength of it.  I guess most people would, in his shoes; no
trade, no copra, and twenty hundred ton of shipping due.  If
you've any copra on board, cap'n, here's your chance.  Topelius
will buy, gold down, and give three cents.  It's all found money
to him, the way it is, whatever he pays for it.  And that's what
come of going back on the pilot."

"Excuse me one moment, Captain Dobbs.  I wish to speak with
my mate," said the captain, whose face had begun to shine and
his eyes to sparkle.

"Please yourself," replied the pilot.  "You couldn't think of
offering a man a nip, could you? just to brace him up.  This
kind of thing looks damned inhospitable, and gives a schooner
a bad name."

"I'll talk about that after the anchor's down," returned Wicks,
and he drew Carthew forward.  "I say," he whispered, "here's a
fortune."

"How much do you call that?" asked Carthew.

"I can't put a figure on it yet--I daren't!" said the captain.  "We
might cruise twenty years and not find the match of it.  And
suppose another ship came in to-night?  Everything's possible! 
And the difficulty is this Dobbs.  He's as drunk as a marine. 
How can we trust him?  We ain't insured--worse luck!"

"Suppose you took him aloft and got him to point out the
channel?" suggested Carthew.  "If he tallied at all with the
chart, and didn't fall out of the rigging, perhaps we might risk
it."

"Well, all's risk here," returned the captain.  "Take the wheel
yourself, and stand by.  Mind, if there's two orders, follow
mine, not his.  Set the cook for'ard with the heads'ls, and the
two others at the main sheet, and see they don't sit on it." With
that he called the pilot; they swarmed aloft in the fore rigging,
and presently after there was bawled down the welcome order
to ease sheets and fill away.

At a quarter before nine o'clock on Christmas morning the
anchor was let go.

The first cruise of the Currency Lass had thus ended in a stroke
of fortune almost beyond hope.  She had brought two thousand
pounds' worth of trade, straight as a homing pigeon, to the
place where it was most required.  And Captain Wicks (or,
rather, Captain Kirkup) showed himself the man to make the
best of his advantage.  For hard upon two days he walked a
verandah with Topelius, for hard upon two days his partners
watched from the neighbouring public house the field of battle;
and the lamps were not yet lighted on the evening of the second
before the enemy surrendered.  Wicks came across to the Sans
Souci, as the saloon was called, his face nigh black, his eyes
almost closed and all bloodshot, and yet bright as lighted
matches.

"Come out here, boys," he said; and when they were some way
off among the palms, "I hold twenty-four," he added in a voice
scarcely recognizable, and doubtless referring to the venerable
game of cribbage.

"What do you mean?" asked Tommy.

"I've sold the trade," answered Wicks; "or, rather, I've sold only
some of it, for I've kept back all the mess beef and half the flour
and biscuit; and, by God, we're still provisioned for four
months! By God, it's as good as stolen!"

"My word!" cried Hemstead.

"But what have you sold it for?" gasped Carthew, the captain's
almost insane excitement shaking his nerve.

"Let me tell it my own way," cried Wicks, loosening his neck. 
"Let me get at it gradual, or I'll explode.  I've not only sold it,
boys, I've wrung out a charter on my own terms to 'Frisco and
back; on my own terms.  I made a point of it.  I fooled him first
by making believe I wanted copra, which of course I knew he
wouldn't hear of--couldn't, in fact; and whenever he showed
fight, I trotted out the copra, and that man dived!  I would take
nothing but copra, you see; and so I've got the blooming lot in
specie--all but two short bills on 'Frisco.  And the sum?  Well,
this whole adventure, including two thousand pounds of credit,
cost us two thousand seven hundred and some odd.  That's all
paid back; in thirty days' cruise we've paid for the schooner and
the trade.  Heard ever any man the match of that?  And it's not
all!  For besides that," said the captain, hammering his words,
"we've got Thirteen Blooming Hundred Pounds of profit to
divide.  I bled him in four Thou.!" he cried, in a voice that
broke like a schoolboy's.

For a moment the partners looked upon their chief with
stupefaction, incredulous surprise their only feeling.  Tommy
was the first to grasp the consequences.

"Here," he said, in a hard, business tone.  "Come back to that
saloon.  I've got to get drunk."

"You must please excuse me, boys," said the captain, earnestly. 
"I daren't taste nothing.  If I was to drink one glass of beer, it's
my belief I'd have the apoplexy.  The last scrimmage, and the
blooming triumph, pretty nigh hand done me."

"Well, then, three cheers for the captain," proposed Tommy.

But Wicks held up a shaking hand.  "Not that either, boys," he
pleaded.  "Think of the other buffer, and let him down easy.  If
I'm like this, just fancy what Topelius is!  If he heard us singing
out, he'd have the staggers."

As a matter of fact, Topelius accepted his defeat with a good
grace; but the crew of the wrecked Leslie, who were in the
same employment and loyal to their firm, took the thing more
bitterly.  Rough words and ugly looks were common.  Once
even they hooted Captain Wicks from the saloon verandah; the
Currency Lasses drew out on the other side; for some minutes
there had like to have been a battle in Butaritari; and though
the occasion passed off without blows, it left on either side an
increase of ill-feeling. 

No such small matter could affect the happiness of the
successful traders.  Five days more the ship lay in the lagoon,
with little employment for any one but Tommy and the captain,
for Topelius's natives discharged cargo and brought ballast; the
time passed like a pleasant dream; the adventurers sat up half
the night debating and praising their good fortune, or strayed
by day in the narrow isle, gaping like Cockney tourists; and on
the first of the new year, the Currency Lass weighed anchor for
the second time and set sail for 'Frisco, attended by the same
fine weather and good luck.  She crossed the doldrums with but
small delay; on a wind and in ballast of broken coral, she
outdid expectations; and, what added to the happiness of the
ship's company, the small amount of work that fell on them to
do, was now lessened by the presence of another hand.  This
was the boatswain of the Leslie; he had been on bad terms with
his own captain, had already spent his wages in the saloons of
Butaritari, had wearied of the place, and while all his
shipmates coldly refused to set foot on board the Currency
Lass, he had offered to work his passage to the coast.   He was
a north of Ireland man, between Scotch and Irish, rough, loud,
humorous, and emotional, not without sterling qualities, and an
expert and careful sailor.  His frame of mind was different
indeed from that of his new shipmates; instead of making an
unexpected fortune, he had lost a berth; and he was besides
disgusted with the rations, and really appalled at the condition
of the schooner.  A stateroom door had stuck, the first day at
sea, and Mac (as they called him) laid his strength to it and
plucked it from the hinges.

"Glory!" said he, "this ship's rotten."

"I believe you, my boy," said Captain Wicks.

The next day the sailor was observed with his nose aloft.

"Don't you get looking at these sticks," the captain said, "or
you'll have a fit and fall overboard."

Mac turned towards the speaker with rather a wild eye.  "Why,
I see what looks like a patch of dry rot up yonder, that I bet I
could stick my fist into," said he.

"Looks as if a fellow could stick his head into it, don't it?" 
returned Wicks.  "But there's no good prying into things that
can't be mended."

"I think I was a Currency Ass to come on board of her!"
reflected Mac.

"Well, I never said she was seaworthy," replied the captain: "I
only said she could show her blooming heels to anything afloat. 
And besides, I don't know that it's dry rot; I kind of sometimes
hope it isn't.  Here; turn to and heave the log; that'll cheer you
up."

"Well, there's no denying it, you're a holy captain," said Mac.

And from that day on, he made but the one reference to the
ship's condition; and that was whenever Tommy drew upon his
cellar.  "Here's to the junk trade!" he would say, as he held out
his can of sherry.

"Why do you always say that?" asked Tommy.

"I had an uncle in the business," replied Mac, and launched at
once into a yarn, in which an incredible number of the
characters were "laid out as nice as you would want to see,"
and the oaths made up about two-fifths of every conversation.

Only once he gave them a taste of his violence; he talked of it,
indeed, often; "I'm rather a voilent man," he would say, not
without pride; but this was the only specimen.  Of a sudden, he
turned on Hemstead in the ship's waist, knocked him against
the foresail boom, then knocked him under it, and had set him
up and knocked him down once more, before any one had
drawn a breath.

"Here! Belay that!" roared Wicks, leaping to his feet.  "I won't
have none of this."

Mac turned to the captain with ready civility.  "I only want to
learn him manners," said he.  "He took and called me
Irishman."

"Did he?" said Wicks.  "O, that's a different story!  What made
you do it, you tomfool? You ain't big enough to call any man
that."

"I didn't call him it," spluttered Hemstead, through his blood
and tears.  "I only mentioned-like he was."

"Well, let's have no more of it," said Wicks.

"But you ARE Irish, ain't you?" Carthew asked of his new
shipmate shortly after.

"I may be," replied Mac, "but I'll allow no Sydney duck to call
me so.  No," he added, with a sudden heated countenance, "nor
any Britisher that walks! Why, look here," he went on, "you're a
young swell, aren't you?  Suppose I called you that!"  'I'll show
you,' you would say, and turn to and take it out of me straight."

On the 28th of January, when in lat. 27 degrees 20' N., long.
177 degrees W., the wind chopped suddenly into the west, not
very strong, but puffy and with flaws of rain.  The captain,
eager for easting, made a fair wind of it and guyed the booms
out wing and wing.  It was Tommy's trick at the wheel, and as
it was within half an hour of the relief (seven thirty in the
morning), the captain judged it not worth while to change him.

The puffs were heavy but short; there was nothing to be called
a squall, no danger to the ship, and scarce more than usual to
the doubtful spars.  All hands were on deck in their oilskins,
expecting breakfast; the galley smoked, the ship smelt of
coffee, all were in good humour to be speeding eastward a full
nine; when the rotten foresail tore suddenly between two cloths
and then split to either hand.  It was for all the world as though
some archangel with a huge sword had slashed it with the
figure of a cross; all hands ran to secure the slatting canvas;
and in the sudden uproar and alert, Tommy Hadden lost his
head.  Many of his days have been passed since then in
explaining how the thing happened; of these explanations it
will be sufficient to say that they were all different and none
satisfactory; and the gross fact remains that the main boom
gybed, carried away the tackle, broke the mainmast some three
feet above the deck and whipped it overboard.  For near a
minute the suspected foremast gallantly resisted; then followed
its companion; and by the time the wreck was cleared, of the
whole beautiful fabric that enabled them to skim the seas, two
ragged stumps remained.

In these vast and solitary waters, to be dismasted is perhaps the
worst calamity.  Let the ship turn turtle and go down, and at
least the pang is over.  But men chained on a hulk may pass
months scanning the empty sea line and counting the steps of
death's invisible approach.  There is no help but in the boats,
and what a help is that!  There heaved the Currency Lass, for
instance, a wingless lump, and the nearest human coast (that of
Kauai in the Sandwiches) lay about a thousand miles to south
and east of her.  Over the way there, to men contemplating that
passage in an open boat, all kinds of misery, and the fear of
death and of madness, brooded.

A serious company sat down to breakfast; but the captain
helped his neighbours with a smile.

"Now, boys," he said, after a pull at the hot coffee, "we're done
with this Currency Lass, and no mistake.  One good job:  we
made her pay while she lasted, and she paid first rate; and if we
were to try our hand again, we can try in style.  Another good
job:  we have a fine, stiff, roomy boat, and you know who you
have to thank for that.  We've got six lives to save, and a pot of
money; and the point is, where are we to take 'em?"

"It's all two thousand miles to the nearest of the Sandwiches, I
fancy," observed Mac.

"No, not so bad as that," returned the captain.  "But it's bad
enough:  rather better'n a thousand."

"I know a man who once did twelve hundred in a boat," said
Mac, "and he had all he wanted.  He fetched ashore in the
Marquesas, and never set a foot on anything floating from that
day to this.  He said he would rather put a pistol to his head
and knock his brains out."

"Ay, ay!" said Wicks.  "Well I remember a boat's crew that
made this very island of Kauai, and from just about where we
lie, or a bit further.  When they got up with the land, they were
clean crazy.  There was an iron-bound coast and an Old Bob
Ridley of a surf on.  The natives hailed 'em from fishing-boats,
and sung out it couldn't be done at the money.  Much they
cared! there was the land, that was all they knew; and they
turned to and drove the boat slap ashore in the thick of it, and
was all drowned but one.  No; boat trips are my eye,"
concluded the captain, gloomily.

