Arthur Colton 
 
CHAUNCEY WETMORE WELLS 
 
 1872-1933 
 
 This book belonged to Chauncey Wetmore Wells. He taught in 
 Yale College, of which he was a graduate, from 1897 to 1901, and 
 from 1901 to 1933 at this University. 
 
 Chauncey Wells was, essentially, a scholar. The range of his read 
 ing was wide, the breadth of his literary sympathy as uncommon 
 as the breadth of his human sympathy. He was less concerned 
 with the collection of facts than with meditation upon their sig 
 nificance. His distinctive power lay in his ability to give to his 
 students a subtle perception of the inner implications of form, 
 of manners, of taste, of the really disciplined and discriminating 
 mind. And this perception appeared not only in his thinking and 
 teaching but also in all his relations with books and with men. 
 
Two noteworthy books by Arthur Cohen 
 
 Port Argent 
 
 i2mo. $1.50 
 
 A romance of a few weeks in an Ohio city "with 
 growing pains." 
 
 "A story of breathless events and of remarkable 
 concentration." Critic. 
 
 "In its power to give this feel of life of insta 
 bility yet of permanence, of divinity allied to dust 
 the book has a peculiar charm. . . . Mr. Colton is a 
 man with a faculty for cramming his phrases full of 
 meaning, and with a keen perception for the hurry 
 ing, telling life-current seething below the unreveal- 
 ing surface of the commonplace. "Literary Digest. 
 
 " Mr. Colton s work is particularly worthy of praise." 
 Bookman. 
 
 " Arthur Colton is a writer with a remarkably indi 
 vidual outlook." Life. 
 
 " Vivid, . . . somewhat intense, not to say tragic, 
 ... a good story." N. Y. J^tmes Saturday Review. 
 
 11 A quiet story told with such restraint that it is 
 only after laying down the volume that one realizes 
 the bigness of the problems presented, its breadth and 
 richness of thought, and the power of its action." 
 San Francisco Chronicle. 
 
 "A novel which has a fine literary flavor and un 
 usual analytic depth. . . . The book is compelling 
 and has an extraordinary understanding of social dy 
 namics." Chicago Record- Herald. 
 
 Tioba 
 
 i2mo. $1.25 
 
 Mr. Colton here depicts a gallery of very varied 
 Americans. Tioba was a mountain which meant well 
 but was mistaken. 
 
 "He is always the artist observer, adding stroke 
 upon stroke with the surest of sure pens, ... an 
 author who recalls the old traditions that there were 
 once such things as good writing and good story-tell 
 ing." Bookman. 
 
 " He has originality, feeling, humor." Lamp. 
 
 Henry Holt and Company 
 
 Publishers New York 
 
The Belted Seas 
 
 BY 
 
 ARTHUR COLTON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 1905 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1905 
 
 BY 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 Published March, 
 
 IN MEWR1AM 
 
 THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, 
 RAHWAY, N. J. 
 
To 
 C. R. R. 
 
 8G3765 
 
Cold are the feet and forehead of the earth, 
 Temperate his bosom and his knees, 
 
 But huge and hot the midriff of his girth, 
 Where heaves the laughter of the belted seas, 
 
 Where rolls the heavy thunder of his mirth 
 Around the still unstirred Hesperides. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. PEMBERTON S ... j 
 
 II. THE " HEBE MAITLAND IO 
 
 III. THE HOTEL HELEN MAR ... 34 
 
 IV. SADLER IN PORTATE .... 49 
 V. END OF THE HOTEL HELEN MAR . . 75 
 
 VI. TORRE ANANIAS. WHY CAPTAIN BUCK 
 INGHAM DID NOT Go BACK TO GREEN- 
 
 VII. LlEECHEN AND THE EwiGWEIBLICHE. THE 
 
 Loss OF THE "ANACONDA" . . I2 i 
 VIII. SADLER IN SALERATUS. THE GREEN 
 
 DRAGON PAGODA I4r 
 
 IX. KING JULIUS l62 
 
 X. THE KIYI PROPOSITION. SADLER CON 
 CLUDED .... 203 
 XI. THE VOYAGE OF THE " VOODOO" . 219 
 XII. THE FLANNAGAN AND IMPERIAL . . 2 -8 
 XIII. FLANNAGAN AND STEVEY TODD. CAPTAIN 
 
 BUCKINGHAM RETURNS TO GREENOUGH 262 
 
viii Contents 
 
 CHAPTER N PAGE 
 
 XIV. CAPTAIN BUCKINGHAM VISITS THE CEME 
 TERY IN ADRIAN. ANDREW AND MADGE 
 
 McCuLLOCH AND BlLLY CORLISS. CAP 
 TAIN BUCKINGHAM S NARRATIVE ENDS 284 
 XV. THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE . . 298 
 
THE BELTED SEAS 
 
 T 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 pembetton s 
 
 HE clock struck one. It was the tall 
 standing clock in the front room of 
 Pemberton s Hotel, and Pemberton s stands 
 by the highway that runs by the coast of 
 Long Island Sound. It is near the west 
 ern edge of the village of Greenough, the 
 gilt cupola of whose eminent steeple is noted 
 by far-passing ships. On the beach are 
 flimsy summer cottages, and hard beside 
 them is the old harbour, guarded by its 
 stone pier. Whalers and merchantmen used 
 to tie up there a hundred years ago, where 
 now only fishing boats come. The village 
 lies back from the shore, and has three 
 divisions, Newport Street, the Green, and 
 
, 
 
 Pemberton s 
 
 the West End ; of which the first is a broad 
 street with double roads, and there are the 
 post office and the stores ; the second boasts 
 of its gilt-cupolaed church ; the third has the 
 two distinctions of the cemetery and Pem 
 berton s. 
 
 The hotel is not so far from the beach 
 but you can sit in the front room and hear 
 the surf. It was a small hotel when I used 
 to frequent it, and was kept by Pemberton 
 himself gone, now, alas! with his vener 
 able dusty hair and red face, imperturbably 
 amiable. He was no seaman. Throughout 
 his long life he had anchored to his own 
 chimneyside, which was a solid and steady 
 chimney, whose red-brick complexion re 
 sembled its owner s. His wife was dead, 
 and he ran the hotel much alone, except for 
 the company of Uncle Abimelech, Captain 
 Buckingham, Stevey Todd, and such others 
 as came and went, or townsfolk who liked 
 the anchorage. But the three I have named 
 were seamen, and I always found them by 
 
Pemberton s 
 
 Pemberton s chimney. Abe Dalrimple, or 
 Uncle Abe, was near Pemberton s age, and 
 had lived with him for years; but Stevey 
 Todd and Captain B. were younger, and, as 
 I gathered, they had been with Pemberton 
 only for some months past, the captain 
 boarding, and Stevey Todd maybe boarding 
 as well; I don t know; but I know Stevey 
 Todd did some of the cooking, and had 
 been a ship s cook the main part of his life. 
 It seemed to me they acted like a settled 
 family among them anyway. 
 
 Captain Thomas Buckingham was a 
 smallish man of fifty, with a bronzed face, 
 or you might say iron, with respect to its 
 rusty colour, and also it was dark and immo 
 bile. But now and then there would come a 
 glimmer and twist in his eyes, sometimes he 
 would start in talking and flow on like a 
 river, calm, sober, and untiring, and yet 
 again he would be silent for hours. Some 
 might have thought him melancholy, for his 
 manner was of the gravest 
 
Pemberton s 
 
 We were speaking of hotels, that stormy 
 afternoon when the distant surf was moan 
 ing and the wind heaping the snow against 
 the doors, and when the clock had struck, he 
 said slowly: 
 
 " I kept a hotel once. It was in 72 or a 
 bit before. It s a good trade." 
 
 And none of us disputed it was a good 
 trade, as keeping a man indoors in stormy 
 weather. 
 
 "Was it like Pemberton s?" 
 
 " No, not like Pemberton s." 
 
 "Seaside?" 
 
 " No, inland a bit." 
 
 "Summer hotel?" 
 
 " Aye, summer hotel. Always summer 
 there." 
 
 " It must have paid ! " 
 
 " Aye, she paid. It was in South Am 
 
 erica." 
 
 "South America?" 
 
 " Aye, Stevey Todd and I ran her. She 
 was put up in New Bedford by Smith and 
 
Pemberton s 
 
 Morgan, and Stevey Todd and I ran her in 
 South America." 
 
 " How so? Do they export hotels to 
 South America? " 
 
 " There ain t any steady trade in em." 
 And no more would he say just then. For 
 he was that kind of a man, Captain Tom, 
 He would talk or he would not, as suited 
 him. 
 
 Uncle Abimelech was tall and old, and 
 had a long white beard, and was thin in the 
 legs, not to say uncertain on them, and he 
 appeared to wander in his mind as well as in 
 his legs. Stevey Todd was stout, with a 
 smooth, fair face, and in temperament fond 
 of arguing, though cautious about it. For 
 that winter afternoon, when I remarked, 
 hearing the whistling wind and the thunder 
 of the surf, " It blows hard, Mr. Todd," 
 Stevey Todd answered cautiously, " If you 
 called it brisk, I wouldn t maybe argue it, 
 but hard I d argue," and Pemberton said 
 agreeably, " Why, when you put it that way, 
 
Pemberton s 
 
 you re right, not but the meaning was good, 
 ain t a doubt of it ; " and Uncle Abimelech, 
 getting hold of a loose end in his mind, 
 piped up, singing: 
 
 " She blows aloft, she blows alow, 
 Take in your topsails early ; " 
 
 whereas there was no doubt at all about its 
 blowing hard. But Stevey Todd was the 
 kind of a man that liked to argue in good 
 order. 
 
 The meanwhile Captain Buckingham had 
 said nothing so far that afternoon, except 
 on the subject of hotel-keeping in South 
 America. But when Stevey Todd offered 
 to admit that it blew " brisk, but when you 
 say hard, I argue it;" and when Uncle 
 Abimelech piped : 
 
 " She blows aloft, she blows alow, 
 Take in your topsails early ; " 
 
 then Captain Buckingham, who sat leaning 
 forward smoking, with his elbows on his 
 knees, staring at the fire, at last, without 
 stirring in his chair, he spoke up, and said, 
 
Pemberton s 
 
 " She blows all right/ and we waited, think 
 ing he might say more. 
 
 " Pemberton," he went on, " the seaman 
 follows his profit and luck around the world. 
 You sit by your chimney and they come to 
 you. And if I was doing it again, or my 
 old ship, the Annalee, was to come banging 
 and bouncing at this door, saying Have a 
 cruise, Captain Buckingham ; rise up ! I d 
 say: * You go dock yourself." 
 
 " She might, if she came overland, 
 maybe," said Stevey Todd, " seeing it blows 
 brisk, which I admits and I stands by, for 
 she was a tall sailing ship was the Anna- 
 lee." 
 
 " She was that," said Captain Tom; " the 
 best ship I ever sailed in, barring the Hebe 
 Maitland" 
 
 Whereat Stevey Todd said, ff There was 
 a ship ! " and Uncle Abimelech piped up 
 again, singing these singular words: 
 
 " There was a ship 
 In Bailey s Slip. 
 
8 Pemberton s 
 
 One evil day 
 
 We sailed away 
 
 From Bailey s Slip 
 
 We sailed away, with Captain Clyde, 
 
 An old, old man with a copper hide, 
 
 In the Hebe Maitland sailed, Hooroar ! 
 
 And fetched the coast of Ecuador." 
 
 " Aye/ said Captain Tom. " Those were 
 Kid Sadler s verses. There s many of em 
 that Abe can say over, and he can glue a tune 
 to em well, for he s got that kind of a mem 
 ory that s loose, but stringy and long, and he 
 always had. There s only Abe and Stevey 
 Todd and me left of the Hebe Maitland s 
 crew, unless Sadler and Little Irish maybe, 
 for I left them in Burmah, and they may be 
 there. But what I was going to say, Pem- 
 berton, is, I made a mistake somewhere." 
 
 " Why," said Pemberton, " there you may 
 be right." 
 
 " For I was that kind of young one," the 
 captain went on, " which if he s blown up 
 with dynamite, he comes down remarking 
 it s breezy up there. I was that careless." 
 
 Then we drew nearer and knew that Cap- 
 
Pemberton s 
 
 tain Buckingham was hauling up his anchor, 
 and maybe would take us on a long way, 
 which he surely did. The afternoon slipped 
 on, hour by hour, and the fire snapped and 
 cast its red light in our faces, and the kettle 
 sung and the storm outside kept up its mad 
 business, and the surf its monotone. 
 
 " I was so, when I was a lad of eighteen 
 or nineteen," Captain Buckingham said. " I 
 was a wild one, though not large, but limber 
 and clipper-built, and happy any side up, and 
 my notion of human life was that it was 
 something like a cake-walk, and something 
 like a Bartlett pear, as being juicy anywhere 
 you bit in." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 "Debe fl&aWanfc." Captain 
 barn s "Narrative 
 
 " T WAS that way," he said, "full of 
 JL opinions, like one of those little ter 
 rier pups with his tail sawed off, so he 
 wags with the stump, same way a clock does 
 with the pendulum when the weight s gone 
 pretty chipper. I used to come often from 
 the other end of Newport Street, where I 
 was born, to Pemberton s. But that wasn t 
 on account of Pemberton, though he was 
 agreeable, but on account of Madge Pember- 
 ton. Madge and I were agreed, and Pem- 
 berton was agreeable, but I was restless and 
 keyed high in those days, resembling pups, 
 as stated. 
 
 " No anchoring to Pemberton s chimney 
 for me," I says. " No digging clams and 
 fishing for small fry in Long Island Sound 
 for me. I m going to sea." 
 
 IO 
 
The "Hebe Mainland" 1 1 
 
 And Madge asks, "Why?" calm and 
 reasonable, and I was near stumped for rea 
 sons, having only the same reason as a lob 
 ster has for being green. It s the nature of 
 him, which he ll change that colour when 
 he s had experience and learned what s what 
 in the boiling. I fished around for reasons. 
 
 " When I m rich/ I says, " I ll fix up 
 Pemberton s for a swell hotel." 
 
 Madge says, " It s nice as it is," and acted 
 low in her mind. But if she thought the 
 less of me for wanting to go to sea, I couldn t 
 say. Maybe not. 
 
 I left Greenough in the year 65, and went 
 to New York, and the wharves and ships 
 of East River, and didn t expect it would 
 take me long to get rich. 
 
 There were fine ships and many in those 
 days in the East River slips. South Street 
 was full of folk from all over the world, but 
 I walked there as cocky as if I owned it, 
 looking for a ship that pleased me, and I 
 came to one lying at dock with the name 
 
12 The "Hebe Maitland" 
 
 Hebe Maitland in gilt letters on a board that 
 was screwed to her, and I says, " Now, 
 there s a ship ! " Then I heard a man speak 
 up beside me saying, " Just so/ and I turned 
 to look at him. 
 
 He didn t seem like a seaman, but was 
 an old man, and grave-looking, and small, 
 and precise in manner, and not like one 
 trained to the sea, and wore a long, rusty 
 black coat, and his upper lip was shaven. 
 
 " You like her, do ye? " he said. " Now 
 I m thinking you know a good one when you 
 see her." 
 
 I said I thought I did, speaking rather 
 knowing. But when he asked if I d been 
 to sea, I had to say I hadn t ; not on the high 
 seas, nor in any such vessel as the Hebe Mait 
 land. She was painted dingy black, like 
 most of the others, and I judged from her 
 lines that she was a fleet sailer and built 
 for that purpose, rather than for the amount 
 of cargo she might carry. 
 
 " Why, come aboard," he said, and soon 
 
The "Hebe Mainland" 13 
 
 we were seated in a cabin with shiny 
 panels, and a hinge table that swung down 
 from the wall between us. He looked at 
 me through half-shut eyes, pursing his 
 dry lips, and he asked me where I came 
 from. 
 
 That was my first meeting with Clyde. 
 I know now that my coming from Connecti 
 cut was a point in my favour; still I judge 
 he must have taken to me from the start. 
 He surely was good to me always, and that 
 curiously. 
 
 " You want a job," he says. " You ve 
 sailed a bit on fishing smacks in the Sound. 
 But more n that, the point with you is you re 
 ambitious, and not above turning a penny or 
 two in an odd way." 
 
 " That depends on the way," I says pretty 
 uppish, and thinking I wasn t to be inveigled 
 into piracy that way. 
 
 "Just so?" 
 
 " Maybe I ve got scruples," I says, and 
 not a bit did I know what I was talking 
 
14 The "Hebe Maitland" 
 
 about. Captain Clyde rapped the table with 
 his knuckles. 
 
 " I m glad to hear you say it. Scruples ! 
 That s the word, and a right word and a 
 good word. I don t allow any vicious go 
 ings-on aboard this ship. Wherever we go 
 we carry the laws of the United States, and 
 we stand by them laws. We re decent and 
 we stick to our country s laws as duty is. 
 Why now, I m thinking of taking you, for 
 I see you re a likely lad, and one that will 
 argue for his principles. Good wages, good 
 food, good treatment; will you go?" The 
 last was shot out and cut off close behind, his 
 lips shutting like a pair of scissors. I says, 
 M That s what I ll do," and didn t know there 
 was anything odd about it. It might have 
 been the average way a shipmaster picked 
 up a man for aught I knew. I shipped on 
 the bark Hebe Maitland as ordinary sea 
 man. 
 
 The shipping news of that week con 
 tained this item : 
 
The "Hebe Maitland" 15 
 
 " Sailed, Bark, Hebe Maitland, Clyde, 
 Merchandise for Porto del Rey." 
 
 Now, there is such a place as Porto del 
 Rey, for I was there once, but not till twenty 
 years later. 
 
 The Hebe Maitland didn t always go to 
 the place she was billed for, and when she 
 did she was apt to be a month late, and 
 likely couldn t have told what she d been 
 doing in the meantime. Somebody had 
 been doing something, but it wasn t the Hebe 
 Maitland. Ships may have notions for 
 aught I know, and the Hebe Maitland was 
 no fool, but if so, I judge she couldn t have 
 straightened it out without help; and if she 
 argued and got mad about it, that was no 
 more than appropriate, for we all argued 
 on the Hebe Maitland. 
 
 I ve spoken of Captain Clyde. The crew, 
 except one man called " Irish," were all 
 Yankee folk that Clyde had trained, and 
 most of them had been caught young and 
 sailed with him already some years. I never 
 
1 6 The "Hebe Maitland" 
 
 saw so odd an acting crew in the way of 
 arguing. I ve seen Clyde and the bos n with 
 the Bible between them, arguing over it by 
 the hour. It was a singular crew to argue. 
 Stevey Todd here, who was cook, was a 
 Baptist and a Democrat, and the mate he 
 was a Presbyterian and Republican, and the 
 bos n he was for Women s Rights, and there 
 was a man named Simms, who was strong 
 on Predestination and had a theory of trade 
 winds, but he got to arguing once with a 
 man in Mobile, who didn t understand Pre 
 destination and shot him full of holes, sup 
 posing it might be dangerous. It was a 
 singular crew, and especially in the matter 
 of arguing. 
 
 They were all older than I. Stevey 
 Todd was a few years older. I recognised 
 Abe Dalrimple here, for he came from 
 Adrian, though I d seen him but seldom be 
 fore. Three more I ll name, Kid Sadler, 
 J. R. Craney, and Jimmy Hagan, who was 
 called Irish; for they were ones that I had 
 
The "Hebe Maitland" 17 
 
 to do with later. I never met another crew 
 like the Hebe Maitland s. I guess there 
 never was one. 
 
 Aboard and under Clyde s eye they were 
 a quiet crew, even Sadler, who wasn t 
 what you d call submissive by nature, but in 
 port, Clyde would now and then let them 
 run riotous. He was a little, old, dried up, 
 and odd man with a vein of piousness in 
 him, and he could handle men in a way that 
 was very mysterious. 
 
 The fourth day out of New York, as I 
 recollect it, was fair, the sun shining, and 
 everything peaceful except on board the 
 Hebe Maitland. But on the Hebe Maitland 
 the men w r ere running around with paint pots 
 and hauling out canvas from below. No 
 body seemed to tell me what was the mat 
 ter. The Hebe Maitland s hull was any kind 
 of a dingy black, but the rails, canvas, tar 
 paulins, and companion were all white. By 
 the end of the day almost everything had 
 been modified. They d got a kind of fore- 
 
1 8 The "HebeMaitland" 
 
 shortening out of the bowsprit, and another 
 set of canvas partly up that was dirty 
 and patched. The boats were shifted and 
 recovered, cupola taken off the cabin, and 
 the whole look of the ship altered in mid- 
 sea. Then Clyde came out of his cabin with 
 a board in his hand, and they unscrewed the 
 Hebe Maitland s name from forward under 
 the anchor hole, and the Hebe Maitland in 
 gilt was the Hawk in white. 
 