The tone was surprising in a man of his indomitable temper. 
"Come, Captain," said Carthew, "you have something else up
your sleeve; out with it!"

"It's a fact," admitted Wicks.  "You see there's a raft of little
bally reefs about here, kind of chicken-pox on the chart.  Well,
I looked 'em all up, and there's one--Midway or Brooks they
call it, not forty mile from our assigned position--that I got
news of.  It turns out it's a coaling station of the Pacific Mail,"
he said, simply.

"Well, and I know it ain't no such a thing," said Mac. "I been
quartermaster in that line myself."

"All right," returned Wicks.  "There's the book.  Read what
Hoyt says--read it aloud and let the others hear."

Hoyt's falsehood (as readers know) was explicit; incredulity
was impossible, and the news itself delightful beyond hope. 
Each saw in his mind's eye the boat draw in to a trim island
with a wharf, coal-sheds, gardens, the Stars and Stripes and the
white cottage of the keeper; saw themselves idle a few weeks in
tolerable quarters, and then step on board the China mail,
romantic waifs, and yet with pocketsful of money, calling for
champagne, and waited on by troops of stewards.  Breakfast,
that had begun so dully, ended amid sober jubilation, and all
hands turned immediately to prepare the boat.

Now that all spars were gone, it was no easy job to get her
launched.  Some of the necessary cargo was first stowed on
board; the specie, in particular, being packed in a strong chest
and secured with lashings to the afterthwart in case of a
capsize.  Then a piece of the bulwark was razed to the level of
the deck, and the boat swung thwart-ship, made fast with a
slack line to either stump, and successfully run out.  For a
voyage of forty miles to hospitable quarters, not much food or
water was required; but they took both in superfluity.  Amalu
and Mac, both ingrained sailor-men, had chests which were the
headquarters of their lives; two more chests with handbags,
oilskins, and blankets supplied the others; Hadden, amid
general applause, added the last case of the brown sherry; the
captain brought the log, instruments, and chronometer; nor did
Hemstead forget the banjo or a pinned handkerchief of
Butaritari shells.

It was about three P.M. when they pushed off, and (the wind
being still westerly) fell to the oars.  "Well, we've got the guts
out of YOU!" was the captain's nodded farewell to the hulk of
the Currency Lass, which presently shrank and faded in the sea. 
A little after a calm succeeded, with much rain; and the first
meal was eaten, and the watch below lay down to their uneasy
slumber on the bilge under a roaring shower-bath.  The twenty-
ninth dawned overhead from out of ragged clouds; there is no
moment when a boat at sea appears so trenchantly black and so
conspicuously little; and the crew looked about them at the sky
and water with a thrill of loneliness and fear.  With sunrise the
trade set in, lusty and true to the point; sail was made; the boat
flew; and by about four in the afternoon, they were well up with
the closed part of the reef, and the captain standing on the
thwart, and holding by the mast, was studying the island
through the binoculars.

"Well, and where's your station?" cried Mac.

"I don't someway pick it up," replied the captain.

"No, nor never will!" retorted Mac, with a clang of despair and
triumph in his tones.

The truth was soon plain to all.  No buoys, no beacons, no
lights, no coal, no station; the castaways pulled through a
lagoon and landed on an isle, where was no mark of man but
wreckwood, and no sound but of the sea.  For the seafowl that
harboured and lived there at the epoch of my visit were then
scattered into the uttermost parts of the ocean, and had left no
traces of their sojourn besides dropped feathers and addled
eggs.  It was to this they had been sent, for this they had
stooped all night over the dripping oars, hourly moving further
from relief.  The boat, for as small as it was, was yet eloquent
of the hands of men, a thing alone indeed upon the sea but yet
in itself all human; and the isle, for which they had exchanged
it, was ingloriously savage, a place of distress, solitude, and
hunger unrelieved.  There was a strong glare and shadow of the
evening over all; in which they sat or lay, not speaking, careless
even to eat, men swindled out of life and riches by a lying
book.  In the great good nature of the whole party, no word of
reproach had been addressed to Hadden, the author of these
disasters.  But the new blow was less magnanimously borne,
and many angry glances rested on the captain.

Yet it was himself who roused them from their lethargy. 
Grudgingly they obeyed, drew the boat beyond tidemark, and
followed him to the top of the miserable islet, whence a view
was commanded of the whole wheel of the horizon, then part
darkened under the coming night, part dyed with the hues of
the sunset and populous with the sunset clouds.  Here the camp
was pitched and a tent run up with the oars, sails, and mast. 
And here Amalu, at no man's bidding, from the mere instinct of
habitual service, built a fire and cooked a meal.  Night was
come, and the stars and the silver sickle of new moon beamed
overhead, before the meal was ready.  The cold sea shone about
them, and the fire glowed in their faces, as they ate.  Tommy
had opened his case, and the brown sherry went the round; but
it was long before they came to conversation. 

"Well, is it to be Kauai after all?" asked Mac suddenly.

"This is bad enough for me," said Tommy.  "Let's stick it out
where we are."

"Well, I can tell ye one thing," said Mac, "if ye care to hear it.
When I was in the China mail, we once made this island.  It's
in the course from Honolulu."

"Deuce it is!" cried Carthew.  "That settles it, then. Let's stay. 
We must keep good fires going; and there's plenty wreck."

"Lashings of wreck!" said the Irishman.  "There's nothing here
but wreck and coffin boards."

"But we'll have to make a proper blyze," objected Hemstead. 
"You can't see a fire like this, not any wye awye, I mean."

"Can't you?" said Carthew.  "Look round."

They did, and saw the hollow of the night, the bare, bright face
of the sea, and the stars regarding them; and the voices died in
their bosoms at the spectacle.  In that huge isolation, it seemed
they must be visible from China on the one hand and California
on the other.

"My God, it's dreary!" whispered Hemstead.

"Dreary?" cried Mac, and fell suddenly silent.

"It's better than a boat, anyway," said Hadden.  "I've had my
bellyful of boat."

"What kills me is that specie!" the captain broke out.  "Think of
all that riches,--four thousand in gold, bad silver, and short
bills--all found money, too!--and no more use than that much
dung!"

"I'll tell you one thing," said Tommy.  "I don't like it being in
the boat--I don't care to have it so far away."

"Why, who's to take it?" cried Mac, with a guffaw of evil
laughter.

But this was not at all the feeling of the partners, who rose,
clambered down the isle, brought back the inestimable
treasure-chest slung upon two oars, and set it conspicuous in
the shining of the fire.

"There's my beauty!" cried Wicks, viewing it with a cocked
head.  "That's better than a bonfire.  What! we have a chest
here, and bills for close upon two thousand pounds; there's no
show to that,--it would go in your vest-pocket,--but the rest!
upwards of forty pounds avoirdupois of coined gold, and close
on two hundredweight of Chile silver! What! ain't that good
enough to fetch a fleet?  Do you mean to say that won't affect a
ship's compass?  Do you mean to tell me that the lookout won't
turn to and SMELL it?" he cried.

Mac, who had no part nor lot in the bills, the forty pounds of
gold, or the two hundredweight of silver, heard this with
impatience, and fell into a bitter, choking laughter.  "You'll
see!" he said harshly.  "You'll be glad to feed them bills into the
fire before you're through with ut!"  And he turned, passed by
himself out of the ring of the firelight, and stood gazing
seaward.

His speech and his departure extinguished instantly those
sparks of better humour kindled by the dinner and the chest. 
The group fell again to an ill-favoured silence, and Hemstead
began to touch the banjo, as was his habit of an evening.  His
repertory was small:  the chords of _Home, Sweet Home_ fell
under his fingers; and when he had played the symphony, he
instinctively raised up his voice.  "Be it never so 'umble, there's
no plyce like 'ome," he sang.  The last word was still upon his 
lips, when the instrument was snatched from him and dashed
into the fire; and he turned with a cry to look into the furious
countenance of Mac.

"I'll be damned if I stand this!" cried the captain, leaping up
belligerent.

"I told ye I was a voilent man," said Mac, with a movement of
deprecation very surprising in one of his character.  "Why don't
he give me a chance then?  Haven't we enough to bear the way
we are?"  And to the wonder and dismay of all, the man choked
upon a sob.  "It's ashamed of meself I am," he said presently,
his Irish accent twenty-fold increased.  "I ask all your pardons
for me voilence; and especially the little man's, who is a
harmless crayture, and here's me hand to'm, if he'll condescind
to take me by 't."

So this scene of barbarity and sentimentalism passed off,
leaving behind strange and incongruous impressions.  True,
every one was perhaps glad when silence succeeded that all too
appropriate music; true, Mac's apology and subsequent
behaviour rather raised him in the opinion of his fellow-
castaways.  But the discordant note had been struck, and its
harmonics tingled in the brain.  In that savage, houseless isle,
the passions of man had sounded, if only for the moment, and
all men trembled at the possibilities of horror.

It was determined to stand watch and watch in case of passing
vessels; and Tommy, on fire with an idea, volunteered to stand
the first.  The rest crawled under the tent, and were soon
enjoying that comfortable gift of sleep, which comes
everywhere and to all men, quenching anxieties and speeding
time.  And no sooner were all settled, no sooner had the drone
of many snorers begun to mingle with and overcome the surf,
than Tommy stole from his post with the case of sherry, and
dropped it in a quiet cove in a fathom of water.  But the stormy
inconstancy of Mac's behaviour had no connection with a gill
or two of wine; his passions, angry and otherwise, were on a
different sail plan from his neighbours'; and there were
possibilities of good and evil in that hybrid Celt beyond their
prophecy. 

About two in the morning, the starry sky--or so it seemed, for
the drowsy watchman had not observed the approach of any
cloud--brimmed over in a deluge; and for three days it rained
without remission.  The islet was a sponge, the castaways sops;
the view all gone, even the reef concealed behind the curtain of
the falling water.  The fire was soon drowned out; after a
couple of boxes of matches had been scratched in vain, it was
decided to wait for better weather; and the party lived in
wretchedness on raw tins and a ration of hard bread.

By the 2nd February, in the dark hours of the morning watch,
the clouds were all blown by; the sun rose glorious; and once
more the castaways sat by a quick fire, and drank hot coffee
with the greed of brutes and sufferers.  Thenceforward their
affairs moved in a routine.  A fire was constantly maintained;
and this occupied one hand continuously, and the others for an
hour or so in the day.  Twice a day, all hands bathed in the
lagoon, their chief, almost their only pleasure.  Often they
fished in the lagoon with good success.  And the rest was
passed in lolling, strolling, yarns, and disputation.  The time of
the China steamers was calculated to a nicety; which done, the
thought was rejected and ignored.  It was one that would not
bear consideration.  The boat voyage having been tacitly set
aside, the desperate part chosen to wait there for the coming of
help or of starvation, no man had courage left to look his
bargain in the face, far less to discuss it with his neighbours. 
But the unuttered terror haunted them; in every hour of
idleness, at every moment of silence, it returned, and breathed a
chill about the circle, and carried men's eyes to the horizon.
Then, in a panic of self-defence, they would rally to some other
subject.  And, in that lone spot, what else was to be found to
speak of but the treasure?

That was indeed the chief singularity, the one thing
conspicuous in their island life; the presence of that chest of
bills and specie dominated the mind like a cathedral; and there
were besides connected with it, certain irking problems well
fitted to occupy the idle.  Two thousand pounds were due to the
Sydney firm:  two thousand pounds were clear profit, and fell to
be divided in varying proportions among six.  It had been
agreed how the partners were to range; every pound of capital
subscribed, every pound that fell due in wages, was to count for
one "lay."  Of these, Tommy could claim five hundred and ten,
Carthew one hundred and seventy, Wicks one hundred and
forty, and Hemstead and Amalu ten apiece:  eight hundred and
forty "lays" in all.  What was the value of a lay?  This was at
first debated in the air and chiefly by the strength of Tommy's
lungs.  Then followed a series of incorrect calculations; from
which they issued, arithmetically foiled, but agreed from
weariness upon an approximate value of 2 pounds, 7 shillings 
7 1/4 pence.  The figures were admittedly incorrect; the sum of
the shares came not to 2000 pounds, but to 1996 pounds, 6
shillings:  3 pounds, 14 shillings being thus left unclaimed. 
But it was the nearest they had yet found, and the highest as
well, so that the partners were made the less critical by the
contemplation of their splendid dividends.  Wicks put in 100
pounds and stood to draw captain's wages for two months; his
taking was 333 pounds 3 shillings 6 1/2 pence.  Carthew had
put in 150 pounds:  he was to take out 401 pounds, 18 shillings
6 1/2 pence.  Tommy's 500 pounds had grown to be 1213
pounds 12 shillings 9 3/4 pence; and Amalu and Hemstead,
ranking for wages only, had 22 pounds, 16 shillings 1/2 pence,
each.

From talking and brooding on these figures, it was but a step to
opening the chest; and once the chest open, the glamour of the
cash was irresistible.  Each felt that he must see his treasure
separate with the eye of flesh, handle it in the hard coin, mark it
for his own, and stand forth to himself the approved owner. 
And here an insurmountable difficulty barred the way.  There
were some seventeen shillings in English silver:  the rest was
Chile; and the Chile dollar, which had been taken at the rate of
six to the pound sterling, was practically their smallest coin.  It
was decided, therefore, to divide the pounds only, and to throw
the shillings, pence, and fractions in a common fund.  This,
with the three pound fourteen already in the heel, made a total
of seven pounds one shilling.

"I'll tell you," said Wicks.  "Let Carthew and Tommy and me
take one pound apiece, and Hemstead and Amalu split the
other four, and toss up for the odd bob."

"O, rot!" said Carthew.  "Tommy and I are bursting already. 
We can take half a sov' each, and let the other three have forty
shillings."

"I'll tell you now--it's not worth splitting," broke in Mac.  "I've
cards in my chest.  Why don't you play for the slump sum?"

In that idle place, the proposal was accepted with delight. 
Mac, as the owner of the cards, was given a stake; the sum was
played for in five games of cribbage; and when Amalu, the last
survivor in the tournament, was beaten by Mac, it was found
the dinner hour was past.  After a hasty meal, they fell again
immediately to cards, this time (on Carthew's proposal) to Van
John.  It was then probably two P.M. of the 9th February; and
they played with varying chances for twelve hours, slept
heavily, and rose late on the morrow to resume the game.  All
day of the 10th, with grudging intervals for food, and with one
long absence on the part of Tommy from which he returned
dripping with the case of sherry, they continued to deal and
stake.  Night fell:  they drew the closer to the fire.  It was
maybe two in the morning, and Tommy was selling his deal by
auction, as usual with that timid player; when Carthew, who
didn't intend to bid, had a moment of leisure and looked round
him.  He beheld the moonlight on the sea, the money piled and
scattered in that incongruous place, the perturbed faces of the
players; he felt in his own breast the familiar tumult; and it
seemed as if there rose in his ears a sound of music, and the
moon seemed still to shine upon a sea, but the sea was
changed, and the Casino towered from among lamplit gardens, 
and the money clinked on the green board.  "Good God!" he
thought, "am I gambling again?"  He looked the more curiously
about the sandy table.  He and Mac had played and won like
gamblers; the mingled gold and silver lay by their places in the
heap.  Amalu and Hemstead had each more than held their
own, but Tommy was cruel far to leeward, and the captain was
reduced to perhaps fifty pounds.

"I say, let's knock off," said Carthew.

"Give that man a glass of Buckle," said some one, and a fresh
bottle was opened, and the game went inexorably on.

Carthew was himself too heavy a winner to withdraw or to say
more; and all the rest of the night he must look on at the
progress of this folly, and make gallant attempts to lose with
the not uncommon consequence of winning more.  The first
dawn of the 11th February found him well-nigh desperate.  It
chanced he was then dealer, and still winning.  He had just
dealt a round of many tens; every one had staked heavily; the
captain had put up all that remained to him, twelve pounds in
gold and a few dollars; and Carthew, looking privately at his
cards before he showed them, found he held a natural.

"See here, you fellows," he broke out, "this is a sickening
business, and I'm done with it for one."  So saying, he showed
his cards, tore them across, and rose from the ground.

The company stared and murmured in mere amazement; but
Mac stepped gallantly to his support.

"We've had enough of it, I do believe," said he.  "But of course
it was all fun, and here's my counters back.  All counters in,
boys!" and he began to pour his winnings into the chest, which
stood fortunately near him.

Carthew stepped across and wrung him by the hand.  "I'll never
forget this," he said.

"And what are ye going to do with the Highway boy and the
plumber?" inquired Mac, in a low tone of voice.  "They've both
wan, ye see."

"That's true!" said Carthew aloud.  "Amalu and Hemstead,
count your winnings; Tommy and I pay that."

It was carried without speech:  the pair glad enough to receive
their winnings, it mattered not from whence; and Tommy, who
had lost about five hundred pounds, delighted with the
compromise.

"And how about Mac?" asked Hemstead.  "Is he to lose all?"

"I beg your pardon, plumber.  I'm sure ye mean well," returned
the Irishman, "but you'd better shut your face, for I'm not that
kind of a man.  If I t'ought I had wan that money fair, there's
never a soul here could get it from me.  But I t'ought it was in
fun; that was my mistake, ye see; and there's no man big
enough upon this island to give a present to my mother's son. 
So there's my opinion to ye, plumber, and you can put it in your
pockut till required."


"Well, I will say, Mac, you're a gentleman," said Carthew, as
he helped him to shovel back his winnings into the treasure 
chest.

"Divil a fear of it, sir! a drunken sailor-man," said Mac.

The captain had sat somewhile with his face in his hands:  now
he rose mechanically, shaking and stumbling like a drunkard
after a debauch.  But as he rose, his face was altered, and his
voice rang out over the isle, "Sail, ho!"

All turned at the cry, and there, in the wild light of the
morning, heading straight for Midway Reef, was the brig
Flying Scud of Hull.



 CHAPTER XXIV.

 A HARD BARGAIN.


The ship which thus appeared before the castaways had long
"tramped" the ocean, wandering from one port to another as
freights offered.  She was two years out from London, by the
Cape of Good Hope, India, and the Archipelago; and was now
bound for San Francisco in the hope of working homeward
round the Horn.  Her captain was one Jacob Trent. He had
retired some five years before to a suburban cottage, a patch of
cabbages, a gig, and the conduct of what he called a Bank.  The
name appears to have been misleading.  Borrowers were
accustomed to choose works of art and utility in the front shop;
loaves of sugar and bolts of broadcloth were deposited in
pledge; and it was a part of the manager's duty to dash in his
gig on Saturday evenings from one small retailer's to another,
and to annex in each the bulk of the week's takings.  His was
thus an active life, and to a man of the type of a rat, filled with
recondite joys.  An unexpected loss, a law suit, and the
unintelligent commentary of the judge upon the bench,
combined to disgust him of the business.  I was so
extraordinarily fortunate as to find, in an old newspaper, a
report of the proceedings in Lyall v. The Cardiff Mutual
Accommodation Banking Co.  "I confess I fail entirely to
understand the nature of the business," the judge had remarked,
while Trent was being examined in chief; a little after, on fuller
information--"They call it a bank," he had opined, "but it seems
to me to be an unlicensed pawnshop"; and he wound up with
this appalling allocution:  "Mr. Trent, I must put you on your
guard; you must be very careful, or we shall see you here
again."  In the inside of a week the captain disposed of the
bank, the cottage, and the gig and horse; and to sea again in the
Flying Scud, where he did well and gave high satisfaction to
his owners.  But the glory clung to him; he was a plain sailor
-man, he said, but he could never long allow you to forget that
he had been a banker.

His mate, Elias Goddedaal, was a huge viking of a man, six
feet three and of proportionate mass, strong, sober, industrious,
musical, and sentimental.  He ran continually over into
Swedish melodies, chiefly in the minor.  He had paid nine
dollars to hear Patti; to hear Nilsson, he had deserted a ship
and two months' wages; and he was ready at any time to walk
ten miles for a good concert, or seven to a reasonable play.  On
board he had three treasures:  a canary bird, a concertina, and a
blinding copy of the works of Shakespeare.  He had a gift,
peculiarly Scandinavian, of making friends at sight:  an
elemental innocence commended him; he was without fear,
without reproach, and without money or the hope of making it.

Holdorsen was second mate, and berthed aft, but messed
usually with the hands.

Of one more of the crew, some image lives.  This was a
foremast hand out of the Clyde, of the name of Brown.  A
small, dark, thickset creature, with dog's eyes, of a disposition
incomparably mild and harmless, he knocked about seas and
cities, the uncomplaining whiptop of one vice.  "The drink is
my trouble, ye see," he said to Carthew shyly; "and it's the more
shame to me because I'm come of very good people at Bowling,
down the wa'er."  The letter that so much affected Nares, in
case the reader should remember it, was addressed to this man
Brown.

Such was the ship that now carried joy into the bosoms of the
castaways.  After the fatigue and the bestial emotions of their
night of play, the approach of salvation shook them from all
self-control.  Their hands trembled, their eyes shone, they
laughed and shouted like children as they cleared their camp:
and some one beginning to whistle _Marching Through
Georgia,_ the remainder of the packing was conducted, amidst
a thousand interruptions, to these martial strains.  But the
strong head of Wicks was only partly turned.


"Boys," he said, "easy all!  We're going aboard of a ship of
which we don't know nothing; we've got a chest of specie, and
seeing the weight, we can't turn to and deny it.  Now, suppose
she was fishy; suppose it was some kind of a Bully Hayes
business!  It's my opinion we'd better be on hand with the
pistols."

Every man of the party but Hemstead had some kind of a
revolver; these were accordingly loaded and disposed about the
persons of the castaways, and the packing was resumed and
finished in the same rapturous spirit as it was begun.  The sun
was not yet ten degrees above the eastern sea, but the brig was
already close in and hove to, before they had launched the boat
and sped, shouting at the oars, towards the passage.

It was blowing fresh outside, with a strong send of sea.  The
spray flew in the oarsmen's faces.  They saw the Union Jack
blow abroad from the Flying Scud, the men clustered at the
rail, the cook in the galley door, the captain on the quarter-deck
with a pith helmet and binoculars.  And the whole familiar
business, the comfort, company, and safety of a ship, heaving
nearer at each stroke, maddened them with joy.

Wicks was the first to catch the line, and swarm on board,
helping hands grabbing him as he came and hauling him
across the rail.

"Captain, sir, I suppose?" he said, turning to the hard old man
in the pith helmet.

"Captain Trent, sir," returned the old gentleman.

"Well, I'm Captain Kirkup, and this is the crew of the Sydney
schooner Currency Lass, dismasted at sea January 28th."

"Ay, ay," said Trent.  "Well, you're all right now.  Lucky for
you I saw your signal.  I didn't know I was so near this beastly
island, there must be a drift to the south'ard here; and when I
came on deck this morning at eight bells, I thought it was a
ship afire."

It had been agreed that, while Wicks was to board the ship and
do the civil, the rest were to remain in the whaleboat and see
the treasure safe.  A tackle was passed down to them; to this
they made fast the invaluable chest, and gave the word to
heave.  But the unexpected weight brought the hand at the
tackle to a stand; two others ran to tail on and help him, and the
thing caught the eye of Trent.

"'Vast heaving!" he cried sharply; and then to Wicks: "What's
that?  I don't ever remember to have seen a chest weigh like
that."

"It's money," said Wicks.

"It's what?" cried Trent.

"Specie," said Wicks; "saved from the wreck."

Trent looked at him sharply.  "Here, let go that chest again, Mr.
Goddedaal," he commanded, "shove the boat off, and stream
her with a line astern."

"Ay, ay, sir!" from Goddedaal.

"What the devil's wrong?" asked Wicks.

"Nothing, I daresay," returned Trent.  "But you'll allow it's a
queer thing when a boat turns up in mid-ocean with half a ton
of specie,--and everybody armed," he added, pointing to
Wicks's pocket.  "Your boat will lay comfortably astern, while
you come below and make yourself satisfactory."

"O, if that's all!" said Wicks.  "My log and papers are as right
as the mail; nothing fishy about us."  And he hailed his friends
in the boat, bidding them have patience, and turned to follow
Captain Trent.