 I went off and sat down on a coil of rope, 
 and the more I thought it over, the more I 
 didn t make it out. 
 
 After that I heard lively talking for 
 ward a little, and there was Captain Clyde, 
 the bos n, mate, Stevey Todd, and some 
 others arguing. 
 
 The bos n was saying he hadn t " sworn 
 no allegiance to no country but the United 
 States, an there ain t no United States 
 laws," he says, " against dodging South 
 American customs that I ever see nohow, 
 and being I never see a South American 
 
The "Hebe Maitland" 19 
 
 man that took much stock in em either, I 
 ain t so uppish as to differ." 
 
 Then Stevey Todd chimed in and made 
 a tidy argument, quoting Scripture to prove 
 that " actions with intent to deceive, and 
 deception pursuant," weren t moral, and, 
 moreover, he says : " Shall we lose our 
 souls because S. A. customs is ridiculous? 
 Tell me that!" 
 
 " Shucks! " says the mate; " we re saved 
 by grace ! " 
 
 Then Captain Clyde took it up and his 
 argument was beautiful. For he said S. A. 
 customs were oppressive to the poor of that 
 country by wrongfully preventing them from 
 buying U. S. goods; so that, having sworn 
 to the U. S., we weren t bound by S. A. laws 
 further than humanity or the Dago was able 
 to enforce; " which/ he says, " I argue ain t 
 either of em the case." 
 
 " That s a tart argiment, Captain Clyde," 
 says the bos n. " I never heerd you make a 
 tarter." 
 
20 The "Hebe Maitland" 
 
 They went on that way till it made my 
 head ache, and before I knew it I was argu 
 ing hard against the bos n, the captain egg 
 ing me on. 
 
 I sailed with that crew four years. They 
 were smugglers. I m free to say I loved 
 Clyde, and liked the crew. For, grant 
 ing he was much of a miser and maybe 
 but a shrewd old man, to be corrupting folks 
 with his theories, though I m not so sure 
 about that, not knowing what he really 
 thought ; yet, he was a bold man, and a kind 
 man, and I never saw one that was keener in 
 judgment. You might say he had made 
 that crew to suit him, having picked out the 
 material one by one, and they were most of 
 all like children of his bringing up. I judge 
 he had a theory about arguments, that so 
 long as they talked up to him and freed their 
 opinions, there wouldn t be any secret trou 
 ble brewing below, or maybe it was only 
 his humour. It was surely a fact that they 
 were steady in business and a rare crew to 
 
The "Hebe Maitland" 21 
 
 his purpose, explain it as one may. He 
 taught me navigation, and treated me like a 
 son, and it s not for me to go back on him. 
 I don t know why he took to me that way, 
 and different from the rest. He taught 
 me his business and how he did it. I was 
 the only one who knew. He was absolute 
 owner as well as captain, and his own buyer 
 and seller as well. He carried no cargoes 
 but his own, which he made up for the most 
 part in New York or Philadelphia, and 
 would bill the Hebe Maitland maybe to Rio 
 Janeiro. Then the Hawk would maybe de 
 liver the biggest part off the coast of 
 Venezuela in the night, and the Hebe Mait 
 land would, like as not, sail into Rio by-and- 
 by and pay her duty on the rest, and take 
 a cargo to New York as properly as a lady 
 going to church. 
 
 There were a good many countries in 
 South America to choose from. It wasn t 
 wise to visit the same one right along, 
 though there was apt to be a new govern- 
 
22 The "Hebe Maitlaftd" 
 
 ment when we came again. Clyde knew all 
 about it. I m not saying but what an odd 
 official of a government here and there was 
 acquainted with the merits of a percentage, 
 being instructed in it by the same. For all 
 that there was excitement. It was a great 
 life. Sometimes I catch myself heaving a 
 sigh for the old man that s dead, and say 
 ing to myself, " That was a great life 
 yonder." 
 
 My recollection is, it was a sub-agent 
 in Cuba who turned evidence on Clyde at 
 last, for a gunboat missed us by only a few 
 miles coming down by St. Christopher, as I 
 heard afterward. Then a Spanish cruiser 
 ran us down, at last, under a corner of a 
 little island among the Windwards, about 
 thirty miles east of Tobago, where Clyde s 
 cleverness came to nothing. 
 
 It was growing twilight, we driving 
 close off the low shores of the island. The 
 woods were dark above the shore, and half 
 a mile out was the black cruiser, with a 
 
The "Hebe Maitland" 23 
 
 pennon of smoke against the sky, and the 
 black water between. I went into Clyde s 
 cabin and found him talking to himself. 
 
 " We ll be scuttling her, Tom," he says. 
 
 With that he gave a jerk at the foot of 
 his bunk, and the footboard came off, and 
 there underneath were four brown canvas 
 bags tied up with rope. Now, I never knew 
 before that day that Clyde didn t keep his 
 money in a bank, same as any other civilised 
 gentleman, and it shows how little I knew 
 about him, after all. He sat there holding 
 up eagles and double pesos to the lamp 
 light, with his eyes shining and his wrinkled 
 old mouth smiling. 
 
 " What are you going to do with that ? " I 
 says, surprised at the sight of it, and he kept 
 on smiling. 
 
 " I guess you and I will take the shiners 
 ashore," he says ; " I d give you a writing, 
 but it would do you no good, Tommy. I m 
 what they called tainted." 
 
 " I don t know what you mean by that," 
 
24 The "Hebe Maitland" 
 
 I says. " Scuttled she is, if you say so. 
 Shall we row for Tobago? " 
 
 " Well, I ll tell you how it is, Tommy," 
 he says. " I don t know what the Dagos 
 will do, and they re pretty likely to get us 
 anyhow, but we ll give em a hunt. But 
 I ve got a fancy you ain t got to the end of 
 your rope yet, lad," and he says no more for 
 a minute or two, and then he heaves a sigh 
 and says : " The shiners are yours if they 
 cut me off. I won t give you no more ad 
 vice, Tommy, but I wish you luck." 
 
 But I don t see why he had such a notion 
 that he was near his own end. 
 
 It was a hard thing to do, to blow a hole 
 in the bottom of the good ship. The night 
 was dark now, but the lights of the cruiser 
 in plain sight, and we knew she d stand off 
 until morning, or as long as the Hebe Mait- 
 land s lanterns burned at the masts. The 
 crew put off in three boats to round the 
 island and wait for us, and Clyde and I took 
 the fourth boat, and stowed the canvas bags, 
 
The "Hebe Maitland" 25 
 
 and went ashore, running up a little reedy in 
 let to the end. We buried them in the exact 
 middle of a small triangle of three trees. 
 Then we rowed out, and I threw the spade 
 in the water, and when we rounded the 
 island, taking a last look at the Hebe Malt- 
 land, she was dipping considerable, as could 
 be seen from the hang of her lanterns. 
 Clyde changed to another boat and put 
 Sadler, Craney, Irish, Abe Dalrimple, and 
 Stevey Todd, into mine. 
 
 I noticed it as curious about us, that so 
 long as the old man was at hand, telling us 
 what to do, we all acted chipper and cheer 
 ful, but as soon as we d drifted apart, we 
 grew quieter, and Stevey Todd began to 
 act scared and lost, and was for seeing Span 
 ish cruisers drop out of the air, and for call 
 ing the old man continually. Somehow we 
 dropped apart in the dark. 
 
 I ve sometimes fancied that Clyde put 
 me in that boat with those men because it 
 was the lightest boat, and because Sadler, 
 
26 The "Hebe Maitland" 
 
 Craney, and Little Irish were powerful good 
 rowers, and Abe he had this that was odd 
 about him for a steersman, for though he 
 was always a bit wandering in his mind, yet 
 he could tell land by the smell. Put him 
 within twenty miles of land at sea, no matter 
 how small an island, and he d smell the 
 direction of it, and steer for it like a bullet, 
 and that s a thing he don t understand any 
 more than I. I never made out why Clyde 
 took to me that way, as he surely did, and 
 left me his shiners as sure as he could, and 
 gave me what chance he could for getting 
 away, or so I fancied. Just so surely I 
 never saw him again, when once we d 
 drifted apart that night among the Wind 
 wards. 
 
 A New Orleans paper of the week after 
 held an item more or less like this : 
 
 " An incoming steamer from Trinidad, 
 reports the overhauling of a smuggler, The 
 Hawk, by the Spanish cruiser, Reina Isa 
 bella. The smugglers scuttled the ship and 
 
The "Hebe Maitland" 27 
 
 endeavoured to escape, but were captured, 
 and are thought to have been all hanged. 
 This summary action would seem entirely 
 unjustifiable, as smuggling is not a capital 
 offence under any civilised law. The dis 
 turbed state of affairs under our Spanish- 
 American neighbours may account for it. 
 The Hawk is stated to be an old offender. 
 No American vessel of this name and de 
 scription being known however, it is not 
 likely that there will be any investigation." 
 
 The New York Shipping News of three 
 months later had this : 
 
 " The bark, Hebe Maitland, Mdse., Clyde, 
 Cap., which left this port the Qth of April, 
 has not yet been heard from." 
 
 So the Reina Isabella thought she got 
 all the crew of the Hebe Maitland, likely she 
 thinks so yet, for I don t know of anybody 
 that ever dropped around to correct her ; but 
 being as we rowed all night to westward 
 and were picked up next morning by an 
 English steamer bound for Colon on the 
 
28 The "Hebe Maitland" 
 
 Isthmus of Panama, and were properly 
 landed in course of time, I argue there were 
 some of them she didn t get. Their names, 
 as standing on Clyde s book, were, " Robert 
 Sadler, James Hagan, Stephen Todd, Julius 
 R. Craney, Abimelech Dalrimple, Thomas 
 Buckingham." 
 
 Kid Sadler, as he was known there and 
 then and since, was a powerful man, bony 
 and tall, with a scrawny throat, ragged, 
 dangling moustache, big hands, little 
 wrinkles around his eyes, and a hoarse voice. 
 I wouldn t go so far as to say I could give 
 you his character, for I never made it out; 
 yet I d say he was given to sentiment, and 
 to turning out poetry like a corn-shucker, and 
 singing it to misfit and uneducated tunes, 
 and given to joyfulness and depression by 
 turns, and to misleading his fellow-man 
 when he was joyful, and suffering remorse 
 for it afterward pretty regular, taking turns, 
 like fever and chills; which qualities, when 
 you take them apart, don t seem likely to fit 
 
The "Hebe Maitland" 29 
 
 together again, and I m not saying they did 
 fit in Sadler. They appeared to me to 
 project over the edges. I never made him 
 out. 
 
 Hagan I never knew to be called any 
 name but " Irish," or " Little Irish," except 
 by Clyde himself. He was small and 
 chunky in build, and nervous in his mind, 
 and had red fuzzy hair that stuck up around 
 his head like an aureole. Generally silent 
 he was, except when excited, and seemed 
 even then to be settled to his place in this 
 world, which was to be Sadler s heeler. He 
 followed Sadler all his after days, so far as 
 I know, same as Stevey Todd did me. I 
 don t know why, but I d say as to Irish, 
 that he was a man without much stiffness or 
 stay-by, if left to himself, whereas Sadler 
 was one that would rather be in trouble than 
 not, if he had the choice. 
 
 As to Craney, I ll say this. When Clyde 
 and I were coming out of the inlet, he gave 
 me a hundred and forty dollars, and he says, 
 
30 The "Hebe Maitland" 
 
 " Look out for Craney," but I had no notion 
 what he meant by it. Now, soon after we 
 landed in Colon, Craney and Abe Dalrimple 
 got a chance for a passage to New York, 
 and my hundred and forty went off some 
 where about the same time. Sadler, Irish, 
 nor Stevey Todd didn j take it, for they 
 didn t have it, not to speak of other rea 
 sons. Abe s given to wandering in his 
 mind, but he don t wander that way either. 
 Now, there were thieves enough in Colon, 
 and Craney never owned to it, but I ll say 
 he showed a weakness afterward for putting 
 cash into my pocket, that I shouldn t have 
 said was natural to him without further rea 
 sons. But supposing he d been there be 
 fore, he surely put more back in the end 
 than he ever took out. On the other hand, if 
 I d had the money in Colon I might have 
 gone back to the Windwards and to the 
 triangle of three trees, with Sadler, Irish, 
 and Stevey Todd, and so back to Greenough 
 and Madge Pemberton, and been a hotel- 
 
The "Hebe Maitland " 31 
 
 keeper maybe, which is a good trade in 
 Greenough. Craney was ambitious and en 
 terprising. He had, as you might say, soar 
 ing ideas, and he d been a valuable man to 
 Clyde for the complicated schemes he was 
 always setting up. He was a medium-sized 
 man, with light hair and eyebrows, and a 
 yellowish face, and a frame lean, though 
 sinewy, and had only one good eye, the other 
 pale like a fish s. His business eye always 
 looked like it was boring a hole in some in 
 genious idea. As an arguer on the Hebe 
 Maitland his style was airy and gorgeous, 
 contrary to the style of Stevey Todd, who 
 was a cautious arguer, and gingerly. 
 
 Craney was about forty years old at the 
 time of the Hebe Maitland s loss, and Sad 
 ler about the same. 
 
 There were four of us then, left at Colon, 
 after Craney and Abe had gone. Pretty 
 soon we were badly off. We couldn t seem 
 to get berths, and not much to eat. One 
 day I up and says : 
 
32 The "Hebe Maitland" 
 
 " I m going across the Isthmus. Who 
 else? " and Sadler says, " One of em s me," 
 and we all went, footing thirty miles the 
 first day, and slept among the rocks on a 
 hillside. 
 
 The fourth day we went down the water 
 shed to the town of Panama. There we 
 found a ship ready in port that was short 
 of hands, and shipped on her to go round the 
 Horn. She was named the Helen Mar. 
 
 Captain Buckingham paused to fill his 
 pipe again, and Stevey Todd said : 
 
 " * Intent to deceive and deception pur 
 suant/ was my words, and I never give in," 
 and Uncle Abimelech piped up to a crazy 
 tune : 
 
 " You can arguy here and arguy there, 
 But them that dangles in the air 
 They surely was mistook somewhere, 
 They ain t got good foundations." 
 
 " Aye," said Captain Buckingham 
 thoughtfully. " It was so. I heard Sad- 
 
The "Hebe Maitland" 33 
 
 ler tune that to his banjo the night we got to 
 Colon. Abe s got that kind of a memory, 
 which is loose but gluey. It was so. Sad 
 ler meant old man Clyde." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Gbe t)0tel l>cten A&ar. Gbe narrative Con* 
 tinned 
 
 MOST ships trading round the Horn 
 to the West Coast in those days 
 would take a charter on the Gulf Stream 
 to clean them well, on account of carrying 
 guano. The Helen Mar carried no guano, 
 and charged freightage accordingly for be 
 ing clean. Drygoods she d brought out 
 from New York, linens, cottons, tinware, 
 shoes, and an outfit of furniture for a 
 Chilian millionaire s house, including a half- 
 dozen baby carriages, and a consignment of 
 silk stockings and patent medicines. Now 
 she was going back, expecting to pick up a 
 cargo of rubber and cocoa and what not, 
 along the West Coast. Captain Goodwin 
 was master, and it happened he was short of 
 hands, including his cook. He hired 
 Stevey Todd for cook, and shipped the rest 
 
 34 
 
The Hotel Helen Mar 35 
 
 of us willing enough. It was in October as 
 I recollect it, and sometime in November 
 when W T C came to lie in the harbour of the 
 city of Portate. 
 
 Portate is about seven hundred miles be 
 low the equator, and has a harbour at the 
 mouth of a river called the Jiron, and even 
 in those days it was an important place, as 
 being at the end of a pass over the Cordil 
 leras. There s a railroad up the pass now, 
 and I hear the city has trolleys and elec 
 tric lights, but at that time it hadn t much 
 excitement except internal rumblings and 
 explosions, meaning it had politics and vol 
 canoes. Most of the ships that came to 
 anchor there belonged to one company 
 called the " British-American Transport 
 Company/ which took most of the rubber 
 and cocoa bark, that came over the pass on 
 mules trains of mules with bells on their 
 collars. But the Helen Mar had a consign 
 ment promised her. The pack mules were 
 due by agreement a week before, so they 
 
36 The Hotel Helen Mar 
 
 naturally wouldn t come for a week after. 
 " Mariana " is a word said to mean " to 
 morrow," but if you took it to mean " next 
 month " you d have a better sight on the in 
 tentions of it. That s the way of it in South 
 America with all but the politics and the 
 climate. The politics and the climate are 
 like this ; when they re quiet, they re asleep ; 
 and when they re not, politics are revolu 
 tions and guns, and the climate is letting 
 off stray volcanoes and shaking up earth 
 quakes. 
 
 But it was pleasant to be in the harbour 
 of Portate. Everything there seemed lazy. 
 You could lie on a bunch of sail cloth, and 
 see the city, the sand, and the bluffs, and the 
 valley of the Jiron up to the nearer Andes. 
 You could look up the level river to some 
 low hills, but what happened to the Jiron 
 there you couldn t tell from the Helen Mar. 
 Beyond were six peaks of the Andes, and 
 four of them were white, and two blue-black 
 in the distance, with little white caps of 
 
The Hotel Helen Mar 
 
 37 
 
 smoke over them. The biggest of the black 
 ones was named " Sarasara," which was a 
 nasty volcano, so a little old boatman told 
 us. 
 
 "Si, senor! Oh, la Sarasara! 
 His name was Cuco, and he sold us ba 
 nanas and mangoes, and was drowned after 
 wards. The Sarasara was a gay bird. The 
 mule drivers called her " The Wicked Grand 
 mother." 
 
 It came on the 23d of November. Cap 
 tain Goodwin and all the crew were gone 
 ashore, excepting Stevey Todd and me left 
 aboard. Sadler and Irish had been ashore 
 several days without showing up, for I re 
 member telling Captain Goodwin that Sad 
 ler wouldn t desert, not being a quitter, at 
 which he didn t seem any more than satisfied. 
 I was feeling injured too, thinking Sadler 
 was likely to be having more happiness than 
 he deserved, maybe setting up a centre of 
 insurrection in Portate, and leaving me out 
 of it. Cuco come out in his boat, putting 
 
38 The Hotel Helen Mar 
 
 it under the ship s side, and crying up to us 
 to buy his mangoes. 
 
 Stevey Todd came out of the galley to 
 tell him his mangoes were no good, so as to 
 get up an argument, and Cuco laughed. 
 
 " Si, sefior," he says, " look ! Ver good." 
 Then he nodded towards the shore : 
 
 " La Sarasara ! Oh, la Sarasara ! " laugh 
 ing and holding up his mangoes. 
 
 The smoke-cap over the Sarasara was 
 blacker than usual and uncommon big it 
 looked to me. Just then it seemed to be 
 going up and spreading out. Stevey Todd 
 looked over the side, and gave a grunt, and 
 he says, " Something s a-suckin the water 
 out of the harbour." 
 
 Then I felt the Helen Mar tugging at 
 her anchor, and the water was going by her 
 like a mill race, and Cuco was gone, and on 
 shore people were running away from the 
 wharves and the river toward the upper 
 town. 
 
 I saw the trees swaying, though there was 
 
The Hotel Helen Mar 39 
 
 no wind, and a building fell down near the 
 water. 
 
 Then Stevey Todd whirled around and 
 flung up his hands. 
 
 "Oh!" he says; "Oh! Oh!" 
 
 I never saw a scareder cook, for he 
 dropped on the deck, and clapped his legs 
 around a capstan and screamed, " Lord ! 
 Lord ! " 
 
 For the whole Pacific Ocean appeared to 
 be heaving out its chest and coming on, 
 eighty feet high. I tied myself around an 
 other capstan, and I says, " Good-night, 
 Tommy ! " 
 
 The tidal wave broke into surf an eighth 
 of a mile out, and came on us in a tum 
 ble of foam, hissing and roaring like a 
 loose menagerie, and down she comes on the 
 Helen Mar, and up goes the Helen Mar 
 climbing through the foam. Me, I hung on 
 to the capstan. 
 