"This way, Captain Kirkup," said the latter.  "And don't blame
a man for too much caution; no offence intended; and these
China rivers shake a fellow's nerve.  All I want is just to see
you're what you say you are; it's only my duty, sir, and what
you would do yourself in the circumstances.  I've not always
been a ship-captain:  I was a banker once, and I tell you that's
the trade to learn caution in.  You have to keep your weather-
eye lifting Saturday nights."  And with a dry, business-like
cordiality, he produced a bottle of gin.

The captains pledged each other; the papers were overhauled;
the tale of Topelius and the trade was told in appreciative ears
and cemented their acquaintance.  Trent's suspicions, thus
finally disposed of, were succeeded by a fit of profound
thought, during which he sat lethargic and stern, looking at and
drumming on the table.

"Anything more?" asked Wicks.

"What sort of a place is it inside?" inquired Trent, sudden as
though Wicks had touched a spring.

"It's a good enough lagoon--a few horses' heads, but nothing to
mention," answered Wicks.

"I've a good mind to go in," said Trent.  "I was new rigged in
China; it's given very bad, and I'm getting frightened for my
sticks.  We could set it up as good as new in a day.  For I
daresay your lot would turn to and give us a hand?"

"You see if we don't!" said Wicks.

"So be it, then," concluded Trent.  "A stitch in time saves nine."

They returned on deck; Wicks cried the news to the Currency
Lasses; the foretopsail was filled again, and the brig ran into
the lagoon lively, the whaleboat dancing in her wake, and came
to single anchor off Middle Brooks Island before eight.  She
was boarded by the castaways, breakfast was served, the
baggage slung on board and piled in the waist, and all hands
turned to upon the rigging.  All day the work continued, the
two crews rivalling each other in expense of strength.  Dinner
was served on deck, the officers messing aft under the slack of
the spanker, the men fraternising forward.  Trent appeared in
excellent spirits, served out grog to all hands, opened a bottle of
Cape wine for the after-table, and obliged his guests with many
details of the life of a financier in Cardiff.  He had been forty
years at sea, had five times suffered shipwreck, was once nine
months the prisoner of a pepper rajah, and had seen service
under fire in Chinese rivers; but the only thing he cared to talk
of, the only thing of which he was vain, or with which he
thought it possible to interest a stranger, was his career as a
money-lender in the slums of a seaport town.

The afternoon spell told cruelly on the Currency Lasses. 
Already exhausted as they were with sleeplessness and
excitement, they did the last hours of this violent employment
on bare nerves; and when Trent was at last satisfied with the
condition of his rigging, expected eagerly the word to put to
sea.  But the captain seemed in no hurry.  He went and walked
by himself softly, like a man in thought.  Presently he hailed
Wicks.

"You're a kind of company, ain't you, Captain Kirkup?" he
inquired.

"Yes, we're all on board on lays," was the reply.

"Well, then, you won't mind if I ask the lot of you down to tea
in the cabin?" asked Trent.

Wicks was amazed, but he naturally ventured no remark; and a
little after, the six Currency Lasses sat down with Trent and
Goddedaal to a spread of marmalade, butter, toast, sardines,
tinned tongue, and steaming tea.  The food was not very good,
and I have no doubt Nares would have reviled it, but it was
manna to the castaways.  Goddedaal waited on them with a
kindness far before courtesy, a kindness like that of some old,
honest countrywoman in her farm.  It was remembered
afterwards that Trent took little share in these attentions, but sat
much absorbed in thought, and seemed to remember and forget
the presence of his guests alternately.

Presently he addressed the Chinaman.

"Clear out!" said he, and watched him till he had disappeared
in the stair.  "Now, gentlemen," he went on, "I understand
you're a joint-stock sort of crew, and that's why I've had you all
down; for there's a point I want made clear.  You see what sort
of a ship this is--a good ship, though I say it, and you see what
the rations are--good enough for sailor-men."

There was a hurried murmur of approval, but curiosity for what
was coming next prevented an articulate reply.

"Well," continued Trent, making bread pills and looking hard
at the middle of the table, "I'm glad of course to be able to give
you a passage to 'Frisco; one sailor-man should help another,
that's my motto.  But when you want a thing in this world, you
generally always have to pay for it."  He laughed a brief, joyless
laugh.  "I have no idea of losing by my kindness."

"We have no idea you should, captain," said Wicks.

"We are ready to pay anything in reason," added Carthew.


At the words, Goddedaal, who sat next to him, touched him
with his elbow, and the two mates exchanged a significant
look.  The character of Captain Trent was given and taken in
that silent second.

"In reason?" repeated the captain of the brig.  "I was waiting for
that.  Reason's between two people, and there's only one here. 
I'm the judge; I'm reason.  If you want an advance you have to
pay for it"--he hastily corrected himself--"If you want a passage
in my ship, you have to pay my price," he substituted.  "That's
business, I believe.  I don't want you; you want me."

"Well, sir," said Carthew, "and what IS your price?"

The captain made bread pills.  "If I were like you," he said,
"when you got hold of that merchant in the Gilberts, I might
surprise you.  You had your chance then; seems to me it's mine
now.  Turn about's fair play.  What kind of mercy did you have
on that Gilbert merchant?" he cried, with a sudden stridency. 
"Not that I blame you.  All's fair in love and business," and he
laughed again, a little frosty giggle.

"Well, sir?" said Carthew, gravely.

"Well, this ship's mine, I think?" he asked sharply.

"Well, I'm of that way of thinking meself," observed Mac.

"I say it's mine, sir!" reiterated Trent, like a man trying to be
angry.  "And I tell you all, if I was a driver like what you are, I
would take the lot.  But there's two thousand pounds there that
don't belong to you, and I'm an honest man.  Give me the two
thousand that's yours, and I'll give you a passage to the coast,
and land every man-jack of you in 'Frisco with fifteen pounds
in his pocket, and the captain here with twenty-five."

Goddedaal laid down his head on the table like a man
ashamed.

"You're joking," said Wicks, purple in the face.

"Am I?" said Trent.  "Please yourselves.  You're under no
compulsion.  This ship's mine, but there's that Brooks Island
don't belong to me, and you can lay there till you die for what I
care."


"It's more than your blooming brig's worth!" cried Wicks.

"It's my price anyway," returned Trent.

"And do you mean to say you would land us there to starve?"
cried Tommy.

Captain Trent laughed the third time.  "Starve? I defy you to,"
said he.  "I'll sell you all the provisions you want at a fair
profit."

"I beg your pardon, sir," said Mac, "but my case is by itself I'm
working me passage; I got no share in that two thousand
pounds nor nothing in my pockut; and I'll be glad to know what
you have to say to me?"

"I ain't a hard man," said Trent.  "That shall make no
difference.  I'll take you with the rest, only of course you get no
fifteen pound."

The impudence was so extreme and startling, that all breathed
deep, and Goddedaal raised up his face and looked his superior
sternly in the eye.

But Mac was more articulate.  "And you're what ye call a
British sayman, I suppose? the sorrow in your guts!" he cried.

"One more such word, and I clap you in irons!" said Trent,
rising gleefully at the face of opposition.

"And where would I be the while you were doin' ut?" asked
Mac.  "After you and your rigging, too!  Ye ould puggy, ye
haven't the civility of a bug, and I'll learn ye some."

His voice did not even rise as he uttered the threat; no man
present, Trent least of all, expected that which followed.  The
Irishman's hand rose suddenly from below the table, an open
clasp-knife balanced on the palm; there was a movement swift
as conjuring; Trent started half to his feet, turning a little as he
rose so as to escape the table, and the movement was his bane. 
The missile struck him in the jugular; he fell forward, and his
blood flowed among the dishes on the cloth.

The suddenness of the attack and the catastrophe, the instant
change from peace to war and from life to death, held all men
spellbound.  Yet a moment they sat about the table staring
open-mouthed upon the prostrate captain and the flowing
blood.  The next, Goddedaal had leaped to his feet, caught up
the stool on which he had been sitting, and swung it high in air,
a man transfigured, roaring (as he stood) so that men's ears
were stunned with it.  There was no thought of battle in the
Currency Lasses; none drew his weapon; all huddled helplessly
from before the face of the baresark Scandinavian.  His first
blow sent Mac to ground with a broken arm.  His second
bashed out the brains of Hemstead.  He turned from one to
another, menacing and trumpeting like a wounded elephant,
exulting in his rage.  But there was no counsel, no light of
reason, in that ecstasy of battle; and he shied from the pursuit
of victory to hail fresh blows upon the supine Hemstead, so that
the stool was shattered and the cabin rang with their violence.
The sight of that post-mortem cruelty recalled Carthew to the
life of instinct, and his revolver was in hand and he had aimed
and fired before he knew.  The ear-bursting sound of the report
was accompanied by a yell of pain; the colossus paused,
swayed, tottered, and fell headlong on the body of his victim. 

In the instant silence that succeeded, the sound of feet
pounding on the deck and in the companion leaped into
hearing; and a face, that of the sailor Holdorsen, appeared
below the bulkheads in the cabin doorway.  Carthew shattered
it with a second shot, for he was a marksman.

"Pistols!" he cried, and charged at the companion, Wicks at his
heels, Tommy and Amalu following.  They trod the body of
Holdorsen underfoot, and flew up-stairs and forth into the
dusky blaze of a sunset red as blood.  The numbers were still
equal, but the Flying Scuds dreamed not of defence, and fled
with one accord for the forecastle scuttle.  Brown was first in
flight; he disappeared below unscathed; the Chinaman
followed head-foremost with a ball in his side; and the others
shinned into the rigging.

A fierce composure settled upon Wicks and Carthew, their
fighting second wind.  They posted Tommy at the fore and
Amalu at the main to guard the masts and shrouds, and going
themselves into the waist, poured out a box of cartridges on
deck and filled the chambers.  The poor devils aloft bleated
aloud for mercy.  But the hour of any mercy was gone by; the
cup was brewed and must be drunken to the dregs; since so
many had fallen all must fall.  The light was bad, the cheap
revolvers fouled and carried wild, the screaming wretches were
swift to flatten themselves against the masts and yards or find a
momentary refuge in the hanging sails.  The fell business took
long, but it was done at last.  Hardy the Londoner was shot on
the foreroyal yard, and hung horribly suspended in the brails. 
Wallen, the other, had his jaw broken on the maintop-gallant
crosstrees, and exposed himself, shrieking, till a second shot
dropped him on the deck.

This had been bad enough, but worse remained behind.  There
was still Brown in the forepeak.  Tommy, with a sudden
clamour of weeping, begged for his life.  "One man can't hurt
us," he sobbed.  "We can't go on with this.  I spoke to him at
dinner.  He's an awful decent little cad.  It can't be done. 
Nobody can go into that place and murder him.  It's too
damned wicked."

The sound of his supplications was perhaps audible to the
unfortunate below.

"One left, and we all hang," said Wicks.  "Brown must go the
same road."  The big man was deadly white and trembled like
an aspen; and he had no sooner finished speaking, than he went
to the ship's side and vomited.

"We can never do it if we wait," said Carthew.  "Now or
never," and he marched towards the scuttle.

"No, no, no!" wailed Tommy, clutching at his jacket.

But Carthew flung him off, and stepped down the ladder, his
heart rising with disgust and shame.  The Chinaman lay on the
floor, still groaning; the place was pitch dark.

"Brown!" cried Carthew, "Brown, where are you?"

His heart smote him for the treacherous apostrophe, but no
answer came.

He groped in the bunks:  they were all empty.  Then he moved
towards the forepeak, which was hampered with coils of rope
and spare chandlery in general.

"Brown!" he said again.

"Here, sir," answered a shaking voice; and the poor invisible
caitiff called on him by name, and poured forth out of the
darkness an endless, garrulous appeal for mercy.  A sense of
danger, of daring, had alone nerved Carthew to enter the
forecastle; and here was the enemy crying and pleading like a
frightened child.  His obsequious "Here, sir," his horrid fluency 
of obtestation, made the murder tenfold more revolting.  Twice
Carthew raised the pistol, once he pressed the trigger (or
thought he did) with all his might, but no explosion followed;
and with that the lees of his courage ran quite out, and he
turned and fled from before his victim.