 The next thing I knew we were shooting 
 past the upper town, up the valley of the 
 
40 The Hotel Helen Mar 
 
 Jiron, and there wasn t any lower town to 
 be seen. We were bound for the Andes. 
 The crest of the wave was a few rods ahead, 
 and the air was full of spray. I saw the 
 Sarasara too, having a nice time spitting 
 things out of her mouth, and it looked to 
 me like she waggled her head with the 
 fun she was having. But the Helen Mar 
 was having no fun, nor me, nor Stevey Todd. 
 It was four miles the Helen Mar went 
 in a few minutes, going slower toward the 
 end. By-and-by she hit bottom, and keeled 
 over against a bunch of old fruit trees on the 
 bank of the river, and lay still, or only 
 swayed a little, the water swashing in her 
 hold. Right ahead were the foothills of the 
 Cordilleras, and the gorge where the Jiron 
 came down, and where the mule path 
 came down beside the river. The big 
 wave went up to the foot of the hills, 
 and now it came back peaceful. Then 
 it was quiet everywhere, except for the 
 sobbing of the ebb among the tree trunks, 
 
The Hotel Helen Mar 41 
 
 and afterward lower down in the bed of the 
 river. The ground rose to the foothills 
 there, and the channel of the river lay deep 
 below, with a sandy bank maybe twenty 
 feet high on either side, and on the bank 
 above the river lay the Helen Mar, propped 
 up by the fruit trees. 
 
 By dusk there was no water except in the 
 river, and some pools, but there were heaps 
 of wreckage. Stevey Todd and I got down 
 and looked things over. Down the valley 
 we saw pieces of the town of Portate lying 
 along, and bey9nd we saw the Pacific. And 
 Stevey Todd wiped his face on his sleeves, 
 and he says, " Maybe that s ridiculous, and 
 maybe it ain t/ he says, " but I d argue it." 
 
 We swabbed off the decks of the Helen 
 Mar, and scuttled the bottom of her to let the 
 water out. Then the next day we went 
 down to Portate. There were a sad lot of 
 people drowned, including Captain Goodwin 
 and most of the crew. Sadler and Irish we 
 didn t find, and some others, and there was 
 
42 The Hotel Helen Mar 
 
 a man named Pickett who wasn t drowned. 
 He went south to Lima by-and-by. 
 
 Afterwards we did up the ship s papers, 
 and the cash and bills in the Captain s chest, 
 thinking them proper to go to the ship s 
 owners. And Stevey Todd says : 
 
 " A wreck s a wreck. That river ain t 
 three foot deep. How d they float her out 
 of this? You say, for I ain t made up my 
 mind," he says, which I didn t tell him, not 
 knowing how they d do it. 
 
 For a few days Stevey Todd and I lived 
 high on ship s stores, loafing and looking 
 down the valley at the damaged city. All 
 the river front was wrecked. Halfway up 
 the long sloping hill the streets were sloppy, 
 and any man that had a roof to sleep on, 
 slept drier there than inside, but the upper 
 city was well enough. 
 
 We woke up from sleeping on the shady 
 side of the Helen Mar one afternoon, to hear 
 the jingle of bells, and soon the mule train 
 pulled up alongside, and the drivers weren t 
 
The Hotel Helen Mar 43 
 
 used to seeing ships in that neighbourhood. 
 They were expecting trouble from the Helen 
 Mar for their being two weeks late; but 
 still, finding the Helen Mar up by the foot 
 hills looking for them, it appeared to strike 
 them as impatient and not real ladylike. 
 But what seemed strange to me was to see 
 Sadler and Irish, that were taken for 
 drowned beyond further trouble, standing 
 in front of the mule-drivers, looking down 
 at us, and then up at the Helen Mar, and 
 Sadler seeming like he had a satirical poem 
 on his mind which he was going to propa 
 gate. 
 
 I says, " No ghosteses allowed here. You 
 go away." 
 
 " Tommy," says Sadler, and he came and 
 anchored alongside us in the shadow of the 
 Helen Mar, " I take it these here s the facts. 
 Your natural respectfulness to elders was 
 shocked out of you, and you ain t got 
 over it." 
 
 "Over what?" 
 
44 The Hotel Helen Mar 
 
 " Why, she must ve got tanked up bad," 
 he says. " She must have been full up and 
 corked before she d ever have come prancin 
 up here. My! my! It s tumble when a 
 decent ship gets an appetite for alcohol. 
 Here she lies! Shame and propriety for 
 gotten ! Immodestly exposed to grinnin 
 heathens ! " 
 
 " You let the Helen Mar alone," I says 
 pretty mad. " She ain t so bad as drowned 
 corpses riding mules." 
 
 Then Stevey put in cautiously, and said 
 he d never really made up his mind, and had 
 doubts of it which he was ready to argue, 
 supposing Sadler had any facts to put up 
 as bearing on his and Irish s condition in 
 nature. 
 
 Sadler said they had gone up the mule 
 path expecting to climb Sarasara, but get 
 ting near the top of her, she began to act as 
 if she disliked them, Sarasara did, and she 
 threw rocks vicious and more than playful; 
 so that they left her, and went on up the 
 
The Hotel Helen Mar 45 
 
 pass to look for the mule train. They didn t 
 know anything had happened in Portate. 
 
 We put the mule-drivers up that night 
 and charged them South American rates. 
 That was the way Stevey Todd and I started 
 keeping the Helen Mar as a hotel. Sadler 
 and Irish didn t care for the business. They 
 went down to Portate and got jobs with the 
 Transport Company, but Stevey Todd and I 
 stayed by the Helen Mar, and ran the hotel. 
 
 All the year through or nearly, the mule 
 trains might come jingling at any day or 
 hour, coming from inland over the pass to 
 the sea, with the packs and thirsty drivers, 
 who paid their bills sometimes in gum rubber 
 and Peruvian bark. Tobacco planters stopped 
 there too, going down to Portate. Men 
 from the ships in the harbour came out, and 
 carried off advertisements of the hotel, and 
 plastered the coast with them. I saw an 
 advertisement of the " Hotel Helen Mar " 
 ten years after in a shipping office in San 
 Francisco, and it read: 
 
46 The Hotel Helen Mar 
 
 "Hotel Helen Mar, Portate, Peru. 
 Mountain and Sea Breezes. Board and 
 Lodging Good and Reasonable. Sailor s 
 Snug Harbour. Welcome Jolly Tar. 
 Thomas Buckingham and Stephen Todd." 
 
 That was for foreign patronage. The 
 home advertisements were in Spanish and 
 went up country with the mule trains. Up 
 in the Andes they knew more about the 
 Hotel Helen Mar than they did of the Peru 
 vian Government. We ran the hotel to sur 
 prise South America. 
 
 It was nearly a year before we heard 
 from the ship s owners, though we sent 
 them the proper papers; and then a man 
 came out, and looked at the Helen Mar, and 
 says: 
 
 " I guess she belongs where she is. Run 
 ning a hotel, are you?" and he carried off 
 the sails and other rigging. 
 
 She was propped up at first only by 
 the bunch of fruit trees, but by-and-by we 
 bedded her in stones. We painted a sign 
 
The Hotel Helen Mar 47 
 
 across her forty feet long, but cut no doors, 
 because a seaman won t treat a ship that 
 way. You had to climb ladders to the deck. 
 
 Inside she was comfortable. No hotel 
 piazza could equal the Helen Mar s deck on a 
 warm night, with the old southern stars 
 overhead, when a bunch of mule-drivers 
 maybe would be forward talking, and I and 
 Stevey Todd aft with a couple of Spanish 
 planters, or an agent, or the officers of a 
 warship maybe from England or the States. 
 Over on the hillside lay Captain Goodwin 
 and most of the crew of the Helen Mar, 
 wishing us well, and close to starboard you 
 heard all night the tinkle of the Jiron River 
 down in its channel. It was twenty feet 
 from the deck of the Helen Mar to the 
 ground, and twenty feet from there to the 
 river. 
 
 Portate was a pleasant little city in those 
 days. It had pink-uniformed soldiery for 
 the city guard, and a fat, warm-tempered 
 Mayor, who used often to come up to the 
 
48 The Hotel Helen Mar 
 
 hotel and cool off when something had 
 stuck a pin into his dignity that made him 
 feverish. Stevey Todd was cook and I was 
 manager. Business was good and the com 
 pany good at the Hotel Helen Mar. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 Safclet in portate. Gbe narrative Continued 
 
 I DON T know how Sadler got to be 
 Harbour Master for the Transport 
 Company, but so he did, and he was a 
 capable harbour master. The Transport 
 Company thought much of him, only they 
 said he was reckless, and he surely acted 
 youthful to belie his looks. He used to go 
 around in a grimy little tugboat called the 
 Harvest Moon, \vith Irish running the 
 engine below, and himself busy thrashing 
 and blackguarding roustabouts, joyful like 
 a dewy morn ; but at night he d be found on 
 the deck of either the Helen Mar or the 
 Harvest Moon, playing a banjo very melan 
 choly, and singing his verses to tunes that 
 he got from secret sources of sorrow maybe, 
 which the verses were interesting, but the 
 tunes weren t fortunate. He was particular 
 
 49 
 
50 Sadler in Portate 
 
 about his poetry being accurate to facts, but 
 he d no gift as to tunes. 
 
 The trouble he got into all came from 
 throwing Pedro Hillary off the stern of the 
 Harvest Moon, so that Pete went out with 
 the tide, because no one thought him worth 
 fishing out, till it was found that he was a 
 member of some sort of Masonic Society 
 among the negroes in Ferdinand Street, and 
 a British subject too, who came from 
 Jamaica to Portate. But before that time 
 Pete was picked up by a rowboat, and came 
 back to Portate and Ferdinand Street. He 
 and Ferdinand Street were very mad. It 
 was a street occupied by negroes, and Sadler 
 wasn t popular there. 
 
 He came up to the Helen Mar the after 
 noon of the day that Pete went out of the 
 harbour, and lay in a hammock on deck, 
 where one could look down past the fruit 
 trees toward the town and the mouth of the 
 Jiron. He was making a requiem for Pete 
 Hillary, such as he thought he ought to do 
 
Sadler in Portate 51 
 
 under those circumstances, though the 
 requiem was no good and the tune vicious. 
 11 Pete Hillary/ it began, 
 
 " Pete Hillary, I make for you 
 This lonesome, sad complaint. 
 Alive you wa nt no use, tis true, 
 And dead you prob ly ain t. 
 
 " Pete Hillary, Pete Hillary, 
 I don t know where you are. 
 Here s luck to you, Pete Hillary, 
 Beyond the harbour bar." 
 
 Just then Irish came running up the path, 
 and climbed the ladder on deck, and he cried : 
 
 " It s a warrant for ye, Kid ! Run ! Oh, 
 wirra ! What did ye do it for ? " He was 
 distracted. 
 
 Sadler paid no attention. He only twanged 
 his banjo, and sang casual poetry, and Little 
 Irish ran on: 
 
 " Tis Pete Hillary himself was pulled out 
 forninst the sand-bar/ he says, " an he s 
 back in Ferdinand Street, swearin for the 
 bucket o wather he swallyed. An tis the 
 English consul up to the City Hall says he 
 
52 Sadler in Portate 
 
 come from Jamaica, an a crowd of naygers 
 from Ferdinand Street be the docks. Ah, 
 coom, Kid! Coom quick, for the love of 
 God!" 
 
 And Sadler says : " Gi n me a kiss," he 
 says, 
 
 " Gi n me a kiss, sweetheart, says he; 
 Don t shed no tears for me, says he, 
 And if I meet a lass as sweet 
 In Paraguay, in Paraguay, 
 I ll tell her this: Gi n me a kiss; 
 You ain t half bad for Paraguay. " 
 
 And Irish says : " An there s two twin 
 sojers with their guns," he says, " an belts 
 full of cartridges on the Harvest Moon, an 
 the gentlemen at the Transport says, Hide, 
 dom ye! he says, till they can ship ye wid a 
 cargo to Californy." 
 
 Says Sadler : 
 
 " The little islands fall asleep, 
 
 The little wavelets wink. 
 Aye, God s on high; the sea is deep; 
 
 Go, Chepa, get some drink. 
 Ah, Magdalena 
 
 "Calm, Irish! Get calm!" he says. 
 
Sadler in Portate 53 
 
 " You mean to say there s twins like that 
 occupying the Harvest Moon? 
 
 " Magdalena, 
 
 First I seen her 
 Underneath an orange-tree 
 
 " They are," says Irish. 
 
 " Well ain t they got nerve ! " 
 
 " She was swashin 
 Suds and washin 
 Shirts beneath her orange-tree," 
 
 he says. " Why, I got to go down and 
 spank em ! " he says, and he rolled out of 
 the hammock and went off down the road 
 toward Portate with Irish pattering after 
 him. 
 
 We saw no more of them that day, and 
 we didn t hear any news until the noon fol 
 lowing. There was a gale from the north 
 west in the morning. I went down to the 
 city in the afternoon, and found the Plaza 
 boiling with news. 
 
 It seemed that Sadler had gone aboard 
 the Harvest Moon and surprised the two 
 
54 Sadler in Portate 
 
 soldiers, and dipped them in the water with 
 their artillery, and sent them uptown with 
 the wet warrant stuck in the muzzle of a 
 gun. Then he paraded the Harvest Moon 
 the length of Portate s water-front, tooting 
 his steam whistle. Then the Jefe Municipal 
 that s the Mayor fell into his warmest 
 temper, and sent a company of pink soldiery 
 of the City Guard in the morning, packed 
 close in a tugboat. Then Sadler led them 
 seaward, where the gale was blowing from 
 the northwest and the seas piled past the 
 harbour; so most of the pink soldiers were 
 seasick, not being good mariners, and the 
 gale standing the tugs on their beam-ends, 
 which was no sort of place for a City Guard. 
 They came back unhappy. The Harvest 
 Moon was in again, and now anchored in 
 the harbour. I passed the Jefe myself on 
 the City Hall steps, and heard him b-r-r-ring 
 like a dynamo. Then I went down to the 
 harbour. 
 
 The Harvest Moon lay rolling a half mile 
 
Sadler in Portate 55 
 
 out. I took a rowboat and rowed out. When 
 I drew near, I saw Sadler standing by the rail 
 with the black nozzle of a hose pipe pushed 
 forward, and shading his eyes against the 
 glint of the water. When he saw it was me 
 he took me aboard. But he was thoughtful 
 and depressed. He sat himself on the rail 
 and dangled his boots over the water and 
 described his state of mind. 
 
 "What makes a man act so?" he says. 
 " There s my fellow-man. Look at him ! 
 I m sorry for him. Most of him had hard 
 luck to be born, and yet when he gets in my 
 way I just walk all over him. I can t help 
 it. He s leathery and he s passive, my fel 
 low-man. He goes to sleep in the middle 
 of the road. When I ketch one of him, I 
 kicks a hole in his trousers first, and then it 
 occurs to me, * My suff erin brother ! This 
 is too bad ! Why, Pete Hillary was one 
 of the dumbdest and leatheriest, and here s 
 the Mayor s pink sojers been fillin me with 
 joy and sorrow, till I laughed from eleven 
 
56 Sadler in Portate 
 
 till twelve, and been sheddin tears ever 
 since. Irish s been three times around his 
 rosary before he got the scare kinks out of 
 him, and between Irish bein pathetic, and 
 the Mayor and his sojers comin out pink 
 and going back jammed to the colour of 
 canned salmon, my feelin s is worked up to 
 bust. What makes a man act so? It must 
 be he has cats in him." 
 
 He pulled his moustache and looked 
 gloomy, and I judged his remorse was sin 
 cere. I says : 
 
 "That s what I don t put together. 
 Why, Kid, look here ! If you feel as bad 
 as that three-for-a-cent requiem to Pete 
 Hillary sounded, it s cats all right. It s the 
 same kind that light on back fences and feel 
 sick, and express themselves by clawing 
 faces," I says, " and blaspheming the moon 
 with sounds that never ought to be. That 
 what you mean by cats in him ? " 
 
 " Precise, Tommy, precise." 
 
 " Well, I don t put it together," I says. 
 
Sadler in Portate 57 
 
 " I wouldn t feel like that for the satisfaction 
 of drowning all Ferdinand Street. Why, 
 poetical habits and habits of banging folks 
 don t seem to me to fit. Why," I says, " a 
 poet he s one thing, and a scrapper he s 
 another, ain t they? They don t agree. 
 One of em feels bad about it, and takes to 
 laments and requiems nights, same as ma 
 laria." 
 
 " It s this way," he says. " Those are 
 just two different ways of statin that things 
 are interestin . And yet, you re not far 
 from the facts. It was a shoemaker in 
 Portland, Maine," he says, " that taught me 
 to chuck metres when I was a young one, 
 and the shoemaker s son taught me to fight 
 in the back yard, more because he was bigger 
 than because he was interested in educatin 
 me. By-and-by I beat the shoemaker on 
 metres and the son in the back yard, and 
 then I left em, for they was no more use to 
 me. But I never found anything else so 
 much satisfaction as them two pursuits. 
 
58 Sadler in Portate 
 
 But I ll go away, Tommy," he says, " I ll 
 leave Portate. I will, honest. I ll be good. 
 I wish they d quit puttin temptations on me. 
 But they won t. They re comin out again ! 
 Look at em! They ve borrowed the 
 Juanita, and she s comin with only the 
 steersman in sight, and a cabin full of sojers 
 that can t keep their bayonets inside of the 
 windows. My ! ain t they sly ! " 
 
 He went to the companion way and called 
 Irish, telling him to " start her up." 
 
 The Juanita was one of the Transport 
 Company s tugs. She appeared to be en 
 gaged in a stratagem. She passed the 
 Harvest Moon, then swung around and 
 came up, on the other side. The Harvest 
 Moon made no effort to escape her anchor 
 age, though the engine below began thump 
 ing busily. 
 
 Sadler went aft, dragging the long black 
 hose, and sat on the rail till the Juanita drew 
 in to forty feet away, and through the deck 
 house windows you could see the tufted caps 
 
Sadler in Portate 59 
 
 of the suppressed soldiery. Then he let a 
 steaming arch out of the hose pipe, that 
 vaulted the distance and soaked the steers 
 man, who howled and lay down. Then the 
 Juanita ploughed on, and Sadler played his 
 hose, as she passed, through the windows 
 of the deck house, where there were 
 crashes and other noises, and Irish s 
 engine kept on chug-chugging in the 
 chest of the Harvest Moon. The Juan 
 ita went out of reach, and the soldiery 
 poured out on deck disorderly and furious, 
 and Sadler pulled me flat beside him, sup 
 posing they might open a volley of musketry 
 on us, but they didn t. Then he got up. 
 " They give me the colic," he says, and Irish 
 put his head up the companion way, and 
 says : " The wather was too hot," he says 
 and blew his fingers, and Sadler gave a 
 groan. 
 
 " There s my luck ! " he says. " I meant 
 to tell Irish to take the boil off and forgot 
 it. Now their skins 11 peel. You go away, 
 
60 Sadler in Portate 
 
 Tommy. You go ashore. You can t do 
 me no good/ 
 
 He looked sheepish and troubled. When 
 I pulled away, he sat staring down, with his 
 back turned, his boots dangling over the 
 water, and his shoulders bent. He certainly 
 felt bad. 
 
 The Superintendent of the Transport 
 Company was named Dorcas, a bustling, 
 heavy-bearded man that you couldn t hold 
 still and that talked fast and jerky like a 
 piston rod. 
 
 I met him in the Plaza next morning go 
 ing into the City Hall. 
 
 "Come on," he says. "We ll fix it. 
 What? Jefe was stuck. Come to me. 
 Now then. Got an idea. Suit him first- 
 rate. You see. Struck me this morning," 
 says Dorcas. " Suit everybody." 
 
 We came to the Mayor s office, and 
 found Sadler, sitting alone by the window 
 and looking moodily down on the Plaza, 
 where the chain gang from the City Jail was 
 
Sadler in Portate 61 
 
 pretending to mend the pavement, but mostly 
 loafing and quarrelling. 
 
 " Got him ! " said Dorcas joyfully. 
 " Thumped up the Jefe. First he cussed, 
 then he calmed. That s his way. Be up 
 pretty soon. Hold on ! Wait for the Jefe." 
 
 Sadler nodded, and we sat and watched 
 the chain gang, till the Mayor came in out 
 of breath. He was a small, stout man with 
 a military goatee, and his temper was such 
 as kept the resident consuls happy with their 
 diplomacy. He snorted at Sadler, and sat 
 down. 
 
 " Now, Excellency/ Dorcas says, " this 
 way. Understand your position. All right. 
 Reasonable. First, if Pete Hillary is Ja 
 maican, he s no citizen of Portate. See ? No 
 good, anyway. No. British consul, he don t 
 care, except for the principle. Not really. 
 No. You want to pacify him, meaning his 
 principle. That s so. Then that Hottentot 
 Society. Got to fix them. Course you 
 have. Don t want to disoblige honest voters 
 
62 Sadler in Portate 
 
 of Ferdinand Street. No. Third ; you got 
 to celebrate the majesty of laws and mu 
 nicipal guards. Good. Last ; the Transport 
 Company. We don t want the Kid to chew 
 his thumbs in jail for wetting folks. Good 
 land! No! You want to satisfy us. 
 Complicated, ain t it? But you re equal to 
 it. You re a good one, Jefe. Sure. Now 
 what s needed? Something bold. Some 
 thing skilful. We have it! Get him ban 
 ished, Excellency. Get him banished. Ex 
 ecutive Edict from the President. Big gun. 
 Hottentots pleased and scared. Majesty 
 of Great Britain pacified. Majesty of mu 
 nicipal guards celebrated. Transport Com 
 pany don t object. Everybody happy. 
 There, now ! " 
 
 He put his thumbs in the armholes of his 
 vest, leaned back and beamed. 
 
 " Hum ! You assist ? " says the Mayor. 
 
 " We do." 
 
 The Mayor gazed at him fierce for a 
 minute, then he smiled and patted his knee. 
 
Sadler in Portate 63 
 
 " It is, perhaps, Senor Dorcas, not impos 
 sible." 
 
 " There now, Kid ! Fixed you." 
 
 Sadler said nothing, but looked down 
 at the chain gang below. The Plaza was 
 full of people, women talking under the 
 stiff palms, and men sitting on wicker chairs 
 on the hotel piazza opposite. The butcher 
 on the corner was chasing away a dog. 
 
 " It won t do," says Sadler mournfully, 
 at last. " It s more interestin than I d sup 
 pose you was up to, but comparatively it s 
 dull. Besides, it ain t safe. I d have to 
 come back and see how bad I was banished. 
 That s certain. Not that I d throw you 
 down this way, Excellency," he says with sad 
 eyes on the Mayor and a deep voice, " I 
 wouldn t do it," he says, " without puttin 
 up another scheme, for it wouldn t be treat 
 ing you upright. But makin a supposition, 
 now, suppose I was arrested some, and set 
 to bossin that gang out there for the bene 
 fit of Portate, and quartered, for safe keep- 
 
64 Sadler in Portate 
 
 in till the trial, at the Hotel Republic, as 
 a partial return for being exhibited in dis 
 grace. And suppose it took me three days 
 to finish that little job they re potterin with, 
 by that time I d be ready to, let s say, to 
 escape, say, on the steamer that sails for 
 Lima on Thursday. I m a broken and 
 tremblin reed, Jefe. That s me. I shrinks, 
 I fades away. The majestic law s too much 
 for me. And suppose you was to fix up a 
 Proclamation subsequent and immejiate, 
 offerin a reward for me. Now, as to fugi 
 tive, or as to exile, lookin at it from my 
 standpoint, I makes my choice. I says, 
 fugitive. It suits me better. It s elegant 
 and inexpensive. I ain t worthy of an Ex 
 ecutive Edict. As a fugitive I wouldn t have 
 to fidgit to get even with you. But take 
 your standpoint, Excellency. There s in 
 iquitous limits to you. For instance, you 
 can t put up an Executive Edict by your 
 self. Consequence is, there s no glory in it 
 for you. But you can put up a Proclama- 
 
Sadler in Portate 65 
 
 tion, runnin like this : Five hundred dol 
 lars reward for capture and return of one 
 Sadler, that committed humiliatin assault 
 on one Hillary, and sp iled the stomachs 
 and b iled the skins of patriotic municipal 
 guardsmen, which shameful person is more n 
 six feet of iniquity, and his features homely 
 beyond belief, complexion dilapidated, and 
 conscience dyspeptic. Of course. Excel 
 lency, there couldn t anybody give you points 
 on a Proclamation. I ain t doin that, but I 
 was supposin it was printed in the national 
 colours, with a spectacular reward preced- 
 in a festival of language. Printed, posted, 
 and scattered over Ferdinand Street and the 
 British Consulate, what happens? British 
 majesty pacified, Ferdinand Street solid for 
 a Mayor that puts that value on Pete Hillary, 
 Transport Company don t object. Every 
 body happy, except me. Don t mind me. 
 I go my lonesome way." 
 
 Sadler turned away, depressed, and 
 looked at the chain gang in the Plaza. The 
 
66 Sadler in Portate 
 
 Mayor s eyes glistened. Dorcas pulled his 
 beard, and he says: 
 
 " There d be more in it for you, Excel 
 lency, that s a fact." 
 
 The Mayor came over and patted Sad 
 ler on the shoulder, and his voice showed 
 emotion. 
 
 " My friend, be not sad. To be sacrificed 
 to public policy is noble." 
 
 " Recollect that Proclamation, Excel 
 lency," says Sadler. " You can t describe 
 me too villainous." 
 
 " I will remember," says the Mayor in 
 a broken voice. " I will remember." 
 
 " And you won t go under five hundred," 
 says Sadler. " It 11 be a tribute to your 
 private respect, just between you and me, 
 as friends that might never meet again." 
 
 " I will remember. My friend ! Yet be 
 firm," says the Mayor. 
 
 Sadler left the hall with a file of pink 
 soldiers, who acted sly and kept aside from 
 him, as not knowing in what direction he 
 
Sadler in Portate 67 
 
 might be dangerous. He was put in charge 
 of the chain gang, and introduced them to 
 sorrow and haste, and he spent his three 
 days at the Hotel Republic, taking things 
 joyful at the bar at municipal expense. 
 There were soirees on the hotel piazza and 
 terror in the chain gang. By the rate the 
 work went on in the Plaza, he was worth the 
 expense. The only point where he didn t 
 appear scrupulous was going around to bid 
 people good-bye, which seemed simple- 
 hearted and affecting in a way, but it har 
 rowed the Mayor s feelings. He said they 
 were harrowed. He got nervous. For if 
 a man agrees to be a fugitive, and to escape 
 in a way described by himself as a shrinking 
 and fading away, it stands to reason he 
 oughtn t to make too much fuss about it; 
 nor tell the British consul that the Mayor 
 was going to assassinate him, which was the 
 reason for " these here adieus," to which 
 the British consul said, "Gammon!" Yet 
 this seemed to be the idea current in 
 
68 Sadler in Portate 
 
 Ferdinand Street, and was why the Hotten 
 tot Society were peaceful for the time being. 
 But it made the Mayor nervous the way 
 Portate was keyed up for tragedy, and the 
 way Sadler acted as if he wasn t going to 
 escape real mysterious. For the Mayor had 
 to please the British consul and Ferdinand 
 Street and the Transport Company ; but the 
 Hottentots were skittish, and the Mayor was 
 nervous. 
 
 On Thursday morning the dock was 
 crowded with Sadler s friends, come to 
 watch him escape, and some who heard he 
 was to try it, and thought to see him 
 grabbed by the City Guard. They expected 
 a surprise. It puzzled them when the strip 
 of water widened between the steamer and 
 the pier. 
 
 Irish wasn t there, though I had sup 
 posed he would go with Sadler ; but the Brit 
 ish and American consuls were there, and 
 Dorcas, with others of the Transport Com 
 pany, people from the Hotel Republic, and 
 
Sadler in Portate 69 
 
 Hillary, and a lot of negroes from Ferdinand 
 Street. I heard the British consul say to 
 the American consul : " You know, of course, 
 that s what you call a put up job one 
 of your Americanisms," he says. 
 
 " Shucks ! You don t care/ says the 
 American consul. 
 
 " But really, you know, it s not decent," 
 says the British consul. 
 
 Sadler stood on the after deck of the 
 steamer with his hat off, same as if he was 
 asking a benediction on Portate. 
 
 An hour later the steamer was out of 
 sight and the proclamations were posted in 
 Ferdinand Street, and the Plaza, and at the 
 consulates : " Three hundred dollars reward 
 for the capture and return, dead or alive, 
 of one known as * Kid Sadler, a fugitive 
 from public justice, who committed feloni 
 ous and insulting assault on Pedro Hillary, 
 the well-known and respected resident of 
 Ferdinand Street. It is suspected," says the 
 Proclamation, " that, if still in the city, he 
 
jo Sadler in Portate 
 
 will endeavour to escape by steamer in dis 
 guise. Description." 
 
 Which description of him was remark 
 able for length and scorn. 
 
 I heard the American consul say to the 
 British consul ; " I ll tell you what that is, 
 old man. That s a porous plaster. It has 
 some holes, but it s meant to cover your in 
 decency." 
 
 That Thursday night I sat alone on the 
 deck of the Hotel Helen Mar. It was near 
 ten o clock. I saw a flamingo rise from the 
 river, and it flew over the Helen Mar, like 
 a ghost, trailing its legs. 
 
 And the ladder creaked, and Sadler came 
 over the side. He stepped soft and long like 
 a ghost. 
 
 " How do ? " he says, and sat down, and 
 twankled his banjo. 
 
 Then I asked, "Why? What for?" I 
 says, " I don t see it," I says. " It ain t rea 
 sonable." It was well enough for a fla 
 mingo, but a man has responsibilities. It s 
 
Sadler in Portate 71 
 
 not right for him to be a floating object 
 that s no such thing. He s got no business 
 to be impossible, unless he explains himself. 
 I stated that opinion pretty sharp, but Sadler 
 was calm. 
 
 " Irish hooked the Harvest Moon," he 
 says, " and lay outside for the steamer. I 
 jumped overboard." 
 
 " Changed your mind ? " 
 
 " Well, I d thought some of enlisting for 
 the Chilian War, but Irish don t like war. 
 Gives him the fidgits. I made a Farewell 
 going out. I thought I d come round and 
 tell it to you." He sang hoarsely as fol 
 lows : 
 
 " Tommy and Dorcas, now adieu; 
 I drops a briny tear on, 
 Mayor, my memories of you; 
 Stevey that brought the beer on; 
 Farewell across the waters blue, 
 Oh, Jiron. 
 
 14 Farewell the nights of ba my smell, 
 Farewell the alligator, 
 Special them little ones that dwell 
 In the muck hole with their mater. 
 Farewell, Portate, oh, farewell, 
 Equator." 
 
72 Sadler in Portate 
 
 " You see/ he says, " the point of going 
 to war is this way, because 
 
 " The damage you do 
 Ain t totted to you 
 But explained by the habits of nations. 
 
 " Government pays the bills, commissary, 
 sanitary, and them that s sent to God Al 
 mighty. I guess so. But it d give Irish 
 the fidgits. Then the Transport s got a 
 three-master billed for San Francisco, and 
 she sails to-morrow morning, and we re 
 going on her." He seemed subdued, and 
 hummed and strummed on his banjo, as if 
 he couldn t get hold of what he wanted to 
 let out. At last he struck up a monotonous 
 thing that had no tune, and sang again: 
 " One day," he says, 
 
 " One day I struck creation, 
 And I says in admiration, 
 What s this here combination? 
 Then I done a heap of sin. 
 I hain t no education, 
 Nor kin. 
 
 " There s something I would say, boys, 
 Of the life I throwed away, boys, 
 It cackles, but don t lay, boys, 
 
Sadler in Portate 73 
 
 There s a word that won t come out. 
 The hell I raised I ll pay, boys, 
 Just about. 
 
 " Tommy/ he says then, " I m leaving you. 
 You ain t going to have my sheltering wing 
 no more. Write down these here maxims 
 in your memory, supposing I never see you 
 no more. Any game is good that 11 hold up 
 a bet. Any sort of life is good so long as it 
 has a good risk in it. The worth of any 
 thing depends on how much you ve staked 
 on it. Him that draws most of the potluck 
 in this world is the same that drops most in. 
 The man that puts up his last coin as keen 
 as when he put up his first, he ll sure win in 
 the end. Lastly, Tommy, if you want a 
 backer inquire for Sadler. So long." 
 
 He got up to leave, and stood a moment 
 looking away into the moonlight. I says: 
 
 " The Mayor s Proclamation s out, Kid." 
 
 " Yep. I got it somewhere about. I just 
 been to see him." 
 
 He had the Proclamation in his hand. 
 
 " Burned little runt," he says. " He cut 
 
74 Sadler in Portate 
 
 me down two hundred dollars on that re 
 ward, plump ! And he d gi n me his word ! 
 Why, you heard him! He ought to be 
 ashamed. I told him so. I says, * You re 
 no lady. Nor he ain t. Nor sporty, either. 
 Squeals and wriggles." 
 
 " Paid you the reward, did he ? " 
 "Why, of course, he couldn t rn/ss his 
 politics. It took him sudden, though. He 
 had a series of fits that was painful, painful." 
 Then he moved away, muttering, " Painful, 
 painful ! " climbed over the side, and down 
 the ladder, and went to California. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 of tbe "fcotel fjelen /Bar. Continuation 
 of Captain JSucfctngbam s Narrative 
 
 SADLER and Irish were gone, but 
 Stevey Todd and I stayed on at 
 Portate, running the Hotel Helen Mar. 
 Three years we ran her altogether, and made 
 money. I had a thought that by-and-by 
 I d go to the Isthmus, and charter some kind 
 of sloop, and dig out Clyde s canvas bags, 
 and so go back to Greenough sticky with 
 glory. Whether it was laziness or ambition 
 kept me so long at Portate I couldn t say. 
 It was a pleasant life. It s a country where 
 you don t notice time. Yet its politics are 
 lively, and the very land has malaria, as you 
 might say; it has periodic shakes, earth 
 quakes, " tremblors," they call them, or 
 " trembloritos," according to size. 
 
 It was early one morning, in the spring 
 75 
 
j6 End of the Hotel Helen Mar 
 
 of the year 73, that Stevey Todd woke me 
 up, and he says : 
 
 " I m feeling unsteady like. Seems like 
 the Helen Mar wobbled/ 
 
 " She s took sick," I says, sarcastic, " she s 
 got the toothache." 
 
 The only thing I had against Stevey 
 Todd was, he was timid and had bad dreams. 
 He rode a tidal wave every two or three 
 nights, according to account. But it wasn t 
 right to be messing another man s sleep with 
 tidal waves that didn t belong to the other 
 man. I never set any tidal waves on him. 
 I spoke up to Stevey Todd that time, and 
 went on deck, and saw the Sarasara with an 
 umbrella over her head, and I thought, 
 maybe, there had been a little shake, and 
 maybe she was out looking for trouble. 
 
 It came on the middle of the morning. 
 The drivers that put up with us that night 
 were gone down the valley with their mules. 
 I heard Stevey Todd whoop down below, 
 and he came on deck and he says, " She s 
 
End of the Hotel Helen Mar 77 
 
 wobbling again ! meaning the Helen Mar. 
 She was swaying to and fro. We got down 
 the ladder and stood off to look at her. 
 
 Then the land began twisting like snakes 
 under our feet, and cut figure eights, till 
 I felt like soapsuds, and lay down on my 
 face. Then I sat up, and looked at the Helen 
 Mar, which shook and groaned like a live 
 thing. We heard the trees crack and snap 
 behind her. She seemed to hang a moment 
 as if she hated to go ; and over she went with 
 a shriek and crash. The water splashed and 
 the dust went up. Stevey Todd and I ran 
 to the bank, and there lay the Hotel Helen 
 Mar, ridiculous, bottom side up in the Jiron 
 River. 
 
 Stevey Todd sat down and cried. 
 
 I was disgusted with seeing the hotel 
 standing on her roof-garden and thinking 
 of the mess there was inside her, all come 
 of a tremblorito no bigger than enough to 
 cave in the bank and tip the Helen Mar over, 
 and enough tidal wave to wash the streets 
 
78 End of the Hotel Helen Mar 
 
 of Portate, which needed it. I saw the 
 Sarasara shaking her old umbrella at us, 
 and I was mad. I says to Stevey Todd, 
 " Go on ! Run your blamed old hotel stand 
 ing on your head ! " I says, " I m going to 
 Greenough," and I lit out for Portate, leav 
 ing him standing on the bank, with the tears 
 running down his face, like his heart was 
 broken. 
 
 When I came to the harbour I found 
 there were two ships in port bound for Cali 
 fornia, and one by way of Panama. She 
 was named the Jane Allen. 
 
 The captain s name was Rickhart, a 
 rough man, and the Jane Allen was an un 
 clean boat, a brigantine, come from bad 
 weather around the Horn. I went aboard 
 to look her over, and didn t like her. I was 
 making up my mind to go and see if the 
 other mightn t be going by Panama too. 
 And then, coming through the forecastle, 
 some one spoke to me from a bunk and he 
 says: 
 
End of the Hotel Helen Mar 79 
 
 " When d you drop in, Tommy?" and I 
 stopped, and stared, and pretty soon I made 
 him out. It was Julius R. Craney. 
 
 He certainly was sick. He said he had 
 shipped with Rickhart from New York, to 
 go to California and make his fortune, but 
 thought now he wouldn t live so far. He 
 had the scurvy and was low in his mind, and 
 disappointed with fortune. I thought: 
 
 " If he took my money at Colon, he hasn t 
 got it now." He was poor enough then. I 
 guessed we d have to call that off, and I 
 says: 
 
 " The Jane Allen it is. I ll go see the 
 Windwards and Greenough." 
 
 Craney was a yellow-looking man at 
 that time, and glad enough when I told him 
 I was going to bring him some fruit, and 
 take passage to Panama, and look after him. 
 Then I bargained with Rickhart for a pas 
 sage for two. 
 
 The next day I went back up to the 
 Helen Mar, and found Stevey Todd had a 
 
8o End of the Hotel Helen Mar 
 
 board fence in front of her, and was charg 
 ing admission, and he had a new advertise 
 ment tacked on the fence. 
 
 "Unparalleled Spectacle!" says Stevey 
 Todd s bill-poster. "The Hotel Helen 
 Mar. On her chimneys, with her cellar in 
 the Air ! Built in the United States ! Ex 
 ported to South America! Freighted In 
 land by a Tidal Wave ! Stood on her Head 
 by an Earthquake! Only 10 cents!" And 
 he was up on a box himself encouraging the 
 populace, and he seemed to think he had a 
 good business opening. But I says : 
 
 " Stevey," I says, " come off it. We re 
 going to Panama." 
 
 He wanted to argue it was an unparal- 
 lelled show, but I took him by the suspenders 
 and ran him down to Portate, arguing, and 
 the populace went in free, and we went 
 aboard the Jane Allen. He thought the 
 Helen Mar was a better boat upside down 
 than the Jane Allen any side, and he was 
 right there, for the Jane Allen was full of 
 
End of the Hotel Helen Mar 81 
 
 smells and unhealthiness. But Craney was 
 glad to see us. 
 
 We hadn t been a week at sea before her 
 cook came down with ship s fever and died in 
 five days, but Craney picked up a bit for the 
 time. Rickhart came straight for Stevey 
 Todd, and handed him his passage money. 
 
 " You re no passenger," he says. " You re 
 a cook. You hear me ! " Which appeared 
 like a rash statement, that Stevey Todd was 
 n t one to take off-hand like that without argu 
 ment, but Rickhart shoved him into the gal 
 ley before he got his ideas arranged right. 
 
 " You re the Jane Allen s cook," says 
 Rickhart, and appeared to be right, though 
 his style of argument wasn t what Clyde had 
 trained us to. Stevey Todd had no proper 
 outfit to meet it. The victuals he had to 
 serve up on the Jane Allen was a worriment 
 to his conscience too, being tainted and bad, 
 and by-and-by I came down too with 
 ship s fever, and Craney got sicker again 
 with scurvy. 
 
82 End of the Hotel Helen Mar 
 
 There s a long promontory, that the coast 
 ers see on the West Coast of South Amer 
 ica near the Line, with a square white 
 tower on a bit of high rock at the head of 
 it. The promontory is called Mituas, and 
 the point, Punta Ananias. That may be 
 because some one ran aground sometime on 
 the sand-bar off the end, and thought it de 
 ceitful. Some people say the tower was 
 built as an outlook against pirates long ago, 
 but I judge the facts are everybody has for 
 gotten who built it or what he did it for. 
 It s a lighthouse now. If a man doesn t 
 mind a curve in his view and a few pin-head 
 islands, there s nothing particular to inter 
 rupt his view half round the world. The 
 Andes make a jagged line on the east, and 
 ten of them are volcanoes. Those snow 
 mountains and two or three ocean currents 
 got together, and arranged it with the equa 
 tor that one part of the year should be a 
 good deal like another there, and all the 
 months behave respectful, and the Tower of 
 
End of the Hotel Helen Mar 83 
 
 Ananias have a breeze. It s a handsome 
 position with a picked climate. 
 
 The scurvy is a disease not so common 
 now, but it used to act as if all the bad salt 
 pork you d eaten were coming out through 
 the skin, till you looked like a Stilton cheese, 
 and what you wanted was to be fed on vege 
 tables, and put ashore so as to get the bilge- 
 water dried out. Probably that wouldn t 
 be possible, and you d be sewed up in can 
 vas, and resemble an exclamation point, and 
 be dropped overboard to punctuate the end 
 of the story. Chunk! you goes, and that s 
 the end of you. 
 