Wicks sat on the fore hatch, raised the face of a man of seventy,
and looked a wordless question.  Carthew shook his head. 
With such composure as a man displays marching towards the
gallows, Wicks arose, walked to the scuttle, and went down. 
Brown thought it was Carthew returning, and discovered
himself, half crawling from his shelter, with another incoherent
burst of pleading.  Wicks emptied his revolver at the voice,
which broke into mouse-like whimperings and groans.  Silence
succeeded, and the murderer ran on deck like one possessed.

The other three were now all gathered on the fore hatch, and
Wicks took his place beside them without question asked or
answered.  They sat close, like children in the dark, and shook
each other with their shaking.  The dusk continued to fall; and
there was no sound but the beating of the surf and the
occasional hiccup of a sob from Tommy Hadden.

"God, if there was another ship!" cried Carthew of a sudden.

Wicks started and looked aloft with the trick of all seamen, and
shuddered as he saw the hanging figure on the royal yard.

"If I went aloft, I'd fall," he said simply.  "I'm done up."

It was Amalu who volunteered, climbed to the very truck,
swept the fading horizon, and announced nothing within sight.

"No odds," said Wicks.  "We can't sleep ..."

"Sleep!" echoed Carthew; and it seemed as if the whole of
Shakespeare's _Macbeth_ thundered at the gallop through his
mind.

"Well, then, we can't sit and chitter here," said Wicks, "till
we've cleaned ship; and I can't turn to till I've had gin, and the
gin's in the cabin, and who's to fetch it?"


"I will," said Carthew, "if any one has matches."

Amalu passed him a box, and he went aft and down the
companion and into the cabin, stumbling upon bodies.  Then he
struck a match, and his looks fell upon two living eyes.

"Well?" asked Mac, for it was he who still survived in that
shambles of a cabin.

"It's done; they're all dead," answered Carthew.

"Christ!" said the Irishman, and fainted.

The gin was found in the dead captain's cabin; it was brought
on deck, and all hands had a dram, and attacked their farther
task.  The night was come, the moon would not be up for
hours; a lamp was set on the main hatch to light Amalu as he
washed down decks; and the galley lantern was taken to guide
the others in their graveyard business.  Holdorsen, Hemstead,
Trent, and Goddedaal were first disposed of, the last still
breathing as he went over the side; Wallen followed; and then
Wicks, steadied by the gin, went aloft with a boathook and
succeeded in dislodging Hardy.  The Chinaman was their last
task; he seemed to be light-headed, talked aloud in his
unknown language as they brought him up, and it was only
with the splash of his sinking body that the gibberish ceased. 
Brown, by common consent, was left alone.  Flesh and blood
could go no further.

All this time they had been drinking undiluted gin like water;
three bottles stood broached in different quarters; and none
passed without a gulp.  Tommy collapsed against the
mainmast; Wicks fell on his face on the poop ladder and moved
no more; Amalu had vanished unobserved.  Carthew was the
last afoot:  he stood swaying at the break of the poop, and the
lantern, which he still carried, swung with his movement.  His
head hummed; it swarmed with broken thoughts; memory of
that day's abominations flared up and died down within him
like the light of a lamp in a strong draught.  And then he had a
drunkard's inspiration.

"There must be no more of this," he thought, and stumbled once
more below.

The absence of Holdorsen's body brought him to a stand.  He
stood and stared at the empty floor, and then remembered and
smiled.  From the captain's room he took the open case with
one dozen and three bottles of gin, put the lantern inside, and
walked precariously forth.  Mac was once more conscious, his
eyes haggard, his face drawn with pain and flushed with fever;
and Carthew remembered he had never been seen to, had lain
there helpless, and was so to lie all night, injured, perhaps
dying.  But it was now too late; reason had now fled from that
silent ship.  If Carthew could get on deck again, it was as much
as he could hope; and casting on the unfortunate a glance of
pity, the tragic drunkard shouldered his way up the companion,
dropped the case overboard, and fell in the scuppers helpless.



 CHAPTER XXV.

 A BAD BARGAIN.


With the first colour in the east, Carthew awoke and sat up.  A
while he gazed at the scroll of the morning bank and the spars
and hanging canvas of the brig, like a man who wakes in a
strange bed, with a child's simplicity of wonder.  He wondered
above all what ailed him, what he had lost, what disfavour had
been done him, which he knew he should resent, yet had
forgotten.  And then, like a river bursting through a dam, the
truth rolled on him its instantaneous volume:  his memory
teemed with speech and pictures that he should never again
forget; and he sprang to his feet, stood a moment hand to brow,
and began to walk violently to and fro by the companion.  As
he walked, he wrung his hands.  "God--God--God," he kept
saying, with no thought of prayer, uttering a mere voice of
agony.

The time may have been long or short, it was perhaps minutes,
perhaps only seconds, ere he awoke to find himself observed,
and saw the captain sitting up and watching him over the break
of the poop, a strange blindness as of fever in his eyes, a
haggard knot of corrugations on his brow.  Cain saw himself in
a mirror.  For a flash they looked upon each other, and then
glanced guiltily aside; and Carthew fled from the eye of his
accomplice, and stood leaning on the taffrail.

An hour went by, while the day came brighter, and the sun rose
and drank up the clouds:  an hour of silence in the ship, an hour
of agony beyond narration for the sufferers.  Brown's gabbling
prayers, the cries of the sailors in the rigging, strains of the
dead Hemstead's minstrelsy, ran together in Carthew's mind,
with sickening iteration.  He neither acquitted nor condemned
himself:  he did not think, he suffered.  In the bright water into
which he stared, the pictures changed and were repeated:  the
baresark rage of Goddedaal; the blood-red light of the sunset
into which they had run forth; the face of the babbling
Chinaman as they cast him over; the face of the captain, seen a
moment since, as he awoke from drunkenness into remorse. 
And time passed, and the sun swam higher, and his torment
was not abated.

Then were fulfilled many sayings, and the weakest of these
condemned brought relief and healing to the others.  Amalu the
drudge awoke (like the rest) to sickness of body and distress of
mind; but the habit of obedience ruled in that simple spirit, and
appalled to be so late, he went direct into the galley, kindled the
fire, and began to get breakfast.  At the rattle of dishes, the
snapping of the fire, and the thin smoke that went up straight
into the air, the spell was lifted.  The condemned felt once more
the good dry land of habit under foot; they touched again the
familiar guide-ropes of sanity; they were restored to a sense of
the blessed revolution and return of all things earthly.  The
captain drew a bucket of water and began to bathe.  Tommy sat
up, watched him awhile, and slowly followed his example; and
Carthew, remembering his last thoughts of the night before,
hastened to the cabin.

Mac was awake; perhaps had not slept.  Over his head
Goddedaal's canary twittered shrilly from its cage.

"How are you?" asked Carthew.

"Me arrum's broke," returned Mac; "but I can stand that.  It's
this place I can't abide.  I was coming on deck anyway."

"Stay where you are, though," said Carthew.  "It's deadly hot
above, and there's no wind.  I'll wash out this----" and he
paused, seeking a word and not finding one for the grisly
foulness of the cabin.

"Faith, I'll be obliged to ye, then," replied the Irishman.  He
spoke mild and meek, like a sick child with its mother.  There
was now no violence in the violent man; and as Carthew
fetched a bucket and swab and the steward's sponge, and began
to cleanse the field of battle, he alternately watched him or shut
his eyes and sighed like a man near fainting.  "I have to ask all
your pardons," he began again presently, "and the more shame
to me as I got ye into trouble and couldn't do nothing when it
came.  Ye saved me life, sir; ye're a clane shot."

"For God's sake, don't talk of it!" cried Carthew.  "It can't be
talked of; you don't know what it was.  It was nothing down
here; they fought.  On deck--O, my God!"  And Carthew, with
the bloody sponge pressed to his face, struggled a moment with
hysteria.

"Kape cool, Mr. Cart'ew.  It's done now," said Mac; "and ye
may bless God ye're not in pain and helpless in the bargain."

There was no more said by one or other, and the cabin was
pretty well cleansed when a stroke on the ship's bell summoned
Carthew to breakfast.  Tommy had been busy in the
meanwhile; he had hauled the whaleboat close aboard, and
already lowered into it a small keg of beef that he found ready
broached beside the galley door; it was plain he had but the one
idea--to escape. 

"We have a shipful of stores to draw upon," he said.  "Well,
what are we staying for?  Let's get off at once for Hawaii.  I've
begun preparing already."

"Mac has his arm broken," observed Carthew; "how would he
stand the voyage?"

"A broken arm?" repeated the captain.  "That all?  I'll set it after
breakfast.  I thought he was dead like the rest.  That madman
hit out like----" and there, at the evocation of the battle, his
voice ceased and the talk died with it.

After breakfast, the three white men went down into the cabin. 

"I've come to set your arm," said the captain.

"I beg your pardon, captain," replied Mac; "but the firrst thing
ye got to do is to get this ship to sea.  We'll talk of me arrum
after that."

"O, there's no such blooming hurry," returned Wicks.

"When the next ship sails in, ye'll tell me stories!" retorted Mac. 

"But there's nothing so unlikely in the world," objected
Carthew.

"Don't be deceivin' yourself," said Mac.  "If ye want a ship,
divil a one'll look near ye in six year; but if ye don't, ye may
take my word for ut, we'll have a squadron layin' here."

"That's what I say," cried Tommy; "that's what I call sense!
Let's stock that whaleboat and be off."

"And what will Captain Wicks be thinking of the whaleboat?"
asked the Irishman.

"I don't think of it at all," said Wicks.  "We've a smart-looking
brig under foot; that's all the whaleboat I want."

"Excuse me!" cried Tommy.  "That's childish talk.  You've got a
brig, to be sure, and what use is she?  You daren't go anywhere
in her.  What port are you to sail for?"

"For the port of Davy Jones's Locker, my son," replied the
captain.  "This brig's going to be lost at sea.  I'll tell you where,
too, and that's about forty miles to windward of Kauai.  We're
going to stay by her till she's down; and once the masts are
under, she's the Flying Scud no more, and we never heard of
such a brig; and it's the crew of the schooner Currency Lass
that comes ashore in the boat, and takes the first chance to
Sydney."

"Captain dear, that's the first Christian word I've heard of ut!"
cried Mac.  "And now, just let me arrum be, jewel, and get the
brig outside."

"I'm as anxious as yourself, Mac," returned Wicks; "but there's
not wind enough to swear by.  So let's see your arm, and no
more talk."

The arm was set and splinted; the body of Brown fetched from
the forepeak, where it lay still and cold, and committed to the
waters of the lagoon; and the washing of the cabin rudely
finished.  All these were done ere midday; and it was past three
when the first cat's-paw ruffled the lagoon, and the wind came
in a dry squall, which presently sobered to a steady breeze.

The interval was passed by all in feverish impatience, and by
one of the party in secret and extreme concern of mind. 
Captain Wicks was a fore-and-aft sailor; he could take a
schooner through a Scotch reel, felt her mouth and divined her
temper like a rider with a horse; she, on her side, recognising
her master and following his wishes like a dog.  But by a not
very unusual train of circumstance, the man's dexterity was
partial and circumscribed.  On a schooner's deck he was
Rembrandt or (at the least) Mr. Whistler; on board a brig he
was Pierre Grassou.  Again and again in the course of the
morning, he had reasoned out his policy and rehearsed his
orders; and ever with the same depression and weariness.  It
was guess-work; it was chance; the ship might behave as he
expected, and might not; suppose she failed him, he stood there
helpless, beggared of all the proved resources of experience. 
Had not all hands been so weary, had he not feared to
communicate his own misgivings, he could have towed her out. 
But these reasons sufficed, and the most he could do was to
take all possible precautions.  Accordingly he had Carthew aft,
explained what was to be done with anxious patience, and
visited along with him the various sheets and braces. 

"I hope I'll remember," said Carthew.  "It seems awfully
muddled."

"It's the rottenest kind of rig," the captain admitted: "all
blooming pocket handkerchiefs!  And not one sailor-man on
deck!  Ah, if she'd only been a brigantine, now!  But it's lucky
the passage is so plain; there's no manoeuvring to mention.  We
get under way before the wind, and run right so till we begin to
get foul of the island; then we haul our wind and lie as near
south-east as may be till we're on that line; 'bout ship there and
stand straight out on the port tack.  Catch the idea?"