 Ship s fever is a nautical brand of ty 
 phoid, due to bad conditions aboard. The 
 best thing for it is to get out of those con 
 ditions. Craney had the scurvy, and I had 
 ship s fever. Sometimes I was out of my 
 head. But when we sighted Punta Anan 
 ias, I was clear enough to tell Captain Rick- 
 hart he d have a burial shortly, or put me on 
 shore. 
 
84 End of the Hotel Helen Mar 
 
 " I ve got no fancy for that," he says, 
 and took a look at me. I didn t suppose 
 he d haul up, but he did. He d buried two 
 men already down the coast, and the thing 
 must have got on his nerves, for he anchored 
 overnight, and sent Craney and me to the 
 lighthouse in a boat. 
 
 " You forfeit your passage money," he 
 says, and told the mate to buy what truck 
 he could, and tell the Dago in the light 
 house he could keep our remains. 
 
 Rickhart was a rough man, and his ship 
 was a rotten ship. I never knew a meaner 
 ship, though I ve known meaner men than 
 Rickhart on the whole. 
 
 Stevey Todd said he was going with us, 
 and there Rickhart disagreed with him 
 again, and his argument was the same as 
 before. 
 
 " You ain t," he says, and seemed to 
 prove it, though Stevey Todd claimed he 
 wasn t convinced. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 (Torre Snania0. TOlbB Captain JSucfcfngbam 
 BID "Wot (30 bacfc to (Breenougb 
 
 WHEN we got under the lee of the 
 lighthouse, the keeper came stalk 
 ing down the rocks to meet us. He was a 
 tall man with a long moustache, and a nar 
 row grey beard, and a black coat and som 
 brero. 
 
 I heard the mate say : 
 
 " Here s the King of Castile come to 
 Craney s funeral. Blamed if he ain t a 
 whole hearse! " 
 
 " Without doubt," says the keeper, grave 
 and deep, being asked about the fruit. Re 
 garding sick boarders, he broke out sharp, 
 
 " Since when has my house But I ask 
 
 your pardon ! You are strange to me. No 
 more. The gentlemen will do me the honour 
 to be my guests." 
 
 Nobody appeared to have anything to 
 85 
 
86 Torre Ananias 
 
 say to that, but he looked too lean to recom 
 mend his board. His Spanish wasn t the 
 kind I was used to. It was neither West 
 Coast nor Mexican. I judged it was just 
 Spanish. 
 
 They left us in canvas hammocks on 
 the ground floor of the Tower of Ananias. 
 It was three stories high, the top story 
 opened to seaward, with its lanterns and tin 
 reflectors. 
 
 The darkness came on, as its habits are 
 in the tropics, like a lamp blown out. I 
 could see the stars through the square sea 
 ward window of the tower, and heard the 
 keeper go softly up the stairs, and I went 
 to sleep, very weak and faint. 
 
 When morning came, and I pulled my 
 self up to look through the square window, 
 and saw the ship making sail, it seemed to 
 me I was some sick and far away from 
 everybody. I rubbed my eyes and looked 
 around. 
 
 The door and stairway filled one side of 
 
Torre Ananias 87 
 
 the room. There were two wooden benches 
 and a pile of earthen and tin ware on one 
 of them. The hammocks hung between the 
 windows, and in one of them lay Craney, 
 looking like mouldy cheese, for his hair, 
 eyebrows, and complexion were yellowish 
 by nature, and he was some spotted at that 
 time. 
 
 Beyond the door was a banana tree, 
 with ten-foot leaves, and a little black mon 
 key loping around under it, sort of indiffer 
 ent. Beyond the banana tree came thick 
 woods. A woman came out of them with 
 a basket on her head, up the path to the 
 tower. The monkey yelped and went up 
 the banana tree. " Dios ! " says the woman, 
 when she came to the door, and she put down 
 the basket and ran. The keeper came down 
 the stone stairs and ran silently after her. 
 The little black monkey dropped from his 
 tree and loped after the keeper, and the 
 woods swallowed them all. A sea-breeze 
 was blowing into the tower, and below I 
 
Torre Ananias 
 
 could hear the pound of the surf. Craney 
 slept as innocent as if he d been fresh cheese, 
 and I felt better. 
 
 Then the keeper came back with the 
 woman, who appeared to be a scared Indian 
 and screeched some. He said her name 
 was Titiaca, and she would look after us, 
 but otherwise had no culture. Craney woke 
 up and took a look at things. 
 
 " I have already," the keeper says very 
 solemn, " the advantage of your honourable 
 names. My own is Gaspero Raphael de 
 Avila y Mituas." He stated it so, and went 
 up the stairs. I dropped one leg out of the 
 hammock, and I says thoughtful: 
 
 " I always had hard luck. They just 
 named me Tom and chucked me." 
 
 Titiaca knocked her head on the floor and 
 screeched, but at that time I didn t see what 
 for. She appeared to think the keeper was 
 displeased. 
 
 It was monotonous lying all day in the 
 tower, seeing only Titiaca, and now and 
 
Torre Ananias 89 
 
 then the black-cloaked keeper, stiff, silent, 
 and solemn, and polite. But the days went 
 by, and by-and-by we began to crawl out 
 and lie in the seaward shadow, and sometimes 
 under the banana tree, where the little black 
 monkey loped around melancholy. We 
 grew better. Titiaca gossiped, and told us 
 the keeper was a magician, and master of 
 the winds, and probably the bestower of 
 rain and sunshine, and certain his light in 
 the tower was connected underground with 
 one of the volcanoes, so that he could tap 
 different grades of earthquakes, graded as 
 " motors, trembloritos, and tremblers, " ac 
 cording to size. 
 
 " For, see! " she says; " at night it is the 
 red smoke of the mountain all night! it is 
 the light in the tower all night! it is him 
 self in the tower all night all day! He 
 speaks not. Is it not so? The ground 
 shivers. He says nothing. It is the magic. 
 Ah-h-h! The magic!" 
 
 Craney grew so well and restless after a 
 
90 Torre Ananias 
 
 week or two that he began strolling, and 
 finally one day he went down the path that 
 Titiaca came by. For she said there was 
 a village, and, beyond other villages and 
 cocoa plantations, fishermen along the shore, 
 many people, though only footpaths ran 
 through the woods. Her gossip lacked 
 variety, and the little black monkey took no 
 interest in me at all. It appeared to me 
 things were unnatural dull, and I went to 
 the tower and called. The keeper an 
 swered, and I went up, and hoped I wasn t 
 in his way. The middle story was like the 
 one below, except for a table, chair, bed, 
 and a few plain articles. 
 
 " On the contrary/ he says, " if you will 
 do me the honour to precede," and motioned 
 to the stair leading to the lantern story, 
 which was roofed, but open on all sides, 
 and along the seaward wall was a stone 
 bench. 
 
 It s good, now and then, as a man lives 
 on, if something or some one comes along 
 
Torre Ananias 91 
 
 that gives him a new notion of things. At 
 first it surprises him; then he thinks there 
 might be something in it ; and then maybe he 
 gets so waterlogged and cosmopolitan as to 
 admit an oyster s notions might be as rea 
 sonable as his. 
 
 As near as I could come to it the keeper 
 was a Spaniard of a run-down family, at 
 least one branch of it was run down to him. 
 It was old and uncommon proud, and had 
 different kinds of decorated names. It be 
 gan with being a legend; then it seemed to 
 have a deal of trouble with Moors, and got 
 rich with the results of trouble; then it 
 owned some of that section of the New 
 World, including twenty to thirty thousand 
 natives in the property. That was the story 
 of the family. But what they had they 
 spent, or lost, or had confiscated, till 
 there was nothing much but the story. 
 Now here s what surprised me. For the 
 thought of his race was in his bones, same as 
 the sea is in mine. For instance, it seems to 
 
92 Torre Ananias 
 
 me I m more to the point than my ancestors, 
 on account of being alive. I don t much 
 know who they were. I m a separate island, 
 with maybe a few other islands, close by. 
 My continental connections appear to be sort 
 of submerged. That s the average Ameri 
 can way of looking at it, and he wants to be 
 a credit to himself, if he does to anybody. 
 But the keeper s notion was to be a credit to 
 all the grandfathers he could find between 
 the fall of the Roman Empire and the Con 
 quest of Peru. Those of the last hundred 
 years or so he wasn t particular about, but 
 if they d been dead long enough he d do any 
 thing to satisfy them. I didn t seem to sur 
 round the idea so as to find it reasonable, 
 but I got so far as to see it was a large one, 
 and there was some kind of a handsome 
 ness in it. 
 
 Speaking of points of view, it seemed to 
 me, so long as a man thought a heap of 
 something besides himself, there was a good 
 deal of leeway as to what the thing was; 
 
Torre Ananias 93 
 
 maybe his children and the folks that were 
 coming after him; maybe the folks that 
 went before him; maybe his country, or a 
 machine he had invented, or a ship and 
 those aboard he was responsible for, or the 
 copper image of one of his gods. So long 
 as he stood to stake his life on it, I wasn t 
 prepared to sniff at him. 
 
 For a while he listened to my talk and 
 said nothing. Then he began and went off 
 like a bottle of beer that s been corked over- 
 long. From what he said I gathered the 
 facts just stated. 
 
 " The stream goes dry," he says slowly 
 at last. " Therefore I came from Spain. 
 What do I know of the new laws of the 
 colonists, their republic? These lands are 
 to my race in me, from the point to the bay, 
 and north twenty leagues; so runs the 
 charter: so witnesses my name, Mituas, 
 given and decreed by Charles, the king and 
 emperor, to Juan de Avila y Mituas, the 
 friend of Francisco Pizarro, who was an 
 
94 Torre Ananias 
 
 upstart indeed, but a valiant man. They 
 say to me : There is a lighthouse on Punta 
 Ananias. For the keeping of the light is 
 paid this much. Sir, be pleased in this man 
 ner to occupy your estate. Do I care for 
 their mocking? Is it the buzz of insects 
 that is heard in Spain? Good, then! I 
 wait for my end. But to hear an Avila 
 mocked at in Spain I could not endure. 
 You do not understand? It is natural. 
 You were so kind as to tell me of your life 
 believe me, most interesting a courtesy 
 which has tempted me to fatigue you in this 
 way." 
 
 I thought his yarn a sight more interest 
 ing than mine, and said so, and he looked 
 sort of blank, as if he didn t see how you 
 could get the stories of an Avila and a 
 Yankee seaman near enough together to 
 compare them, more than a dozen eggs with 
 a parallel of latitude. But his manners 
 stayed by him. He said I was so polite as 
 to say so, and then was silent, sitting on his 
 
Torre Ananias 95 
 
 end of the stone bench and looking grim at 
 the sea. 
 
 "Well," I says, "I ve got nothing to 
 speak of, a little money, no relations, 
 but I d hate to give up the idea of seeing 
 Long Island Sound again, and the town of 
 Greenough." 
 
 " Your hope is a possession excellent," he 
 says very quiet. " I shall not see again 
 my Madrid, nor those vineyards of Ara- 
 gon." 
 
 By-and-by the keeper seemed too melan 
 choly to be sociable. I went back to the 
 banana tree. 
 
 Titiaca came. She said Craney had gone 
 inland. 
 
 He didn t come back that night, and not 
 till late afternoon of the next day. Then 
 he came out of the woods, strolling along, 
 and sat down under the banana tree, and 
 acted as if he had something on his mind. 
 I told him about the keeper, and laid out 
 my theory about his having a handsome 
 
96 Torre Ananias 
 
 point of view, but one that needed property 
 to keep cheerful with. Craney was thought 
 ful. 
 
 "Property, Tommy!" he says at last. 
 * This is the remarkablest community I ever 
 got to. The old man told you right, so far 
 as he knew. I guess he applied for four 
 hundred square miles of ancestral estate and 
 they told him he could have the lighthouse 
 job. That s so! But see here. He don t 
 really know what his job is. Lighthouse 
 keeper! My galluses and garters! He s 
 the tin god of ten or fifteen thousand Injuns 
 and half-breeds. I ve been holding camp- 
 meetings with them. Why, he s sitting on 
 a liquid gold mine that s aching to run. I ll 
 tell you. I went from here to Titiaca s 
 village. It s on the shore and some of the 
 people are fishermen, and I talked with 
 them. Then I got a donkey and rode over 
 by plantations where they raise cocoa, which 
 appears to be a red cucumber full of beans, 
 and growing on an apple tree. They dry 
 
Torre Ananias 97 
 
 it, and take it in boat-loads up a bay about 
 forty miles, and get from five cents a pound 
 upwards. I talked with them. Then I met 
 an old priest, who was fat and slow and 
 peaceable. I went in a sailboat with him up 
 the coast to his house, and spent the night. 
 He said the Injuns of this neighbourhood 
 were more n half heathen in their minds, 
 but he was too old, and settled down now, 
 and couldn t help it. It didn t appear to 
 trouble him much. He wondered if Senor 
 de Avila knew he was that gruesome and 
 popular; and then he mooned along, talk 
 ing sort of wandering, till near midnight. 
 The Injuns don t think his credit with the 
 gods and the elements amounts to much, 
 anyway. This morning I crossed to the 
 north shore and saw more villages and 
 plantations, and came back to Titiaca s vil 
 lage in a catamaran rigged with a sprit- 
 sail. Now, this is a business opening, 
 Tommy. And look here! The old man s 
 notions, as he put em to you, they re a good 
 
Torre Ananias 
 
 thing. I didn t know how he d take it, but 
 I guess we can fix it. You see, this section 
 why, Padre Filippo says it used to belong 
 to that family more or less, but the titles 
 were called off when the country set up for 
 itself, and whether they d collected rent up 
 to that time he didn t know. He thought 
 they hadn t regular or much. But the sec 
 tion s grown well-to-do lately on account of 
 the cocoa trade, and I gather what the In 
 juns pay on it now is about ordinary taxes. 
 Now, if the Injuns pay the old man a sort 
 of blackmail to get him to moderate his 
 earthquakes, and he calls it his proper rents, 
 why, I say, a rose by any name 11 smell as 
 sweet, supposing the commission for collect 
 ing is the same. That s the idea. Why 
 not? All he s got to do is to stay in his 
 tower, or look like a cross between the devil 
 and a prophet when he does show himself, 
 same as usual, and leave us to work his 
 tribute. It s what his tenth grandfather 
 did. I guess it 11 be mostly dried cocoa 
 
Torre Ananias 99 
 
 beans. The shed where the old man keeps 
 his oil will do for a warehouse." 
 I says, " What s all this, anyway? " 
 " Oh/ he says, " you ll see it s reason 
 able by-and-by. Why not? Why, the 
 campaign s begun. Some of the stuff is 
 coming in to-morrow. You ve no notion 
 how they cottoned to the idea. I says to 
 em this way. * Course, I says, I m a 
 stranger, but it stands to reason the Don 
 won t shake anybody out of bed nights that 
 does his best to please him. Sure, he d be 
 reasonable. But here he s lived on the little 
 end of this country now going on ten years, 
 and what have you done ? Nothing ! Here 
 he s been switching fire back and forth from 
 the Andes, I says, corking up one vol 
 cano and letting out another, and yet he 
 ain t split a single plantation into ribbons so 
 far. Has he, now? No. Well, ain t it 
 astonishing? Why, he must have this 
 whole territory riddled with pipe connec 
 tions. Boys, I don t see how you can be so 
 
ioo Torre Ananias 
 
 reckless, I says, and ungrateful. How 
 long do you expect him to look out for folks 
 that don t appear to care whether they blow 
 up or not? First you know, he ll get dis 
 gusted and turn the whole section into cin 
 ders. He must have been mighty cautious 
 as it is. Shook you up a little now and 
 then. Nothing to what he s liable to do. 
 Suffering saints ! I says ; * can t you take a 
 hint? What do you suppose he means 
 when the ground wrinkles under your feet? 
 Do you want him to pitch you all into the 
 sea before you get his idea ? They said 
 they hadn t thought of that before. Fact 
 is, they surprised me. They must have 
 some ancestral ideas of their own, so it 
 comes natural to em to pay for their 
 weather. Tell em they ve got to bribe an 
 earthquake, and they say, All right/ 
 Queer, ain t it? Well/ I says, tell you 
 what I ll do. I ll arrange it with the Don/ 
 You ve no notion how they liked the idea, 
 they re that scared of him. I guess they ll 
 
Torre Ananias 101 
 
 put up various amounts. They didn t 
 understand a percentage. Maybe the de 
 tails will be complicated. Let s go see the 
 Don." 
 
 The keeper was in his lantern story, 
 looking out over the sea very lonesome. 
 Craney attacked the subject like a drummer 
 selling a bill of goods, but the keeper didn t 
 seem to understand. " Why," says Craney, 
 "you see, these people have a sort of mys 
 terious reverence for you. Maybe you have 
 an idea of the reason." The keeper said it 
 was probable that the peasantry were not un 
 aware of his rank. 
 
 " Now, your ancestors employed agents, 
 didn t they? Yes. Maybe they got about 
 half the proceeds and the agents stole the 
 rest." The keeper looked surprised, but 
 thought that was probable too. 
 
 " Exactly. Now, we re offering, as a 
 business proposition, to collect on the same 
 antique terms, only we give you an itemized 
 account this time. What do you say? " 
 
IO2 Torre Ananias 
 
 " Senor Craney," said the keeper slowly, 
 " are you asking me if I accept the acknowl 
 edgment of my rights? I do not under 
 stand a business proposition. I do not 
 understand how the peasants have arrived 
 suddenly, as you state, at this conviction of 
 their obligations." 
 
 " Just so," says Craney. " That comes 
 of having a capable agent. I talked to them 
 and they saw reason. Fact is, though, the 
 idea seems to have been growing on them 
 for some years." 
 
 The keeper looked at me, and I was study 
 ing different sides of Craney s scheme. I 
 began : " It might mean the vineyards of 
 Aragon. All the same, it s a queer busi 
 ness." 
 
 He started and muttered, " The vineyards 
 of Aragon ! My Madrid ! " and dropped his 
 head. 
 
 Craney winked and we went down. 
 
 I ve heard it said that Francisco Pi- 
 zarro was surprised when he found he d 
 
Torre Ananias 103 
 
 conquered Peru with only a few objec 
 tions. 
 
 Well, if we had any trouble in this busi 
 ness, it was only Craney that had it from 
 the start, and he appeared to enjoy himself. 
 He was off most of the time, pattering 
 around on his shaggy grey donkey, and left 
 me to take in and stow away those bags of 
 cocoa beans. I used to sit in front of the 
 shed, which was close to the shore, and 
 smoke and admire the world. Once a w r eek 
 Craney would come down the coast in a 
 clumsy catboat, and we d take a load up to 
 the town, which was called " Corazon," a 
 considerable town forty miles off, where 
 were French and Spanish agencies in the 
 cocoa trade. 
 
 Every day a cautious, stringy-haired In 
 jun, with a loaded donkey, would come trot 
 ting out of the woods to the shed, or maybe 
 several of them at odd times. They all 
 acted shy, and kept as far from the Torre 
 Ananias as the space allowed. Sometimes 
 
IO4 Torre Ananias 
 
 they wouldn t say anything, except to state 
 that this bag came from such and such 
 plantations, and to hope Himself would take, 
 note of it. Then they d look pleased and 
 peaceful to have it all written down neatly, 
 and maybe they d want the item read out, 
 and then they d nod and smile and trot 
 away contented. Sometimes they d hope 
 Himself was feeling good on the whole. It 
 didn t seem to strike any of them that the 
 keeper s position, as they understood it, 
 wasn t right and reasonable. 
 
 I used to sit in front of the shed and 
 admire the world. I thought about the 
 primitive mind, and how the civilised was 
 given to playing it low on the primitive. I 
 seemed to get around part of their point of 
 view after a while and see it was reason 
 able. For the Mituans had got it fixed be 
 fore we came that the keeper was somehow 
 mixed up in the earthquakes. And when 
 they d once taken that idea, it made no dif 
 ference if they d felt little motors every few 
 
Torre Ananias 105 
 
 days all their lives, and trembloritos and 
 tremblers pretty frequent. As a specimen 
 of authority, even a little motor earthquake 
 is too much. They happen along in that 
 neighbourhood every now and then, maybe 
 once a month, and you grow used to them, 
 but still, they re vivid. If you got it once 
 in your mind that Himself in the lighthouse 
 was fingering the bowels of the earth, and 
 Himself was doing it when the jerks came 
 under you, and your house walls creaked and 
 swayed, you d give something to keep Him 
 self amiable. There was no doubt about 
 that. 
 