"Yes, I see the idea," replied Carthew, rather dismally, and the
two incompetents studied for a long time in silence the
complicated gear above their heads.

But the time came when these rehearsals must be put in
practice.  The sails were lowered, and all hands heaved the
anchor short.  The whaleboat was then cut adrift, the upper
topsails and the spanker set, the yards braced up, and the
spanker sheet hauled out to starboard.

"Heave away on your anchor, Mr. Carthew."

"Anchor's gone, sir."

"Set jibs."

It was done, and the brig still hung enchanted.  Wicks, his head
full of a schooner's mainsail, turned his mind to the spanker. 
First he hauled in the sheet, and then he hauled it out, with no
result.

"Brail the damned thing up!" he bawled at last, with a red face. 
"There ain't no sense in it."

It was the last stroke of bewilderment for the poor captain, that
he had no sooner brailed up the spanker than the vessel came
before the wind.  The laws of nature seemed to him to be
suspended; he was like a man in a world of pantomime tricks;
the cause of any result, and the probable result of any action,
equally concealed from him.  He was the more careful not to
shake the nerve of his amateur assistants.  He stood there with
a face like a torch; but he gave his orders with aplomb; and
indeed, now the ship was under weigh, supposed his
difficulties over.

The lower topsails and courses were then set, and the brig
began to walk the water like a thing of life, her forefoot
discoursing music, the birds flying and crying over her spars. 
Bit by bit the passage began to open and the blue sea to show
between the flanking breakers on the reef; bit by bit, on the
starboard bow, the low land of the islet began to heave closer
aboard.  The yards were braced up, the spanker sheet hauled aft
again; the brig was close hauled, lay down to her work like a
thing in earnest, and had soon drawn near to the point of
advantage, where she might stay and lie out of the lagoon in a
single tack.

Wicks took the wheel himself, swelling with success.  He kept
the brig full to give her heels, and began to bark his orders:
"Ready about.  Helm's a-lee.  Tacks and sheets.  Mainsail
haul."  And then the fatal words: "That'll do your mainsail;
jump forrard and haul round your foreyards."

To stay a square-rigged ship is an affair of knowledge and swift
sight; and a man used to the succinct evolutions of a schooner
will always tend to be too hasty with a brig.  It was so now. 
The order came too soon; the topsails set flat aback; the ship
was in irons.  Even yet, had the helm been reversed, they might
have saved her.  But to think of a stern-board at all, far more to
think of profiting by one, were foreign to the schooner-sailor's
mind.  Wicks made haste instead to wear ship, a manoeuvre for
which room was wanting, and the Flying Scud took ground on
a bank of sand and coral about twenty minutes before five.

Wicks was no hand with a square-rigger, and he had shown it. 
But he was a sailor and a born captain of men for all homely
purposes, where intellect is not required and an eye in a man's
head and a heart under his jacket will suffice.  Before the others
had time to understand the misfortune, he was bawling fresh
orders, and had the sails clewed up, and took soundings round
the ship.

"She lies lovely," he remarked, and ordered out a boat with the
starboard anchor.

"Here! steady!" cried Tommy.  "You ain't going to turn us to, to
warp her off?"

"I am though," replied Wicks.

"I won't set a hand to such tomfoolery for one," replied Tommy. 
"I'm dead beat." He went and sat down doggedly on the main
hatch.  "You got us on; get us off again," he added.

Carthew and Wicks turned to each other.

"Perhaps you don't know how tired we are," said Carthew.

"The tide's flowing!" cried the captain.  "You wouldn't have me
miss a rising tide?"

"O, gammon! there's tides to-morrow!" retorted Tommy.

"And I'll tell you what," added Carthew, "the breeze is failing
fast, and the sun will soon be down.  We may get into all kinds
of fresh mess in the dark and with nothing but light airs."

"I don't deny it," answered Wicks, and stood awhile as if in
thought.  "But what I can't make out," he began again, with
agitation, "what I can't make out is what you're made of!  To
stay in this place is beyond me.  There's the bloody sun going
down--and to stay here is beyond me!"

The others looked upon him with horrified surprise.  This fall
of their chief pillar--this irrational passion in the practical man,
suddenly barred out of his true sphere, the sphere of action--
shocked and daunted them.  But it gave to another and unseen
hearer the chance for which he had been waiting.  Mac, on the
striking of the brig, had crawled up the companion, and he now
showed himself and spoke up.

"Captain Wicks," said he, "it's me that brought this trouble on
the lot of ye.  I'm sorry for ut, I ask all your pardons, and if
there's any one can say 'I forgive ye,' it'll make my soul the
lighter."

Wicks stared upon the man in amaze; then his self-control
returned to him.  "We're all in glass houses here," he said; "we
ain't going to turn to and throw stones.  I forgive you, sure
enough; and much good may it do you!"

The others spoke to the same purpose.

"I thank ye for ut, and 'tis done like gentlemen," said Mac. 
"But there's another thing I have upon my mind.  I hope we're
all Prodestan's here?"

It appeared they were; it seemed a small thing for the Protestant
religion to rejoice in!

"Well, that's as it should be," continued Mac.  "And why
shouldn't we say the Lord's Prayer?  There can't be no hurt in
ut."

He had the same quiet, pleading, childlike way with him as in
the morning; and the others accepted his proposal, and knelt
down without a word.

"Knale if ye like!" said he.  "I'll stand."  And he covered his
eyes.

So the prayer was said to the accompaniment of the surf and
seabirds, and all rose refreshed and felt lightened of a load.  Up
to then, they had cherished their guilty memories in private, or
only referred to them in the heat of a moment and fallen
immediately silent.  Now they had faced their remorse in
company, and the worst seemed over.  Nor was it only that. 
But the petition "Forgive us our trespasses," falling in so
apposite after they had themselves forgiven the immediate
author of their miseries, sounded like an absolution.

Tea was taken on deck in the time of the sunset, and not long
after the five castaways--castaways once more--lay down to
sleep.

Day dawned windless and hot.  Their slumbers had been too
profound to be refreshing, and they woke listless, and sat up,
and stared about them with dull eyes.  Only Wicks, smelling a
hard day's work ahead, was more alert.  He went first to the
well, sounded it once and then a second time, and stood awhile
with a grim look, so that all could see he was dissatisfied. 
Then he shook himself, stripped to the buff, clambered on the
rail, drew himself up and raised his arms to plunge.  The dive
was never taken.  He stood instead transfixed, his eyes on the
horizon.

"Hand up that glass," he said.

In a trice they were all swarming aloft, the nude captain leading
with the glass.

On the northern horizon was a finger of grey smoke, straight in
the windless air like a point of admiration.

"What do you make it?" they asked of Wicks.

"She's truck down," he replied; "no telling yet.  By the way the
smoke builds, she must be heading right here."

"What can she be?"

"She might be a China mail," returned Wicks, "and she might
be a blooming man-of-war, come to look for castaways.  Here! 
This ain't the time to stand staring.  On deck, boys!"

He was the first on deck, as he had been the first aloft, handed
down the ensign, bent it again to the signal halliards, and ran it
up union down.

"Now hear me," he said, jumping into his trousers, "and
everything I say you grip on to.  If that's a man-of-war, she'll be
in a tearing hurry; all these ships are what don't do nothing and
have their expenses paid.  That's our chance; for we'll go with
them, and they won't take the time to look twice or to ask a
question.  I'm Captain Trent; Carthew, you're Goddedaal;
Tommy, you're Hardy; Mac's Brown; Amalu--  Hold hard! we
can't make a Chinaman of him!  Ah Wing must have deserted;
Amalu stowed away; and I turned him to as cook, and was
never at the bother to sign him.  Catch the idea?  Say your
names."

And that pale company recited their lesson earnestly.

"What were the names of the other two?" he asked.  "Him
Carthew shot in the companion, and the one I caught in the jaw
on the main top-gallant?"

"Holdorsen and Wallen," said some one.

"Well, they're drowned," continued Wicks; "drowned alongside
trying to lower a boat.  We had a bit of a squall last night: 
that's how we got ashore."  He ran and squinted at the compass. 
"Squall out of nor'-nor'-west-half-west; blew hard; every one in
a mess, falls jammed, and Holdorsen and Wallen spilt
overboard.  See?  Clear your blooming heads!"  He was in his
jacket now, and spoke with a feverish impatience and
contention that rang like anger.

"But is it safe?" asked Tommy.

"Safe?" bellowed the captain.  "We're standing on the drop, you
moon-calf!  If that ship's bound for China (which she don't look
to be), we're lost as soon as we arrive; if she's bound the other
way, she comes from China, don't she?  Well, if there's a man
on board of her that ever clapped eyes on Trent or any
blooming hand out of this brig, we'll all be in irons in two
hours.  Safe! no, it ain't safe; it's a beggarly last chance to shave
the gallows, and that's what it is."

At this convincing picture, fear took hold on all.

"Hadn't we a hundred times better stay by the brig?" cried
Carthew.  "They would give us a hand to float her off."

"You'll make me waste this holy day in chattering!" cried
Wicks.  "Look here, when I sounded the well this morning,
there was two foot of water there against eight inches last
night.  What's wrong?  I don't know; might be nothing; might
be the worst kind of smash.  And then, there we are in for a
thousand miles in an open boat, if that's your taste!"

"But it may be nothing, and anyway their carpenters are bound
to help us repair her," argued Carthew.

"Moses Murphy!" cried the captain.  "How did she strike? 
Bows on, I believe.  And she's down by the head now.  If any
carpenter comes tinkering here, where'll he go first?  Down in
the forepeak, I suppose!  And then, how about all that blood
among the chandlery?  You would think you were a lot of
members of Parliament discussing Plimsoll; and you're just a
pack of murderers with the halter round your neck.  Any other
ass got any time to waste?  No?  Thank God for that!  Now, all
hands!  I'm going below, and I leave you here on deck.  You get
the boat cover off that boat; then you turn to and open the
specie chest.  There are five of us; get five chests, and divide
the specie equal among the five--put it at the bottom--and go at
it like tigers.  Get blankets, or canvas, or clothes, so it won't
rattle.  It'll make five pretty heavy chests, but we can't help that. 
You, Carthew--dash me!--You, Mr. Goddedaal, come below. 
We've our share before us."

And he cast another glance at the smoke, and hurried below
with Carthew at his heels.

The logs were found in the main cabin behind the canary's
cage; two of them, one kept by Trent, one by Goddedaal. 
Wicks looked first at one, then at the other, and his lip stuck
out.

"Can you forge hand of write?" he asked.

"No," said Carthew.

"There's luck for you--no more can I!" cried the captain. 
"Hullo! here's worse yet, here's this Goddedaal up to date; he
must have filled it in before supper.  See for yourself: 'Smoke
observed.--Captain Kirkup and five hands of the schooner
Currency Lass.'  Ah! this is better," he added, turning to the
other log.  "The old man ain't written anything for a clear
fortnight.  We'll dispose of your log altogether, Mr. Goddedaal,
and stick to the old man's--to mine, I mean; only I ain't going to
write it up, for reasons of my own.  You are.  You're going to
sit down right here and fill it in the way I tell you."

"How to explain the loss of mine?" asked Carthew.

"You never kept one," replied the captain.  "Gross neglect of
duty.  You'll catch it."

"And the change of writing?" resumed Carthew.  "You began;
why do you stop and why do I come in?  And you'll have to
sign anyway."

"O! I've met with an accident and can't write," replied Wicks.

"An accident?" repeated Carthew.  "It don't sound natural. 
What kind of an accident?"

Wicks spread his hand face-up on the table, and drove a knife
through his palm.

"That kind of an accident," said he.  "There's a way to draw to
windward of most difficulties, if you've a head on your
shoulders."  He began to bind up his hand with a handkerchief,
glancing the while over Goddedaal's log.  "Hullo!" he said,
"this'll never do for us--this is an impossible kind of a yarn. 
Here, to begin with, is this Captain Trent trying some fancy
course, leastways he's a thousand miles to south'ard of the great
circle.  And here, it seems, he was close up with this island on
the sixth, sails all these days, and is close up with it again by
daylight on the eleventh."

"Goddedaal said they had the deuce's luck," said Carthew.

"Well, it don't look like real life--that's all I can say," returned
Wicks.