 But then, what made it appear to them 
 that the keeper was inside his rights to be 
 bothering them that \vay? They seemed to 
 think no less of him for it, but rather more. 
 They thought he was a fine thing. It puz 
 zled me, and I studied it. Then I seemed 
 to get an understanding of the primitive 
 mind that was surprising. 
 
 But then, how did the case stand with 
 
io6 Torre Ananias 
 
 Craney and me ? As often as that troubled 
 me, I had only to go up to the lantern 
 story, and hear the keeper talk about Madrid 
 and the vineyards of Aragon, and about his 
 longing and his pride. Then I felt better. 
 If the keeper s income kept up that way it 
 was clear he could go back to Spain by-and- 
 by with stateliness pretty respectable, and 
 I says to myself : 
 
 " Why, the Injuns are happy, and the 
 keeper s going to be, and I m a sinner, and 
 Craney can look after his own conscience. 
 Shucks ! He hasn t got any." 
 
 It made me feel virtuous to think how 
 Craney had no conscience. Maybe he 
 hadn t. He was the busiest man in South 
 America for a while. I never knew of an 
 other to make a business asset out of earth 
 quakes nor his equal for seeing an opening 
 for enterprise. He was a singular man, 
 Craney, a shrewd one, and yet romantic and 
 given to ingenious visions. And yet again, 
 when he talked his wildest, you d find he 
 
Torre Ananias 107 
 
 had his feet on some rocky facts, and his 
 one good eye would be hard and bright as 
 a new tack. We used to sit in front of the 
 shed sometimes, looking down on the sea 
 that was blue and shining like rumpled silk, 
 Craney smoking cigars and I with my pipe. 
 
 " Tommy," he d say, " the world lies open 
 before us. Everywhere is chances for a 
 soaring ambition, everywhere is harvests 
 for the man that s got talents. There s dia 
 monds in rocks, and there s pearls in oysters. 
 Richness grows out of the ground, and glory 
 drops out of the clouds. Me, I m a 
 man of ideals. Give me room to spread. 
 Let me strike my gait and I ll make the con 
 tinents sizzle, and governments have fits. 
 Expand, Tommy! Expand your mind! 
 Small men has small ambitions. Large men 
 has wings. That s me." 
 
 There were a number of heavy shocks, 
 about the time when the eastern Mituas dis 
 tricts were picking the trees, and some of the 
 Mituans were mad about it, but they had a 
 
io8 Torre Ananias 
 
 big harvest. They brought cocoa-beans in 
 caravans and boatloads for a while, and 
 they said it was many years since they d had 
 such a harvest, or such a trembler, and Him 
 self was a great magician. 
 
 The time went by. I heard in Corazon 
 one day that Captain Rickhart had put into 
 port there on his back voyage, and inquired 
 some for us, but that was a month before. 
 Later Craney had a contract offered by the 
 French agencies, and had to buy up most of 
 the North Mituas cocoa crop to fill it. 
 
 One day we sat together in front of the 
 shed. He was laying out different schemes. 
 He said this tribute business was too small, 
 and there wasn t much enterprise in it. The 
 Injuns were terrible set in their ideas. He 
 had a number of schemes. One of them 
 for putting up a supply store in Corazon, 
 running accounts there on the crops, but I 
 didn t take to it; I was no storekeeper, but 
 a sailor, and getting nervous to go to 
 Panama. 
 
Torre Ananias 109 
 
 It was hot by the shed, and we were go 
 ing up by the banana tree, when we saw a 
 large catboat coasting down to the point, and 
 by the hang of her sail it was Padre Fi- 
 lippo s. 
 
 The Padre was aboard, and the two Mit- 
 uans that sailed for him, and two men be 
 sides, one in a cocked hat and uniform. So 
 they came ashore. Padre Filippo chuckled, 
 and shook his fat ringer at Craney. 
 
 " Ah, senorito, little rogue ! " he says. 
 " Alas ! what behaviour ! " and he chuckled 
 and patted Craney on the arm. 
 
 The official was sociable too. He took 
 out a cigarette, and explained there had been 
 a complaint lodged with the authorities 
 against the keeper, that he d been drawing 
 illicit gains from the peasantry. In fact, 
 Padre Filippo had complained. The Padre 
 laughed again. 
 
 " Why," says Craney, " I know something 
 about that." 
 
 " Truly, I think so! " chuckles the Padre. 
 
no Torre Ananias 
 
 " And if they ve a mind to present him 
 with a bag of beans now and then, whose 
 business is it ? " says Craney. 
 
 " The alcalde s," says the official, very 
 calm. "It s not mine. I have but to take 
 him before the alcalde, and here is the 
 keeper of the lighthouse who takes his place. 
 In candour I think Seiior de Avila does not 
 return. It is no affair of mine." 
 
 " Why," I says, " he ll never condescend 
 to go before your alcalde! Why, an al 
 calde s too small for him to see." 
 
 "Chut!" says the Padre. "Speak in 
 reverence of authorities, my son. You are 
 both little rogues." 
 
 "He ll resign!" 
 
 " It is possible," says the official. 
 
 Craney lay on his back and thought a 
 bit. Then he says to the official, " I m think 
 ing the keeper wouldn t mind resigning, 
 supposing my friend Buckingham here went 
 up and talked him over. He might go back 
 to Spain, maybe. Maybe you don t know 
 
Torre Ananias 1 1 1 
 
 his popularity in this section, but I tell you 
 this, he could make you plenty of trouble. 
 You ve got an idea he s going to be arrested 
 and jailed and blackguarded by an alcalde. 
 Well, he isn t, or these Mituas people of his 
 will know why. Padre Filippo here, he d al 
 ways rather things were done peacefully." 
 
 " Surely," says the Padre, " surely." 
 
 " You d better let us arrange it. Besides, 
 in that case it might interest you say, ten 
 dollars worth of interest." 
 
 " Fifteen," says the other, very calm. " It 
 is no affair of mine." 
 
 Then I went up to the Torre Ananias, up 
 to the lantern story where the keeper was 
 looking over the sea and brooding. 
 
 " Seiior," I says, " why don t you go to 
 Aragon and buy vineyards? " 
 
 " True," he said quietly, " why not? But 
 you have some reason for speaking, for sug 
 gesting." 
 
 "Why yes. It s not the fault of the 
 people on the estate, but there s a govern- 
 
U2 Torre Ananias 
 
 ment somewhere around here, and they re 
 getting offish, and it can t be helped. You 
 don t want to squabble over the lighthouse. 
 Why not buy some vineyards in Aragon? 
 You can afford it now. The officials want 
 to interfere with you. Why not get up and 
 walk away? " 
 
 He stood up and wrapped his coat around 
 him, and said, " I will go," and started 
 downstairs for Spain. 
 
 We sailed for Corazon in the Padre s cat- 
 boat and left the new keeper in the tower, 
 and I never but once again have landed on 
 the point. That was when I came some 
 days after to gather a few things left be 
 hind. 
 
 It was in the evening, and there were 
 great bonfires burning in the open space by 
 the banana tree, and a crowd of figures 
 around it, but all that was hidden when the 
 sailboat drew under the bluffs. I stepped 
 ashore and went into the shed, and some 
 one rose in the dark and grabbed me, and 
 
Torre Ananias 113 
 
 I dragged him out into the starlight. It 
 was the new keeper. 
 
 " Senor/ he gasped. " Do not go up ! 
 They drove me with sticks and stones that 
 I fled to the water. They are mad ! Hear 
 them! They mourn for Senor de Avila. 
 They build a great fire and they sing thus 
 in no Christian language. Come away in 
 your boat. They are mad." 
 
 It seemed to me too they d better be left 
 to themselves. We drew out again from 
 under the bluffs, and caught the breeze, and 
 stood away. The shouting and the chant 
 kept on, and the fire shone after us like a 
 red path on the water. 
 
 I don t know any more about the Tower 
 of Ananias. But I know the Mituas people 
 were sore about losing the keeper, who went 
 to Lima, meaning to go to Spain, and never 
 knew he d been supernatural. Craney told 
 me afterwards he d heard the keeper died 
 on the voyage and was dropped overboard 
 to punctuate the end of his story, only, no 
 
114 Torre Ananias 
 
 name was given, and maybe it wasn t him 
 but some other aristocracy. 
 
 Craney himself stayed on at Corazon in 
 the cocoa trade, meaning to take up con 
 tracts with the French and English agencies. 
 He asked me to stay with him, and when I 
 wouldn t, he asked for reasons, and I gave 
 him a reason. Not that I mentioned the 
 hundred and forty lost at Colon. For if he 
 took it (and I guessed pretty near he did) 
 he d paid it back with a long leeway by 
 sharing the Mituas business with me, when 
 the whole thing was his. I thought the less 
 said the better. If he was nervous to know 
 what was my mind about that point, why, I 
 thought it was good for him to be nervous. 
 I gave for a reason that I was thinking to 
 go back to Greenough on Long Island 
 Sound. 
 
 " Greenough ! " he says. " It s next to 
 where Abe Dalrimple lives? Adrian s the 
 name of his town." 
 
 I says: 
 
Torre Ananias 1 1 5 
 
 " What do you know of it, Craney? " 
 
 " I went there with Abe Dalrimple," he 
 says, " and left him there planting lobster 
 pots. That wouldn t do for me. None of 
 it in mine. Abe s got no more ambition 
 than to dodge the next kettle Mrs. Dal 
 rimple throws at him, but me, I m ambitious. 
 I got to spread out. I m a romantic man, 
 Tommy. That s my secret. That s the 
 key of me. Give me largeness. Give me 
 space for my talents. What do you want 
 with Greenough? You stay with me and 
 I ll show you who s the natural lord of all 
 lands that s fertile and foolish. Ain t I 
 showed you what I could do in a small way ? 
 Why, I only just began. That s nothing, 
 I m a soarer, Tommy, I ve got visions." 
 
 I took a look at his one hard bright eye, 
 and thought him over, and I thought: 
 
 " You ve got em all right, but they re slip 
 pery," and I says: 
 
 " Did you hear news of any one in Green 
 ough?" 
 
1 1 6 Torre Ananias 
 
 " Give em a name." 
 
 " Happen it might be the name of Pem 
 berton," I says. " Madge Pemberton." 
 
 " There was a man in Adrian named An 
 drew McCulloch," he says, " that married a 
 girl named Pemberton from Greenough. 
 Aye, I recollect, Pemberton s was a hotel." 
 
 "Madge Pemberton?" 
 
 " It was that name." 
 
 I recollect it was a little cafe in Cora- 
 zon, where Craney and I sat that evening. 
 It was thick with smoke and crowded with 
 round tables, at which mixed breeds of peo 
 ple, mostly square-shouldered little men, 
 were discussing the time of day and the 
 merits of wine which hadn t any in a 
 way of excitement that you d think they 
 were crying out against oppression. Each 
 table had a tallow candle on it, burning dim 
 in the smoke. 
 
 I says, "Oh!" 
 
 Then Craney went on talking, but I don t 
 know what it was about. 
 
Torre Ananias 117 
 
 Then I says, " It don t suit me in Cor 
 azon," and I got up. I went out in the steep 
 cobbled street that runs down to the shore of 
 Corazon Bay. 
 
 I lay all night on the shore and watched 
 the waves come up and crumble on the 
 shingle. I remembered the verse Sadler 
 used to chant to me in the Hebe Maitland 
 days, when I was acting more gay than he 
 thought becoming to the uselessness of me. 
 " Oh, sailor boy/ 4 he says. 
 
 " Oh, sailor, my sailor boy, bonny and blue, 
 You re rompin , you re roamin , 
 The long slantin sorrows are waiting for you 
 In the gloamin , the gloamin ." 
 
 I remember, when it came morning, on 
 the beach at Corazon, I got up, and I says : 
 
 " Clyde s mucky old bags can stay there 
 till I m ready," I says. " What s the use! " 
 
 I took a dislike to Clyde s money. I 
 bought a passage to San Francisco, and 
 came there in the year 75. 
 
 There I put the profits of six years on 
 
1 1 8 Torre Ananias 
 
 the West Coast into shares in a ship called 
 the Anaconda, and shipped on her myself 
 as second mate. 
 
 I found Stevey Todd cooking in a res 
 taurant in San Francisco. He d gone 
 into gold mines, after getting loose from 
 the Jane Allen. He d left his profits from 
 the Hotel Helen Mar in the gold mines. 
 Every mine he d invested in got discour 
 aged, so he said, but I judge the truth was 
 more likely Stevey Todd was taken in by 
 mining sharks. He d made up his mind 
 property wasn t his stronghold and gone 
 back to cooking, and never took any more 
 interest in property after that, nor had any 
 to take interest in. But he told me Sadler 
 was in business and getting rich, and in 
 partnership with a Chinaman, and living in 
 a town called " Saleratus," sixty miles down 
 the coast, which none of these statements 
 seemed likely at the time. Stevey Todd 
 didn t know why the town was named 
 Saleratus. He thought maybe Sadler had 
 
Torre Ananias 119 
 
 named it, or maybe gone there on account 
 of the name, foreseeing interesting rhymes 
 with "potatoes" and "tomatoes." But I 
 didn t look Sadler up at that time. 
 
 The Captain turned to Uncle Abimelech, 
 and said : 
 
 " Happen you might remember Sadler s 
 tune to that verse, Sailor, my sailor boy, 
 bonny and blue ? " 
 
 " He never said no such impudent thing 
 to me," said Uncle Abimelech wrathfully. 
 " I d a whaled him good." 
 
 "Why, that s true, Abe," said Captain 
 Buckingham. " You wasn t much on 
 looks." 
 
 Stevey Todd said: 
 
 " They changed that name, Saleratus." 
 
 "That s true too," said Captain Buck 
 ingham. " An outlandish name is bad for 
 a town, or a ship, or a man; same as the 
 Anaconda, for the Anaconda had bad luck, 
 same as Abimelech Dalrimple. He d never 
 
I2O Torre Ananias 
 
 Ve got his brains frazzled if he d been named 
 Bill." 
 
 He paused several minutes before going 
 on, to think over this theory of names. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 iLiebcben. Ube Bwfaweibltcbe. tTbc Narrative 
 1Re0ume&, witb tbe Xoss of tbc " SnaconDa " 
 
 I INVESTED the profits of the Hotel 
 Helen Mar and the Ananias planta 
 tion in shares in the Anaconda, and shipped 
 myself as second mate. She was carrying a 
 cargo of steel rails for a railroad in Japan. 
 
 There was a man named Kreps who 
 came aboard at Honolulu. He was a round- 
 faced, chubby man, with spectacles and a 
 trunk full of preserved specimens, and out 
 of breath with his enthusiasm; and he was 
 a German, too, and a Professor of Aller- 
 leiwissenschaft, which I take to mean Things 
 in General. He was around gathering in 
 culture and twelve-sided fish in the Pacific, 
 and had a pailful of island dialects and 
 sentiments that were milky and innocent. 
 But I liked him. 
 
 I had no objection to the Anaconda either, 
 
 121 
 
122 Liebchen 
 
 except that she went to the bottom of the 
 Pacific without any argument about that, 
 and left me stranded on a little island there 
 along with Kreps, and a hen named Veron 
 ica, and a Kanaka named Kamelillo. There 
 was a fourth that got stranded there 
 too. We called her " Liebchen," and she 
 surely acted singular, did Liebchen, but I 
 liked her too. Kreps said she was " sym 
 bol," but his ideas and mine didn t agree. 
 He said she was a type of the " Ewigweib- 
 liche," which is another good word though 
 a Dutch one. Maybe she was. Maybe Ve 
 ronica was another type. I guess it s a word 
 that s got some varieties to it. 
 
 Veronica belonged to the ship, but had 
 never been cooked, being thin and stringy; 
 and Kamelillo was a silent, sulky Kanaka 
 that had lived up and down the Pacific, and 
 harpooned whales, and been shipwrecked 
 now and then, and was sometimes drunk 
 and sometimes starved, and had no opinion 
 on these things, except that he d rather be 
 
Liebchen 123 
 
 drunk than starved. I never knew one that 
 took less interest in life, provided he was let 
 alone. I liked them all well enough, too. I 
 took things as they came in those days. 
 I d as soon have bunked in with an alli 
 gator as a Patagonian. 
 
 It was south of Midway Island that we 
 ran into the typhoon come over from Asia. 
 A typhoon is to an ordinary storm what a 
 surf is to a deep-sea wave, for it s short but 
 ugly. When it was done with us the Ana 
 conda began to leak fearful in the waist, 
 and I dare say the typhoon was excuse 
 enough if she d broken in two. She went 
 down easy and slow, with all I had and 
 owned sticking in her. It s bad luck to give 
 a ship an outlandish name. 
 
 There were two large boats and a small 
 one, and trouble came from Kreps tin cans 
 of specimens, for the captain wouldn t take 
 them in his boat, nor the first mate in his, so 
 Kreps wanted to put them in the small boat. 
 He shed tears and got low in his mind. 
 
1 24 Liebchen 
 
 " Dey are von der sciences ignorant, ob 
 tuse," he says. 
 
 I says, " So s the Pacific Ocean." 
 
 " But you, so young, so intelligent ! Not 
 as de Pacific Ocean, hein ? " 
 
 I allowed there was difference between 
 me and the Pacific. Kreps got his tin cans 
 in, and I put the boat off. Kamelillo was 
 spreading the cat-sail and had no opinion. 
 Veronica came flapping over the rail with 
 a squawk, and lit on Kamelillo, and fell into 
 the bottom of the boat. We got away after 
 the other boats, the night coming on clear, 
 and Kamelillo talked island dialects at 
 Veronica for scratching him when he wanted 
 to be let alone. Kreps sat over his speci 
 mens, innocent and happy and singing Ger 
 man lullabies. 
 
 The next morning the other boats were 
 not in sight. We steered north, for there 
 were odd islands in that direction by the 
 chart, without names enough to go around 
 them; and on the second morning we saw 
 
Liebchen 125 
 
 a high shore to port, with surf like a white 
 rag sewed along the bottom, and rags of 
 mist sticking to the black bluffs. 
 
 " Ach," says Kreps, and the tears trickled 
 down under his spectacles. " Gott sei dank ! 
 I am miide of the sea. It iss too large." 
 
 " How she get up them high ? " Kamel- 
 illo says. " No ! Maybe dam hen fly up. 
 Not me. No!" 
 
 We coasted by the east side a little way 
 and came to a place where the water was 
 quiet and black in a slip of maybe a hundred 
 feet in width, where the bluff had broken in 
 two. The channel appeared to curve, so that 
 you could only see a little way up. We 
 dropped sail and pulled through. It might 
 have been twenty feet deep in the channel, 
 being high tide, and running in slow. Wine- 
 palms and cocoanut trees grew on the bluffs 
 on each side. Some leaned over, with roots 
 out where the earth had caved away. We 
 came about the curve and saw r a closed bay, 
 shut in by the bluffs from the outer sea and 
 
1 26 Liebchen 
 
 even the winds. It was wooded on the 
 north and very rocky on the south, and 
 might have been a quarter of a mile across. 
 We landed on the north side and camped, 
 and set a signal on the bluffs, and then we 
 laid off to wait for accidents. I knew there 
 were whalers cruising in the neighbourhood, 
 and thought likely it would be seen. 
 
 Now Liebchen came in one day at high 
 tide, chasing those little goggle-eyed squids 
 that lived so many in the harbour. The 
 first we saw was tons of her gambolling 
 around in the water. She was a medium- 
 sized whale, and might have been forty feet 
 in length, but I never was in the whaling 
 business, and Liebchen was the only one I 
 ever got real acquainted with. I ve heard 
 it s common for them to be stranded on 
 shallow shores, and get off again if let alone. 
 The harbour may have been Liebchen s 
 boudoir for aught I know. Maybe she d 
 come there before. She surely knew how to 
 get out if let alone. After an hour or so 
 
Liebchen 127 
 
 she was over by the entrance trying to leave. 
 She seemed to be in trouble, and then we 
 saw the tide had gone out, and left the chan 
 nel too shallow to heave over. 
 
 When Kreps understood that she was 
 penned in, he acted outrageous, and pranced 
 like a red rubber balloon. 
 
 " Gieb mir das axe ! Ich will de habits 
 of de cetacean studieren ! " he says. 
 
 He ran away through the \voods around 
 the north shore, and I ran after, to see him 
 study the habits of the cetacean. Liebchen 
 had sidled off and was rolling about in the 
 middle of the harbour when we came to the 
 bluffs, where the wine-palms and cocoanut 
 trees leaned over and the channel was nar 
 row. Kreps fell to chopping the landward 
 roots, and I saw he wanted to block the 
 channel. 
 
 We slid a tree down under the water, 
 and then another, and so on, till it was a 
 messy-looking channel, a sort of log jam, 
 with roots and palm-tree tops mixed in, 
 
128 Liebchen 
 
 which I thought the tide would float out, and 
 it did afterward, some of it. 
 
 Then we went back to where Kamelillo 
 was cooking, squatted on the shore with his 
 bare back turned to the water. He took no 
 interest in Liebchen. He was making a 
 kind of paste of ground roots, called " poi," 
 which wasn t bad, if you rolled a fish in it, 
 and baked it on the coals, and thought about 
 something else. But at that time Liebchen 
 came round the north shore in a roar of 
 foam, bringing her flukes down now and 
 then with a slap to make the harbour ache, 
 and she slapped near a barrel of water over 
 Kamelillo and his fire and his poi. Ka 
 melillo says : 
 
 "Why for? She not my whale. You 
 keep her out a my suppa. Why for ? " 
 
 Kreps was disgusted because Kamelillo 
 didn t like Liebchen. He went and stood 
 on the bank, in the interest of science, 
 and studied the habits of the cetacean, but 
 he got no results. She had no habits, to 
 
Liebchen 129 
 
 speak uprightly, only notions. They 
 weren t any use to science. Sometimes 
 she d flutter with her fins, and twitter her 
 flukes, and sidle off" like she was bashful, 
 and then she d come swooping around 
 enough to make the harbour sizzle, and 
 stick her nose in the bottom and her tail in 
 the air, trembling with her emotions, and 
 then she d come up and smile at you a rod 
 each way. I judged she meant all right, 
 but she didn t understand her limitations. 
 Her strong hold was the majestic. She 
 appeared to have it fixed she wanted to 
 be kittenish. That was the way it seemed to 
 me. But Kreps studied her mornings and 
 afternoons and into the night, and day after 
 day it went on, and she bothered him. 
 Then he saw he was on the wrong tack, 
 and put his helm about, and he says : 
 
 " She is de Ewigweibliche. She is not 
 science. She is boetry. She is de sharm 
 of everlasting feminine," and he heaved a 
 sigh. I says: 
 
130 Liebchen 
 
 " Ewigweibliche ! " I says. " Everlasting 
 feminine! What s the use of that? " 
 
 I took to studying Liebchen too, and it 
 appeared to me Kreps idea wasn t useful. 
 He was a man to have sentiments naturally. 
 He d sit out on the end of a log moonlight 
 nights, with his fat face and spectacles 
 shining, and Liebchen would muzzle around 
 with a ten-foot snout like an engine boiler, 
 and a piggy eye; and he d sing German 
 lullabies; " Du bist wie eine Blume." I 
 didn t think she was like a flower. She was 
 more like an oil tank. 
 
 So Kreps would sing to her in the moon 
 light, but Kamelillo didn t like her. Veron 
 ica didn t like her either, and would stand off 
 and cackle at her pointedly. She seemed to 
 think Liebchen carried on improper and had 
 no refinement. Why, I guess from her 
 point of view sea bathing wasn t becoming, 
 and when Liebchen stood on her head in the 
 water, Veronica used to take to the woods 
 with her feelings pretty rumpled. Kam- 
 
Liebchen 131 
 
 elillo disliked Veronica on account of her 
 fussiness, and because she had lit on him and 
 scratched him when he wanted to be let 
 alone. He wanted to make Veronica into 
 poi, but I didn t think there was any real 
 nourishment in her ; and he wanted to break 
 the log jam and let the whale out, but I told 
 him it was Kreps jam. 
 
 " Ain harbour belong him," said Kam- 
 elillo. " Ain him slap harbour on me. Thas 
 whale bad un. I show him." He went to 
 Kreps. " I tell you, dam Dutchman," he 
 says, meaning to be soothing and persuasive. 
 " I tell you, we cutta bamboo, harpoon 
 whale. Donnerblissen ! Easy ! " 
 
 " Du animal ! " says Kreps. " Mitout per 
 ception, mitout soul, mitout delicate ! " 
 
 " Oh ! " says Kamelillo ; " girl whale. All 
 right, dam Dutchman, me fren. You break 
 jam. Letta go." 
 
 " It iss not of use," said Kreps, and he 
 sighed. " You understand not de yearning, 
 de ideal. Listen ! Liebchen, she iss de ab- 
 
132 Liebchen 
 
 straction, de principle. Aber no. You can 
 not. De soul iss alone, iss not compre 
 hend." 
 
 " All right," says Kamelillo. " You look 
 here. Go see thas girl whale on a bamboo 
 raft. No good sit on log all night, sing 
 hoohoo song." 
 
 Kreps was taken with that notion. " So, 
 my friend ? " he says. 
 
 " You teach her like missionary teach 
 Kanaka girl," says Kamelillo, getting inter 
 ested. " You teach her to she wear petti 
 coat, no stan on her head. You teach her 
 go Sunday school." 
 
 I says, " Look out, Kreps. That whale 
 11 drown you. She s got no culture." 
 
 But Kreps was calm. " I vill approach 
 Liebchen more near," he says. " It iss time 
 to advance. I vill go mit Kamelillo, my 
 friend." 
 
 Kamelillo spent the morning making a 
 bamboo raft, and in the afternoon they put 
 out. Liebchen was over by the harbour en- 
 
Liebchen 133 
 
 trance, lying low in the water and maybe 
 asleep. Kamelillo had a bamboo pole in his 
 hand to pole the raft with, but he had shod 
 it with his harpoon head. They drew 
 alongside, and Kreps was facing front, with 
 his back to Kamelillo. He lifted his oar to 
 slap the water, and Kamelillo drew off, and 
 cast the harpoon. Liebchen, she came out 
 of her maiden fancies. She acted plain 
 whale. That s a way of acting which calls 
 for respect, but it s not romantic. She 
 slapped the bamboo raft, and there was no 
 such thing. She swallowed the harbour 
 and spit it out. She whooped and danced 
 and teetered. She let out all her primeval 
 feelings. She put on no airs, and she made 
 no pretences. She turned everything she 
 could find into scrambled eggs, and played 
 the " Marseillaise " on her blow-hole. She 
 did herself up into knots to break whalebone, 
 and untied them like a pop of a cork. She 
 was no more female than she was science. 
 She was wrath and earthquakes and the day 
 
Liebchen 
 
 of judgment. She scooped out the bottom 
 of the harbour and laid it on top, and 
 turned somersets through the middle of 
 chaos. Veronica took to the woods. I ran 
 along the north shore, thinking they were 
 both scrambled, but I found Kamelillo pull 
 ing Kreps through the shallows by his col 
 lar, and shaking the water out of his eyes, 
 and not seeming to be disturbed. But 
 Kreps took off his spectacles and wiped 
 them, and he says: 
 
 " Ach, Liebchen ! " he says. " She iss too 
 much." 
 
 " Thas whale! " says Kamelillo. " Thas 
 all right!" 
 
 " Liebchen iss too much of her," says 
 Kreps very dignified, and stalked to the 
 camp. 
 
 " Thas whale ! " says Kamelillo. " Thas 
 all right!" 
 
 He chopped the jam that afternoon, and 
 it floated out in the night or early morn 
 ing with the ebb. We went to the bank 
 
Liebchen 135 
 
 when the tide was in again to watch Lieb 
 chen go out. Kreps was pretty tearful. 
 
 " Aber," he says, " she iss too much of 
 her." 
 
 She came feeling her way through the 
 channel with her snout under water. Kam- 
 elillo s bamboo stuck out of her fat side six 
 feet or more. Veronica cackled at her, and 
 her feathers stood up, so that you could see 
 she thought Liebchen was no lady. Lieb 
 chen passed close beneath us. Seemed like 
 she felt mortified. Kreps broke down, but 
 Kamelillo was gay. 
 
 "Dam hen!" he says, and grabbed Ve 
 ronica with both hands. " Go too! " and he 
 flung her at Liebchen, and she went through 
 the air squawking and fluttering. She lit 
 on Liebchen s slippery back, and she slid till 
 she struck the bamboo, and roosted. If she 
 had had time to think she might have flopped 
 ashore, but she was flustered, and Liebchen 
 got out of the channel and steered into the 
 Pacific. Veronica squawked a few times, 
 
136 Liebchen 
 
 and no more. The sea was quiet. The two 
 moved off, going eastward very slow. 
 Kamelillo went back to his camp fire and 
 made poi, but Kreps and I watched, expect 
 ing that Liebchen would go under and 
 Veronica be lost. But they kept on till 
 there was only a black spot near the edge of 
 the sky. 
 
 It came on afternoon. The tide was out, 
 and we lay about. There was not enough 
 wind to flutter the signal on the bluffs, which 
 was Kreps red shirt, and hung there to 
 entertain any one that might come by. 
 Kamelillo suddenly sat up. "Hear im?" 
 he says. 
 
 There was a great noise over in the 
 channel out of sight, a kind of splashing, 
 thumping, and blowing, and the waves 
 rolled into the harbour. We ran along the 
 shore and came to the bluffs. There was 
 Liebchen ! She appeared to have grounded 
 in the channel, trying to get in quick at low 
 tide. But there were two harpoons, more 
 
Liebchen 137 
 
 than the bamboo, sticking in her very deep, 
 and the lines were hitched to a longboat, 
 the longboat coming inshore now full of 
 men, Veronica squatting on the thwart of 
 the same, comfortable and dignified. 
 
 Kamelillo says, " Whale ain t got sense, 
 thas whale ! " And Kreps says, " Ach, Lieb 
 chen!" 
 
 She struck her last flurry, and filled the 
 air with spray. The longboat held off, see 
 ing she was likely to stay there and needed 
 all the room. After a while she grew quiet. 
 A few motions of her flukes, and that was 
 all. The longboat came in, and we slid 
 down the bluffs. The man in the stern says, 
 " That your hen?" 
 
 I said I was acquainted with her. 
 
 " Oh ! Maybe that s your whale ? " 
 
 " Ach, Liebchen ! " says Kreps. 
 
 Kamelillo waded in, and looked at the har 
 poons, and shook his head, for he knew the 
 laws and rights of the trade. 
 
 " No/ he says. " Thas your whale." 
 
138 Liebchen 
 
 " Been cast up, have ye? " says the steers 
 man, looking around. " We struck that 
 whale ten miles out. We comes up quiet, 
 and I see that bamboo sticking in her, with 
 that hen squatting on it. Queer ! says 
 I. And just as Billy here was letting her 
 have it, the hen gives a squawk and comes 
 flopping aboard; and Billy lets her have it, 
 and Dick here lets her have it, and she goes 
 plumb down sudden. Then up she comes 
 and starts, like she was going to see her 
 Ma and knew her own mind, and up this 
 channel she comes, and runs aground fool 
 ish. I never see a whale act so foolish. 
 Thought she might be a friend of yours," 
 says he, " meaning no reflections." 
 
 I said I was acquainted with her, and 
 Kreps took off his glasses and wiped his 
 eyes. 
 
 " She vass of de tenderness, das Zart- 
 lichkeit." It made him sad to see Liebchen 
 dead, that was full of sensibility, and 
 Veronica come back with dignity, she being 
 
Liebchen 139 
 
 a conventional hen and scornful and cold by 
 nature. 
 
 " Ach, Liebchen ! " he says ; and we went 
 back to gather up his tin cans ; and I says : 
 
 " Ewigweibliche s a good word, though 
 a Dutch one ; " then we came away on the 
 whaler. 
 
 But all I owned went down on the Ana 
 conda. I got back to San Francisco in course 
 of time, but no richer than when I left Green- 
 ough, and ten years or more older. 
 
 Kreps was a man very given to senti 
 ments, in particular about " Ewigweibliche," 
 and I never knew a man that kept himself 
 more entertained. He settled down for the 
 time, with Veronica and Kamelillo for his 
 family, in a fine house in the upper town of 
 San Francisco. Kamelillo used to cook uiv. 
 likely things which Kreps and Veronica ate 
 peaceable between them. Kreps was well- 
 to-do, and he seemed cut out for a happy 
 life. Any kind of cooking suited him. The 
 whole world grew knowledge for him to 
 
140 Liebchen 
 
 collect. He could suck sentiment out of a 
 hard-boiled egg. But I went to live with 
 Stevey Todd where the cooking was better, 
 and loafed about the streets and docks, 
 wondering what I d do next. I never knew 
 what became of Kreps after we left San 
 Francisco. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SaDler in Saleratug. Gbe Green Dragon fcago&a. 
 Iftarrative <3oes <Sm 
 
 ONE day I was by the docks, where 
 some people were busy and some 
 were like me, loafing or looking for a berth ; 
 and I came on a neat-looking, three-masted 
 ship, named the Good Sister, which appeared 
 to me a kindly name. She was being over 
 hauled by the carpenters. I asked one of 
 them, " Where s the captain? " 
 
 " She ain t got any," he says. " It s the 
 owners are doing it." 
 
 " Maybe you ll remark/ I says, " who 
 they happen to be." 
 
 " Shan and Sadler of Saleratus," he says. 
 
 " I believe you re a liar," I says, surprised 
 at the name. 
 
 " Which there s a little tallow-faced runt 
 in perspective," he says, climbing down the 
 stays, " that I can lick," he says, being mis- 
 141 
 
142 Sadler in Saleratus 
 
 led by my size. And when that was over, 
 I started for Saleratus. 
 
 It was a town to the south, down near the 
 coast. That s not its name now, because 
 it s reformed and doesn t like to remember 
 the days before it was regenerated. At that 
 time some of it was Mexican, and more of 
 it was Chinese, and some of it wasn t con 
 nected with anything but perdition. 
 
 Shan and Sadler did a mixed mercan 
 tile business, and they seemed to be pros 
 perous people, but I take it Fu Shan mainly 
 carried on the business, and Sadler was 
 the reason why the firm s property was re 
 spected and let alone by the Caucasians. 
 There is a big Chinese company in Singa 
 pore, called " Shan Brothers," whose name 
 is well known on bills of lading, and Fu Shan 
 was connected with them. But a man 
 wouldn t have thought to find Sadler a part 
 ner in banking, mercantile, and shipping 
 business, with a Chinaman. He d been the 
 wildest of us all in the Hebe Maitland days, 
 
Sadler in Saleratus 143 
 
 and always acted youthful for his years. 
 There were two things in him that never 
 could get to keep the peace with each other, 
 his conscience and his sporting instinct. 
 Yet he was a capable man, and forceful, and 
 I judge he could do most anything he set his 
 hand to. 
 
 He and Fu Shan lived just outside the 
 town of Saleratus in two ornamented and ex 
 pensive houses, side by side, on a hill that was 
 bare and mostly sand banks, and that hung 
 over the creek which ran past the town into 
 the bay. Sadler lived alone with Irish, but 
 Fu Shan was domestic. He was a pleasant 
 Oriental with a mild, squeaking voice, and 
 had more porcelain jars than you would 
 think a body would need, and fat yellow 
 cheeks, and a queue down to his knees. 
 He wore cream-coloured silk, and was a 
 picture of calmness and culture. Irish 
 hadn t changed, but Sadler was looking 
 older and more melancholy, though I judged 
 that some of the lines on his face, that simu- 
 
144 Sadler in Saleratus 
 
 lated care, came from the kind of life folks 
 led in Saleratus to avoid monotony. We 
 spoke of Craney among others, but Sadler 
 knew no more of Craney than I did. Likely 
 he was still in Corazon. 
 
 We were sitting one evening on Sadler s 
 porch, that looked over the creek, waiting 
 for supper. Fu Shan was there, and Sad 
 ler said Saleratus was monotonous. Yet 
 there were going on in Saleratus to my 
 knowledge at that moment the following 
 entertainments: three-card monte at the 
 Blue Light Saloon; a cockfight at Pas- 
 quarillo s ; two alien sheriffs in town looking 
 for horse thieves, and had one corralled on 
 the roof of the courthouse; finally some 
 other fellows were trying to drown a China 
 man in the creek and getting into all kinds 
 of awkwardness on account of there being 
 no water in the creek to speak of, and other 
 Chinamen throwing stones. But Sadler 
 said it was monotonous. 
 
 " I don t get no satisfaction out of it." 
 
Sadler in Saleratus 145 
 
 Over the top of the town you could 
 catch the sunset on the sea, and the smoke 
 of the chimneys rose up between. There 
 were red roses all over the pillars and eaves 
 of the porch. Seemed to me it was a good 
 enough place. Fu Shan smoked scented 
 and sugared tobacco in a porcelain pipe with 
 an ivory stem. The fellows down by the 
 creek ran away, feeling pretty good and 
 cracking their revolvers in the air, and the 
 Chinamen got bunched about their injured 
 countryman. 
 
 " Have no water in cleek," says Fu Shan, 
 aristocratic and peaceful. " Dlied up." 
 
 " Dried up. Played out." says Sadler, 
 not understanding him. " Fu Shan s a dry- 
 rotted Asiatic. Doesn t anything make any 
 difference to him. Got any nerves? Not 
 one. Got any seethin emotions? Not a 
 seeth. He s a wornout race in the numb 
 ness of decrepitude." 
 
 Fu Shan chuckled. 
 
 "But me, I m different," says Sadler. 
 
146 Sadler in Saleratus 
 
 " The uselessness of things bothers me. 
 Look at em. I been in Saleratus five years, 
 partner with Fu Shan. Sometimes I had 
 a good time. Where is it now? You 
 laugh, or you sigh. Same amount of wind, 
 nothing left either way. 
 
 What s the use? 
 
 You chew tobacco and spit out the juice. 
 
 What s the use? 
 
 If there s anybody with a destiny that s got 
 any assets at all, and he wants to swap even, 
 bring him along. Look at this town! Is 
 it any sort of a town? No honesty, for 
 there ain t a man in it that can shuffle a pack 
 without stackin it. No ability, for there 
 ain t more n one or two can stack it real 
 well. No seriousness, for they start in to 
 drown a Chinaman in a dry creek, and they 
 cut away as happy as if they d succeeded. 
 I sits up here on my porch, and I says, 
 What is it but a dream ? Fu Shan, I says, 
 this here life s a shadow! Then that 
 forsaken, conceited, blank heathen, he says 
 
Sadler in Saleratus 147 
 
 one of his ancestors discovered the same 
 three thousand years ago. But, he says, 
 another ancestor, pretty near as distin 
 guished, he discovered that, if you put 
 enough curry on your rice, it gives things 
 an appearance of reality. Which, says he, 
 they discovered the uselessness of things in 
 Asia so long ago they ve forgot when, and 
 then they discovered the uselessness of the 
 discovery. They discovered gunpowder, he 
 says, long before we did, but they use it for 
 fireworks in the interests of irony. They ve 
 forgotten more n we ever knew, says he, the 
 stuck-up little cast-eyed pig. Go on! I m 
 disgusted. Haven t I put on curry till it 
 give me a furred mouth and dyspepsia of 
 the soul? What s the use?" 
 
 Fu Shan chuckled again. 
 
 " What s the use? " says Sadler. " Things 
 happen, but they don t mean anything by it. 
 You hustle around the circle. You might 
 as well have sat down on the circumfer 
 ence. Maybe the trouble is with me, 
 
148 Sadler in Saleratus 
 
 maybe it s Saleratus. One of us is played 
 out!" 
 
 Fu Shan took the ivory pipestem from 
 his mouth, and spoke placid and squeaking. 
 " My got blother have joss house by Lan- 
 goon. Velly good joss house, velly good 
 ploperty. Tlee hundred Buddha joss and 
 gleen dlagons. My ancestors make him. 
 Gleen dlagon joss house. Velly good." 
 
 " My! You d think he s an id jit to hear 
 him," says Sadler, and looked at Fu Shan, 
 admiring. " But he ain t, not really." 
 
 Fu Shan chuckled a third time. 
 
 He took no more stock in the happiness 
 of his countrymen than Sadler did in the 
 morals of his. They seemed to be a profit 
 able combination, but I didn t make out to 
 understand Sadler, though I went as far as 
 to see that he had a variegated way of put 
 ting it. 
 
 Then I told him I wanted a first mate s 
 berth on the Good Sister, supposing he was 
 willing, either on account of old times or 
 
Sadler in Saleratus 149 
 
 because he might happen to be convinced I 
 was good enough for it. I told him the ex 
 periences I d had. What had happened to 
 the Helen Mar I told him, and about the 
 Mituas business, and the loss of the Ana 
 conda, and even about Kreps and Liebchen. 
 
 " My ! My ! Tommy," he says, after the 
 last. " That s a lyric poem," he says, refer 
 ring to Kreps and Liebchen. 
 
 But he said nothing then about the Good 
 Sister, and I decided to hang around till he 
 did, and one day he brought me a bundle of 
 papers. 
 