"It's the way it was, though," argued Carthew.

"So it is; and what the better are we for that, if it don't look so?"
cried the captain, sounding unwonted depths of art criticism. 
"Here! try and see if you can't tie this bandage; I'm bleeding
like a pig."

As Carthew sought to adjust the handkerchief, his patient
seemed sunk in a deep muse, his eye veiled, his mouth partly
open.  The job was yet scarce done, when he sprang to his feet.

"I have it," he broke out, and ran on deck.  "Here, boys!" he
cried, "we didn't come here on the eleventh; we came in here on
the evening of the sixth, and lay here ever since becalmed.  As
soon as you've done with these chests," he added, "you can turn
to and roll out beef and water breakers; it'll look more
shipshape--like as if we were getting ready for the boat
voyage."

And he was back again in a moment, cooking the new log. 
Goddedaal's was then carefully destroyed, and a hunt began for
the ship's papers.  Of all the agonies of that breathless morning,
this was perhaps the most poignant.  Here and there the two
men searched, cursing, cannoning together, streaming with
heat, freezing with terror.  News was bawled down to them that
the ship was indeed a man-of-war, that she was close up, that
she was lowering a boat; and still they sought in vain.  By what
accident they missed the iron box with the money and accounts,
is hard to fancy; but they did.  And the vital documents were
found at last in the pocket of Trent's shore-going coat, where he
had left them when last he came on board.

Wicks smiled for the first time that morning.  "None too soon,"
said he.  "And now for it!  Take these others for me; I'm afraid
I'll get them mixed if I keep both."

"What are they?" Carthew asked.

"They're the Kirkup and Currency Lass papers," he replied. 
"Pray God we need 'em again!"


"Boat's inside the lagoon, sir," hailed down Mac, who sat by
the skylight doing sentry while the others worked.

"Time we were on deck, then, Mr. Goddedaal," said Wicks.

As they turned to leave the cabin, the canary burst into piercing
song.

"My God!" cried Carthew, with a gulp, "we can't leave that
wretched bird to starve.  It was poor Goddedaal's."

"Bring the bally thing along!" cried the captain.

And they went on deck.

An ugly brute of a modern man-of-war lay just without the reef,
now quite inert, now giving a flap or two with her propeller. 
Nearer hand, and just within, a big white boat came skimming
to the stroke of many oars, her ensign blowing at the stern. 

"One word more," said Wicks, after he had taken in the scene. 
"Mac, you've been in China ports?  All right; then you can
speak for yourself.  The rest of you I kept on board all the time
we were in Hongkong, hoping you would desert; but you fooled
me and stuck to the brig. That'll make your lying come easier."

The boat was now close at hand; a boy in the stern sheets was
the only officer, and a poor one plainly, for the men were
talking as they pulled.

"Thank God, they've only sent a kind of a middy!" ejaculated
Wicks.  "Here you, Hardy, stand for'ard!  I'll have no deck
hands on my quarter-deck," he cried, and the reproof braced the
whole crew like a cold douche.

The boat came alongside with perfect neatness, and the boy
officer stepped on board, where he was respectfully greeted by
Wicks.

"You the master of this ship?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," said Wicks.  "Trent is my name, and this is the
Flying Scud of Hull."

"You seem to have got into a mess," said the officer.

"If you'll step aft with me here, I'll tell you all there is of it,"
said Wicks.

"Why, man, you're shaking!" cried the officer.

"So would you, perhaps, if you had been in the same berth,"
returned Wicks; and he told the whole story of the rotten water,
the long calm, the squall, the seamen drowned; glibly and
hotly; talking, with his head in the lion's mouth, like one
pleading in the dock.  I heard the same tale from the same
narrator in the saloon in San Francisco; and even then his
bearing filled me with suspicion.  But the officer was no
observer.

"Well, the captain is in no end of a hurry," said he; "but I was
instructed to give you all the assistance in my power, and
signal back for another boat if more hands were necessary. 
What can I do for you?"

"O, we won't keep you no time," replied Wicks cheerily. 
"We're all ready, bless you--men's chests, chronometer, papers
and all."

"Do you mean to leave her?" cried the officer.  "She seems to
me to lie nicely; can't we get your ship off?"

"So we could, and no mistake; but how we're to keep her
afloat's another question.  Her bows is stove in," replied Wicks.

The officer coloured to the eyes.  He was incompetent and
knew he was; thought he was already detected, and feared to
expose himself again.  There was nothing further from his mind
than that the captain should deceive him; if the captain was
pleased, why, so was he.  "All right," he said.  "Tell your men
to get their chests aboard."

"Mr. Goddedaal, turn the hands to to get the chests aboard,"
said Wicks.

The four Currency Lasses had waited the while on tenter-
hooks.  This welcome news broke upon them like the sun at
midnight; and Hadden burst into a storm of tears, sobbing
aloud as he heaved upon the tackle.  But the work went none
the less briskly forward; chests, men, and bundles were got
over the side with alacrity; the boat was shoved off; it moved
out of the long shadow of the Flying Scud, and its bows were
pointed at the passage.

So much, then, was accomplished.  The sham wreck had
passed muster; they were clear of her, they were safe away; and
the water widened between them and her damning evidences. 
On the other hand, they were drawing nearer to the ship of war,
which might very well prove to be their prison and a hangman's
cart to bear them to the gallows--of which they had not yet
learned either whence she came or whither she was bound; and
the doubt weighed upon their heart like mountains.

It was Wicks who did the talking.  The sound was small in
Carthew's ears, like the voices of men miles away, but the
meaning of each word struck home to him like a bullet.  "What
did you say your ship was?" inquired Wicks.

"Tempest, don't you know?" returned the officer.

Don't you know?  What could that mean?  Perhaps nothing:
perhaps that the ships had met already.  Wicks took his
courage in both hands.  "Where is she bound?" he asked.

"O, we're just looking in at all these miserable islands here,"
said the officer.  "Then we bear up for San Francisco."

"O, yes, you're from China ways, like us?" pursued Wicks.

"Hong Kong," said the officer, and spat over the side.

Hong Kong.  Then the game was up; as soon as they set foot on
board, they would be seized; the wreck would be examined, the
blood found, the lagoon perhaps dredged, and the bodies of the
dead would reappear to testify.  An impulse almost
incontrollable bade Carthew rise from the thwart, shriek out
aloud, and leap overboard; it seemed so vain a thing to
dissemble longer, to dally with the inevitable, to spin out some
hundred seconds more of agonised suspense, with shame and
death thus visibly approaching.  But the indomitable Wicks
persevered.  His face was like a skull, his voice scarce
recognisable; the dullest of men and officers (it seemed) must
have remarked that telltale countenance and broken utterance. 
And still he persevered, bent upon certitude.

"Nice place, Hong Kong?" he said.

"I'm sure I don't know," said the officer.  "Only a day and a half
there; called for orders and came straight on here.  Never heard
of such a beastly cruise."  And he went on describing and
lamenting the untoward fortunes of the Tempest.

But Wicks and Carthew heeded him no longer.  They lay back
on the gunnel, breathing deep, sunk in a stupor of the body:  the
mind within still nimbly and agreeably at work, measuring the
past danger, exulting in the present relief, numbering with
ecstasy their ultimate chances of escape.  For the voyage in the
man-of-war they were now safe; yet a few more days of peril,
activity, and presence of mind in San Francisco, and the whole
horrid tale was blotted out; and Wicks again became Kirkup,
and Goddedaal became Carthew--men beyond all shot of
possible suspicion, men who had never heard of the Flying
Scud, who had never been in sight of Midway Reef.

So they came alongside, under many craning heads of seamen
and projecting mouths of guns; so they climbed on board
somnambulous, and looked blindly about them at the tall spars,
the white decks, and the crowding ship's company, and heard
men as from far away, and answered them at random.

And then a hand fell softly on Carthew's shoulder.


"Why, Norrie, old chappie, where have you dropped from?  All
the world's been looking for you.  Don't you know you've come
into your kingdom?"

He turned, beheld the face of his old schoolmate Sebright, and
fell unconscious at his feet.

The doctor was attending him, a while later, in Lieutenant
Sebright's cabin, when he came to himself.  He opened his
eyes, looked hard in the strange face, and spoke with a kind of
solemn vigour.

"Brown must go the same road," he said; "now or never."  And
then paused, and his reason coming to him with more
clearness, spoke again: "What was I saying?  Where am I?
Who are you?"

"I am the doctor of the Tempest," was the reply.  "You are in
Lieutenant Sebright's berth, and you may dismiss all concern
from your mind.  Your troubles are over, Mr. Carthew."

"Why do you call me that?" he asked.  "Ah, I remember--
Sebright knew me!  O!" and he groaned and shook.  "Send
down Wicks to me; I must see Wicks at once!" he cried, and
seized the doctor's wrist with unconscious violence.

"All right," said the doctor.  "Let's make a bargain.  You
swallow down this draught, and I'll go and fetch Wicks."

And he gave the wretched man an opiate that laid him out
within ten minutes and in all likelihood preserved his reason.

It was the doctor's next business to attend to Mac; and he found
occasion, while engaged upon his arm, to make the man repeat
the names of the rescued crew.  It was now the turn of the
captain, and there is no doubt he was no longer the man that
we have seen; sudden relief, the sense of perfect safety, a
square meal and a good glass of grog, had all combined to
relax his vigilance and depress his energy.

"When was this done?" asked the doctor, looking at the wound.

"More than a week ago," replied Wicks, thinking singly of his
log.

"Hey?" cried the doctor, and he raised his hand and looked the
captain in the eyes.

"I don't remember exactly," faltered Wicks.

And at this remarkable falsehood, the suspicions of the doctor
were at once quadrupled.

"By the way, which of you is called Wicks?" he asked easily.

"What's that?" snapped the captain, falling white as paper.

"Wicks," repeated the doctor; "which of you is he? that's surely
a plain question."

Wicks stared upon his questioner in silence.

"Which is Brown, then?" pursued the doctor.

"What are you talking of? what do you mean by this?" cried
Wicks, snatching his half-bandaged hand away, so that the
blood sprinkled in the surgeon's face.

He did not trouble to remove it.  Looking straight at his victim,
he pursued his questions.  "Why must Brown go the same
way?" he asked.

Wicks fell trembling on a locker.  "Carthew's told you," he
cried.

"No," replied the doctor, "he has not.  But he and you between
you have set me thinking, and I think there's something
wrong."

"Give me some grog," said Wicks.  "I'd rather tell than have
you find out.  I'm damned if it's half as bad as what any one
would think."

And with the help of a couple of strong grogs, the tragedy of
the Flying Scud was told for the first time.

It was a fortunate series of accidents that brought the story to
the doctor.  He understood and pitied the position of these
wretched men, and came whole-heartedly to their assistance. 
He and Wicks and Carthew (so soon as he was recovered) held
a hundred councils and prepared a policy for San Francisco.  It
was he who certified "Goddedaal" unfit to be moved and
smuggled Carthew ashore under cloud of night; it was he who
kept Wicks's wound open that he might sign with his left hand;
he who took all their Chile silver and (in the course of the first
day) got it converted for them into portable gold.  He used his
influence in the wardroom to keep the tongues of the young
officers in order, so that Carthew's identification was kept out
of the papers.  And he rendered another service yet more
important.  He had a friend in San Francisco, a millionaire; to
this man he privately presented Carthew as a young gentleman
come newly into a huge estate, but troubled with Jew debts
which he was trying to settle on the quiet.  The millionaire
came readily to help; and it was with his money that the
wrecker gang was to be fought.  What was his name, out of a
thousand guesses?  It was Douglas Longhurst.

As long as the Currency Lasses could all disappear under fresh
names, it did not greatly matter if the brig were bought, or any
small discrepancies should be discovered in the wrecking.  The
identification of one of their number had changed all that.  The
smallest scandal must now direct attention to the movements of
Norris.  It would be asked how he who had sailed in a schooner
from Sydney, had turned up so shortly after in a brig out of
Hong Kong; and from one question to another all his original
shipmates were pretty sure to be involved.  Hence arose
naturally the idea of preventing danger, profiting by Carthew's
new-found wealth, and buying the brig under an alias; and it
was put in hand with equal energy and caution.  Carthew took
lodgings alone under a false name, picked up Bellairs at
random, and commissioned him to buy the wreck.

"What figure, if you please?" the lawyer asked.

"I want it bought," replied Carthew.  "I don't mind about the
price."

"Any price is no price," said Bellairs.  "Put a name upon it."

"Call it ten thousand pounds then, if you like!" said Carthew.

In the meanwhile, the captain had to walk the streets, appear in
the consulate, be cross-examined by Lloyd's agent, be badgered
about his lost accounts, sign papers with his left hand, and
repeat his lies to every skipper in San Francisco:  not knowing
at what moment he might run into the arms of some old friend
who should hail him by the name of Wicks, or some new
enemy who should be in a position to deny him that of Trent. 
And the latter incident did actually befall him, but was
transformed by his stout countenance into an element of
strength.  It was in the consulate (of all untoward places) that
he suddenly heard a big voice inquiring for Captain Trent.  He
turned with the customary sinking at his heart.

"YOU ain't Captain Trent!" said the stranger, falling back. 
"Why, what's all this?  They tell me you're passing off as
Captain Trent--Captain Jacob Trent--a man I knew since I was
that high."

"O, you're thinking of my uncle as had the bank in Cardiff,"
replied Wicks, with desperate aplomb.

"I declare I never knew he had a nevvy!" said the stranger.

"Well, you see he has!" says Wicks.

"And how is the old man?" asked the other.

"Fit as a fiddle," answered Wicks, and was opportunely
summoned by the clerk.

This alert was the only one until the morning of the sale, when
he was once more alarmed by his interview with Jim; and it
was with some anxiety that he attended the sale, knowing only
that Carthew was to be represented, but neither who was to
represent him nor what were the instructions given.  I suppose
Captain Wicks is a good life.  In spite of his personal
appearance and his own known uneasiness, I suppose he is
secure from apoplexy, or it must have struck him there and
then, as he looked on at the stages of that insane sale and saw
the old brig and her not very valuable cargo knocked down at
last to a total stranger for ten thousand pounds.

It had been agreed that he was to avoid Carthew, and above all
Carthew's lodging, so that no connexion might be traced
between the crew and the pseudonymous purchaser.  But the
hour for caution was gone by, and he caught a tram and made
all speed to Mission Street.

Carthew met him in the door.

"Come away, come away from here," said Carthew; and when
they were clear of the house, "All's up!" he added.


"O, you've heard of the sale, then?" said Wicks.

"The sale!" cried Carthew.  "I declare I had forgotten it."  And
he told of the voice in the telephone, and the maddening
question: "Why did you want to buy the Flying Scud?"

This circumstance, coming on the back of the monstrous
improbabilities of the sale, was enough to have shaken the
reason of Immanuel Kant.  The earth seemed banded together
to defeat them; the stones and the boys on the street appeared to
be in possession of their guilty secret.  Flight was their one
thought.  The treasure of the Currency Lass they packed in
waist-belts, expressed their chests to an imaginary address in
British Columbia, and left San Francisco the same afternoon,
booked for Los Angeles.

The next day they pursued their retreat by the Southern Pacific
route, which Carthew followed on his way to England; but the
other three branched off for Mexico.



                       EPILOGUE:

                    TO WILL H. LOW.

DEAR LOW:  The other day (at Manihiki of all places) I had
the pleasure to meet Dodd.  We sat some two hours in the neat,
little, toy-like church, set with pews after the manner of Europe,
and inlaid with mother-of-pearl in the style (I suppose) of the
New Jerusalem.  The natives, who are decidedly the most
attractive inhabitants of this planet, crowded round us in the
pew, and fawned upon and patted us; and here it was I put my
questions, and Dodd answered me.

I first carried him back to the night in Barbizon when Carthew
told his story, and asked him what was done about Bellairs.  It
seemed he had put the matter to his friend at once, and that
Carthew took it with an inimitable lightness.  "He's poor, and
I'm rich," he had said.  "I can afford to smile at him.  I go
somewhere else, that's all--somewhere that's far away and dear
to get to.  Persia would be found to answer, I fancy.  No end of
a place, Persia.  Why not come with me?"  And they had left
the next afternoon for Constantinople, on their way to Teheran. 
Of the shyster, it is only known (by a newspaper paragraph)
that he returned somehow to San Francisco and died in the
hospital.

"Now there's another point," said I.  "There you are off to Persia
with a millionaire, and rich yourself.  How come you here in
the South Seas, running a trader?"

He said, with a smile, that I had not yet heard of Jim's last
bankruptcy.  "I was about cleaned out once more," he said;
"and then it was that Carthew had this schooner built, and put
me in as supercargo.  It's his yacht and it's my trader; and as
nearly all the expenses go to the yacht, I do pretty well.  As for
Jim, he's right again:  one of the best businesses, they say, in
the West, fruit, cereals, and real estate; and he has a Tartar of a
partner now--Nares, no less.  Nares will keep him straight,
Nares has a big head.  They have their country-places next door
at Saucelito, and I stayed with them time about, the last time I
was on the coast.  Jim had a paper of his own--I think he has a
notion of being senator one of these days--and he wanted me to
throw up the schooner and come and write his editorials.  He
holds strong views on the State Constitution, and so does
Mamie."

"And what became of the other three Currency Lasses after they
left Carthew?" I inquired.

"Well, it seems they had a huge spree in the city of Mexico,"
said Dodd; "and then Hadden and the Irishman took a turn at
the gold fields in Venezuela, and Wicks went on alone to
Valparaiso.  There's a Kirkup in the Chilean navy to this day, I
saw the name in the papers about the Balmaceda war.  Hadden
soon wearied of the mines, and I met him the other day in
Sydney.  The last news he had from Venezuela, Mac had been
knocked over in an attack on the gold train.  So there's only the
three of them left, for Amalu scarcely counts.  He lives on his
own land in Maui, at the side of Hale-a-ka-la, where he keeps
Goddedaal's canary; and they say he sticks to his dollars, which
is a wonder in a Kanaka.  He had a considerable pile to start
with, for not only Hemstead's share but Carthew's was divided
equally among the other four--Mac being counted."

"What did that make for him altogether?" I could not help
asking, for I had been diverted by the number of calculations in
his narrative.

"One hundred and twenty-eight pounds nineteen shillings and
eleven pence halfpenny," he replied with composure.  "That's
leaving out what little he won at Van John.  It's something for a
Kanaka, you know."

And about that time we were at last obliged to yield to the
solicitations of our native admirers, and go to the pastor's house
to drink green cocoanuts.  The ship I was in was sailing the
same night, for Dodd had been beforehand and got all the shell
in the island; and though he pressed me to desert and return
with him to Auckland (whither he was now bound to pick up
Carthew) I was firm in my refusal. 

The truth is, since I have been mixed up with Havens and Dodd
in the design to publish the latter's narrative, I seem to feel no
want for Carthew's society.  Of course I am wholly modern in
sentiment, and think nothing more noble than to publish
people's private affairs at so much a line.  They like it, and if
they don't, they ought to.  But a still small voice keeps telling
me they will not like it always, and perhaps not always stand it. 
Memory besides supplies me with the face of a pressman (in
the sacred phrase) who proved altogether too modern for one of
his neighbours, and 

     Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum

as it were, marshalling us our way.  I am in no haste to 

     --nos proecedens--

be that man's successor.  Carthew has a record as "a clane
shot," and for some years Samoa will be good enough for me. 

We agreed to separate, accordingly; but he took me on board in
his own boat with the hard-wood fittings, and entertained me
on the way with an account of his late visit to Butaritari,
whither he had gone on an errand for Carthew, to see how
Topelius was getting along, and, if necessary, to give him a
helping hand.  But Topelius was in great force, and had
patronised and-- well --out-manoeuvred him.

"Carthew will be pleased," said Dodd; "for there's no doubt
they oppressed the man abominably when they were in the
Currency Lass.  It's diamond cut diamond now."



This, I think, was the most of the news I got from my friend
Loudon; and I hope I was well inspired, and have put all the
questions to which you would be curious to hear an answer.

But there is one more that I daresay you are burning to put to
myself; and that is, what your own name is doing in this place,
cropping up (as it were uncalled-for) on the stern of our poor
ship?  If you were not born in Arcadia, you linger in fancy on
its margin; your thoughts are busied with the flutes of antiquity,
with daffodils, and the classic poplar, and the footsteps of the
nymphs, and the elegant and moving aridity of ancient art. 
Why dedicate to you a tale of a caste so modern;--full of details
of our barbaric manners and unstable morals;--full of the need
and the lust of money, so that there is scarce a page in which
the dollars do not jingle;--full of the unrest and movement of
our century, so that the reader is hurried from place to place
and sea to sea, and the book is less a romance than a
panorama--in the end, as blood-bespattered as an epic?

Well, you are a man interested in all problems of art, even the
most vulgar; and it may amuse you to hear the genesis and
growth of _The Wrecker_.  On board the schooner Equator,
almost within sight of the Johnstone Islands (if anybody knows
where these are) and on a moonlit night when it was a joy to be
alive, the authors were amused with several stories of the sale
of wrecks.  The subject tempted them; and they sat apart in the
alley-way to discuss its possibilities.  "What a tangle it would
make," suggested one, "if the wrong crew were aboard.  But
how to get the wrong crew there?"--"I have it!" cried the other;
"the so-and-so affair!"  For not so many months before, and not
so many hundred miles from where we were then sailing, a
proposition almost tantamount to that of Captain Trent had
been made by a British skipper to some British castaways.

Before we turned in, the scaffolding of the tale had been put
together.  But the question of treatment was as usual more
obscure.  We had long been at once attracted and repelled by
that very modern form of the police novel or mystery story,
which consists in beginning your yarn anywhere but at the
beginning, and finishing it anywhere but at the end; attracted
by its peculiar interest when done, and the peculiar difficulties
that attend its execution; repelled by that appearance of
insincerity and shallowness of tone, which seems its inevitable
drawback.  For the mind of the reader, always bent to pick up
clews, receives no impression of reality or life, rather of an
airless, elaborate mechanism; and the book remains
enthralling, but insignificant, like a game of chess, not a work
of human art.  It seemed the cause might lie partly in the abrupt
attack; and that if the tale were gradually approached, some of
the characters introduced (as it were) beforehand, and the book
started in the tone of a novel of manners and experience briefly
treated, this defect might be lessened and our mystery seem to
inhere in life.  The tone of the age, its movement, the mingling
of races and classes in the dollar hunt, the fiery and not quite
unromantic struggle for existence with its changing trades and
scenery, and two types in particular, that of the American
handy-man of business and that of the Yankee merchant sailor
--we agreed to dwell upon at some length, and make the woof
to our not very precious warp.  Hence Dodd's father, and
Pinkerton, and Nares, and the Dromedary picnics, and the
railway work in New South Wales--the last an unsolicited
testimonial from the powers that be, for the tale was half
written before I saw Carthew's squad toil in the rainy cutting at
South Clifton, or heard from the engineer of his "young swell." 
After we had invented at some expense of time this method of
approaching and fortifying our police novel, it occurred to us it
had been invented previously by some one else, and was in
fact--however painfully different the results may seem--the
method of Charles Dickens in his later work.

I see you staring.  Here, you will say, is a prodigious quantity
of theory to our halfpenny worth of police novel; and withal not
a shadow of an answer to your question.

Well, some of us like theory.  After so long a piece of practice,
these may be indulged for a few pages.  And the answer is at
hand.  It was plainly desirable, from every point of view of
convenience and contrast, that our hero and narrator should
partly stand aside from those with whom he mingles, and be
but a pressed-man in the dollar hunt.  Thus it was that Loudon
Dodd became a student of the plastic arts, and that our globe-
trotting story came to visit Paris and look in at Barbizon.  And
thus it is, dear Low, that your name appears in the address of
this epilogue.

For sure, if any person can here appreciate and read between
the lines, it must be you--and one other, our friend.  All the
dominos will be transparent to your better knowledge; the
statuary contract will be to you a piece of ancient history; and
you will not have now heard for the first time of the dangers of
Roussillon.  Dead leaves from the Bas Breau, echoes from
Lavenue's and the Rue Racine, memories of a common past, let
these be your bookmarkers as you read.  And if you care for
naught else in the story, be a little pleased to breathe once more
for a moment the airs of our youth.

The End.