 " Here s your papers, Tommy," he says. 
 
 "Which?" I says. 
 
 " Captain s articles for Tommy Bucking 
 ham. Sign em," he says, " and don t be mo 
 notonous/ and I was that scared I signed 
 my name so it looked like a rail fence. I 
 contracted to be master of the ship Good 
 Sister, the same to go to Hong-Kong 
 Manila, Singapore, and return. 
 
 " You go up to Frisco and list the crew," 
 
150 Sadler in Saleratus 
 
 he says. " I m coming myself by-and-by to 
 look em over." 
 
 It was my first ship, and long ago, but 
 the pride of it sticks out of me yet. 
 
 I went back to Frisco and hired Stevey 
 Todd for cook, and I recollect taking for 
 ship s carpenter the man that called me a 
 " tallow little runt," which he got misled, 
 there, and he went by the name of " Mitchi- 
 gan." I took Kamelillo too, who wanted to 
 go to sea again, but Kreps stayed where he 
 was. 
 
 On the day the Good Sister sailed, Sad 
 ler came aboard with a valise in his hand, 
 and after him, carrying a valise, was Irish, 
 and after Irish was an old Burmese servant 
 of Fu Shan s that I used to see sweeping 
 the porch, whose name was Maya Dala. 
 
 " I m going along," says Sadler, and 
 Irish says, " Soime here." But neither of 
 them said what for, and I thought maybe 
 Sadler was thinking he d see me safe 
 through the first trip, or maybe it occurred 
 
Sadler in Saleratus 151 
 
 to him to go and take a look at Asia. How 
 should I know? 
 
 We went through the Golden Gate that 
 afternoon, and we sat that night in the 
 cabin, while Maya Dala and Irish cleared 
 the table. The oil lamp swung overhead 
 with the lift and fall of the ship, and Sad 
 ler spread himself six feet and more on the 
 cabin lounge, and unloaded his mind. 
 
 " You remember what Fu Shan said of 
 his brother s joss house ? " he says. " It s 
 this way. Why, Fu Shan had a father 
 once, named Lo Tsin Shan, and he was a 
 sort of mandarin family in China. He 
 went to Singapore and started in the tea 
 business. He had a large hard head. He 
 went into a lot of different enterprises, and 
 cut a considerable swath. He died and 
 left ten or twelve sons, who scattered to look 
 after his enterprises. That s how Fu Shan 
 came to Saleratus six years ago. Fu Shan 
 was always some stuck on his own intellect, 
 and at that time he thought he could play 
 
152 Sadler in Saleratus 
 
 cards, but he couldn t. I cleared him out of 
 two hundred and fifty one night, and we 
 went into partnership, but that s neither here 
 nor there. Now, Lo Tsin Shan appears to 
 have been a little fishy as to his feelings, but 
 he had brains. Fu Shan s opinion is rever 
 ential, and he don t admit the fish. Lo Tsin 
 had an agency at Calcutta, and Bur- 
 mah lies on the way, but it wasn t com 
 mercial in those days. Now, in Burmah 
 there s a navigable river that runs the length 
 of the country, and all along it are cities 
 full of temples, some of em deserted, and 
 some of em lively. One of the best is at 
 Rangoon on a hill, and it s called the Shway 
 Dagohn Pagoda. There s a lot of relics in 
 it, and smaller temples around, and strings 
 of pilgrims coming from as far as Ceylon 
 and China. Remarkable holy place. Old 
 Lo Tsin, he drops down there one day and 
 looks around. His fishy feelin s got inter 
 ested, and he says to himself, Guess I ll 
 come into this. He went sailin up the 
 
Sadler in Saleratus 153 
 
 river till he found a king somewhere, who 
 appeared to own the whole country. This 
 one s pastime was miscellaneous murder, but 
 his taste for tea was cultured and accurate. 
 Then Lo Tsin got down on the floor and 
 kowtowed to this king for an hour and a 
 half, the way it comes natural if you have the 
 right kind of clothes. Then he bought a 
 temple of him. It stands at the foot of the 
 south stairway of the Shway Dagohn. Fu 
 Shan ain t sure what the old man s idea 
 was, whether it was pure business or not. 
 Anyway he worked up the reputation of the 
 temple, till there was none in the place to 
 equal it, except the Shway Dagohn, which 
 he didn t pretend to compete with. He ad 
 vertised it on his tea. * Shan Brothers 
 have a brand still called Green Dragon 
 Pagocja Tea/ There wasn t no real doubt 
 but the income of the temple was large, and 
 yet it didn t appear at Lo Tsin s death that 
 he d ever drawn anything out of it. The 
 whole thing was gold-leafed from top to 
 
154 Sadler in Saleratus 
 
 bottom, and full of bronze and lacquer 
 statues, and two green dragons at the gate, 
 and ministerin angels know what besides. 
 Maybe Fu Shan s information ain t com 
 plete on that point, but this was a fact, that 
 Lo Tsin, by the will he made, instead of 
 going back to his ancestral cemetery in 
 China, he had himself carried up from 
 Singapore and buried in that same temple; 
 and there he is under the stone floor in the 
 temple of the Green Dragon, but that s not 
 to the point. Now, when they came to split 
 up his enterprises among his sons, one of 
 em took the temple for a living. His name 
 was Lum Shan. But Fu Shan says, Lum 
 would rather come over to America and go 
 into business in Saleratus. Lum Shan don t 
 like his temple, but I don t know why. 
 Well, then, I says, * Speak up, Fu Shan. 
 Don t be bashful, Asia. If you ve got a 
 medicine for the hopeless, let it come, Asia. 
 What s five thousand years got to say to a 
 man with an absolute constitution, a stomach 
 
Sadler in Saleratus 155 
 
 voracious and untroubled, who looks around 
 him and sees no utility anywhere ? Ebb and 
 flow, work and eat, born and dead, rain and 
 shine, things swashin around, a heave this 
 way and then that. You write a figure on 
 the board and wipe it out. What s the use ? 
 Speak up, Asia, but don t recommend no 
 more curry. Hi! Hi! says Fu Shan, 
 the little yeller id jit! My got blother 
 have joss house by Langoon. All light. 
 He tlade. You go lun joss house by Lan 
 goon. Vely good ploperty. That s what 
 he said. Why not? That s the way I 
 looked at it." 
 
 He paused and blew smoke. Maya Dala 
 and Irish were gone. I asked, " Are you 
 learning Burmese off Maya Dala? " and he 
 nodded. 
 
 " Now," I says, " what I don t see is this 
 temple business. Where was the profit? 
 Don t temples belong to the priests? " 
 
 " Seems not always," he says. " They re 
 a kind of monks, anyway. It s where 
 
156 Sadler in Saleratus 
 
 old Lo Tsin Shan was original to begin 
 with and mysterious afterward. Sup 
 pose a Siamese prince brings a pound of 
 gold leaf to gild things with, and some Cey 
 lon pilgrims leave a few dozen little bronze 
 images with a ruby in each eye. They ve. 
 acquired merit/ so they say. It goes to 
 their credit on some celestial record. Their 
 next existence will be the better to that ex 
 tent anyway, now. Suppose the temple s 
 gilded all over, and lumber rooms packed 
 to the roof with bronze images already. Do 
 they care what becomes of these things? 
 Don t seem to. Why should they ? They re 
 credited on one ledger. You credit the 
 same to the business on another. Economic, 
 ain t it? That way the old man s percep 
 tion, to begin with. But afterwards, 
 maybe his joss house got to be a hobby 
 with him. Oh, i don t know ! Nor I don t 
 care. Fu Shan says it s good property. 
 What he says is generally so. Profits! I 
 don t care? about profits. What good would 
 
Sadler in Saleratus 1 57 
 
 they do me? I m going to run that temple 
 if it ain t too monotonous." 
 
 That was the limit of Sadler s knowl 
 edge of this thing. Maya Dala remem 
 bered the Shway Dagohn, but as to the other 
 pagodas and monasteries, there were 
 many he didn t know he thought they 
 belonged to the monks, or to the caretakers, 
 or to no one at all, or maybe the govern 
 ment. What became of the offerings ? He 
 thought they were kept in the pagodas. 
 Sometimes they were sold ? It might be so. 
 He thought it made no difference, for it was 
 taught in the monastery schools, that the 
 " Giver acquires merit only by his action and 
 the spirit of his giving, wherefore are the 
 merits of the poor and rich equal." Why 
 should they care what became of their gifts ? 
 From Maya Dala s talk one seemed to catch 
 a glimpse of the idea, which occurred to old 
 Lo Tsin Shan, that fishy Oriental, one day 
 forty years before, and sent him up the river 
 to interview King Tharawady on his gold- 
 
158 Sadler in Saleratus 
 
 lacquer and mosaic throne. Yet he had let 
 the profits lie there, if there were any, maybe 
 thinking all along of the handsome tomb he 
 was putting up for himself, when his time 
 came. You couldn t guess all his Mongolian 
 thoughts, nor those of his son, Fu Shan, of 
 whom Sadler asked medicine for a dyspeptic 
 soul. Fu Shan said, " Go lun joss house by 
 Langoon." Sadler didn t seem to care about 
 the business part of it either, though it 
 looked interesting. He only wanted the 
 medicine. 
 
 Days and nights we talked it over and 
 got no further than that, and drew nearer 
 the East. The East is a muddy sea with 
 no bottom, and it swallows a man like a 
 fog bank swallows a ship. 
 
 Sadler made some verses that he called his 
 " Prayer; " " Sadler s prayer," and he. told 
 me them one wet day, when a half gale was 
 blowing, and he sat smoking with his feet 
 hitched over the rail. He appeared to be 
 trying to get a bead on infinity across the 
 
Sadler in Saleratus 159 
 
 point of his shoe. It ran this way, begin 
 ning, " Lord God that o erulest" : 
 
 " Lord God that o er-rulest 
 The waters, and coolest 
 The face of the foolish 
 With the touch of thy death, 
 I, Sadler, a Yankee, 
 Lean, leathery, lanky, 
 Red-livered and cranky, 
 And weary of breath, 
 
 " That hain t no theology 
 But a sort of doxology, 
 Here s my apology, 
 Maker of me, 
 Here where I m sittin , 
 Smooth as a kitten, 
 Smokin and spittin 
 Into the sea. 
 
 " The storm-winds come sweeping 
 Come widowed and weepin , 
 Come rippin and reapin , 
 The wheat of the foam, 
 And some says, it s sport, boys, 
 It s timbrels and hautboys, 
 And some is the sort, boys, 
 That s sorry he come. 
 
 " Lord God of the motions 
 Of lumberin oceans, 
 There s some of your notions 
 Is handsome and free. 
 
160 Sadler in Saleratus 
 
 But what in the brewin 
 And sizzlin, and stewin 
 Did you think you was doin* 
 The time you done me? 
 
 " Evil and good 
 
 Did ye squirt in my blood? 
 I stand where I stood 
 When my runnin began; 
 And the start and the goal 
 Were the same in my soul, 
 And the damnable whole 
 Was entitled a man. 
 
 " Lord God that o er-gazest 
 The waste and wet places, 
 The faint foolish faces 
 Turned upward to Thee, 
 Though Thy sight goeth far 
 O er our rabble and war 
 Yet remember we are 
 The drift of Thy sea." 
 
 Sadler left the Good Sister at Singapore, 
 and disappeared. 
 
 He dropped out of sight. Afterward his 
 name went from the letter heads of " Sadler 
 and Shan." They read, " Shan Brothers, 
 Saleratus, Cal. Fu Shan Lum Shan." 
 
 He was a singular man was Sadler. He 
 held the opinion that this life was an idea 
 
Sadler in Saleratus 161 
 
 that occurred to somebody, who was tired of 
 it and would like to get it off his mind. 
 I took him for one that had got too much 
 conscience, or too much restlessness, one of 
 the two, and between them they gave him 
 dyspepsia of the soul. Sometimes that dys 
 pepsia took him bad, and when he had one 
 of those spells he d light out into poetry 
 scandalous. Some folks are built that way, 
 some not. J. R. Craney, for instance, he 
 was a romantic man, and gifted according 
 to his own line, and had airy notions ahead 
 of him that he pretty near caught up to; 
 but as to metres, he couldn t tell metres 
 from cord-wood. Yet the first time I saw 
 him again, after leaving him at Corazon, he 
 heaved some at me, but he didn t know it 
 was poetry. It was some years later. I 
 sailed the Good Sister quite a time, and did 
 pretty well by her. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Tfting 3-ulfus 
 
 IT was back in San Francisco and several 
 years after, and I was master of the 
 Good Sister still, but not feeling agreeable at 
 the time, because Fu Shan and the agent at 
 Frisco kept me sitting around collecting 
 barnacles. They didn t seem to know what 
 they wanted me to do with her. I guess the 
 business of Sadler and Shan didn t prosper 
 well for a while after Sadler left, on account 
 of sportive Caucasians. 
 
 I was leaning over the rail one day, look 
 ing across the wharf, and I saw J. R. Craney 
 come strolling down with one hand in his 
 pocket and the other pulling a chin beard. 
 He hadn t changed so much, except that he 
 looked older and had a chin beard and wore 
 a long black coat and plush vest. He looked 
 
 at the Good Sister, and he looked at me, and 
 163 
 
King Julius 163 
 
 neither of us said anything for a long time, 
 and his business eye was absent-minded and 
 calm, and the blind one pale and dead-look 
 ing. Then I says : 
 
 " Why don t you get a glass eye, Cra- 
 ney?" and he says, "I wished you d call 
 me J. R. Phipp. What you doing with that 
 there ship? " which was a promising rhyme, 
 but he didn t know he d done it. I judged 
 his family name had been collecting bar 
 nacles, till it wasn t worth cleaning maybe, 
 or maybe he was a fugitive or exile from 
 Corazon, or maybe he d speculated in mat 
 rimony, and was fleeing from hot water, 
 or maybe kettles, or maybe he d assassi 
 nated his great aunt s second cousin s hus 
 band, which was no business of mine, any 
 of it. 
 
 " Look here," I says, not feeling agree 
 able. " Here s my programme. You go 
 up to 22 Market Street, and ask the agent. 
 Then he ll say he don t know. Then you ll 
 tell him he s a three-cornered idiot, because 
 
164 King Julius 
 
 you ll admire the truth, and come back and 
 we ll have a drink." 
 
 " All right," he says, absent-minded and 
 calm, and went off up Market Street. By- 
 and-by the agent came down with Craney 
 floating behind. 
 
 "This is Mr. J. R. Phipp," says the 
 agent, " who has chartered the Good Sister. 
 Get her ready. Mr. Phipp will superintend 
 cargo himself and sail with you." 
 
 That was the way it happened. Craney 
 spent days going round the stores in the city 
 and buying everything that took his eyes. 
 He bought house-furnishings and pictures, 
 toys, horns, drums, cases of tobacco and 
 spirits, glass ornaments and plaster statues, 
 crockery and cutlery, guns, clothes, neck 
 ties, and silk handkerchiefs, and cheap jew 
 elry. He d go in and ask for a drygoods 
 box. Then he d potter around the shop till 
 the box was full. He d buy out a show case 
 of goods, and maybe he d buy the show case. 
 He bought barrels full of old magazines and 
 
King Julius 165 
 
 books on theology and law, and a cord or 
 two of ten-cent novels, and some poetry that 
 was handy, and three encyclopaedias, and 
 two or three kinds of dogs, and a basket 
 phaeton with green wheels, and a printing 
 press, and a stereopticon. The agent says 
 to me: 
 
 " He has a scheme for trading in the 
 South Pacific. He s a lunatic, and he s paid 
 for six months. Send me news when you 
 get a chance, and come back by Honolulu 
 for directions. He s a lunatic," he says, 
 " and you d better lose him somewhere and 
 get a commission on the time saved." 
 
 Then he hurried off the way you d think 
 he was a man with energy, instead of one 
 that would sit still and let the weeds grow in 
 his hair. But Craney went on buying chan 
 deliers and chess-boards and clocks and 
 women s things, such as dresses and ostrich- 
 feathers hats, and baby carriages, and para 
 sols, and an allotment of assorted dinner- 
 bells, and one side of a drug store. I don t 
 
1 66 King Julius 
 
 know all there was in his cases, only I 
 judged there wasn t any monotony. I says : 
 
 " Maybe now you might be done." 
 
 He came aboard and looked thoughtful. 
 Then he felt in his pocket and pulled out a 
 bunch of knitting needles, and looked 
 thoughtful. 
 
 " Well," he says. " I rather wanted to 
 look up some front porches, ready made, 
 with door-knockers, but I didn t get to it. 
 It s just as well." 
 
 We dropped out of the Gate with the 
 tide on a Saturday night, and stood away to 
 the southwest. 
 
 Craney was always a talkative man, lik 
 ing to open out his point of view. At first I 
 thought he d gone lunatic of late, and then 
 again when he showed me his point of view, 
 I found he hadn t changed so much, as got 
 more so. 
 
 Many nights we sat on deck in the moon 
 light and with a light breeze pushing in the 
 sails, for the weather in the main was steady, 
 
King Julius 167 
 
 and he d smoke a fat cigar, and look at the 
 little shining clouds. He d talk and specu 
 late, sometimes shrewd, and then again it 
 was like a matter of adding a shipload of 
 pirates to the signs of the zodiac, and getting 
 the New Jerusalem for a result. By-and-by, 
 I felt that way myself, as if, supposing you 
 kept on sailing long enough, you might run 
 down an island full of mixed myths and 
 happy angels. Sure he was romantic. 
 
 " I m a romantic man, Tommy," he says. 
 " That s my secret. Yes, sir, Romance, that s 
 me ! That s the centre of my circumference, 
 that s the gravity of my orbit, that s the num 
 ber of my combination. Visions, ideals! 
 I m a man to get up and look for the beyond. 
 I want to expand ! I want to permeate ! I 
 want the beyond! Here I am, fifty years 
 old. I gets up and looks out on to the world. 
 I says : J. R., this won t do. Is it for noth 
 ing that you re a man of romance? Is it for 
 nothing that you long to permeate, to ex 
 pand? The soul of man, I says, is airy; 
 
1 68 King Julius 
 
 it s full of draughts. Your soul, J. R., flaps 
 like a tent/ I says, * in the breezes of dawn. 
 The world is round. Time is fleeting. Is 
 man an ox ? No. Is he a patent inkstand ? 
 No. Was he created to occupy a house and 
 fit his head to a hat ? No. Then why delay ? 
 Why smother your longings ? I says ; J. 
 R., this won t do. This ain t your destiny. 
 Rise ! Be winged ! Chase the ideal ! Get on 
 the vastness ! Seek and find ! But what ? 
 I says,, Fame, fortune, a vocation that s 
 worthy of you. Where? I says, * In the 
 beyond. Then I took a map, Tommy, and 
 looked over the world ; I examined the globe ; 
 I took stock of the earth, and compared 
 lands, seas, climates. The likeliest-looking 
 place appeared to be the South Pacific Ocean. 
 Why ? It appeared to be, in general, beyond. 
 It was the biggest thing on the map. It was 
 tropical. Palm-trees, spicy odours, corals, 
 pearls. All right, I says: J. R., it 
 wouldn t take much to be a millionaire in 
 those unpolluted regions. You d be a poten- 
 
King Julius 169 
 
 tate. You d wear picturesque clothes, and 
 lie on poppies and lotuses. You d be a Solo 
 mon to those guileless nations. You d 
 instruct their ignorance and preserve their 
 morals. You d lead their armies to victory 
 on account of your natural gifts. You d 
 have your birthdays celebrated with torch 
 light processions. You d be a luxurious 
 patriot. Now that s a pleasant way of 
 looking at it. But it seemed to me 
 the likeliest thing was to go out as a 
 trader. Now as to trading. Sitting on 
 a stool and figuring discounts is business, 
 and trading cheese-cloth for parrots is busi 
 ness too. A horse is an animal, and so s a 
 potato-bug. But I take it where society 
 is loose and business isn t a system, there s 
 always chance for a man with natural gifts. 
 But you re going to ask me : What for is all 
 this mixture I ve got aboard? If some of 
 it s tradable, you d say, there must be a deal 
 of it isn t. And I ask you back, Tommy: 
 Take it in general, haven t I got a mixture 
 
170 King Julius 
 
 that represents civilisation? Did you ever 
 see a ship that had more commodious, mis 
 cellaneous, and sufficient civilisation in her 
 than this? I m taking out civilisation. 
 Maybe I m calculating on a boom. Now, the 
 secret of a boom is to spread out as far as 
 you can reach, and then flap. That s busi 
 ness. When you ve got people s attention, 
 you can settle down and make your bargains. 
 Mind you," says Craney, turning on me an 
 eye that was cold and calm " mind you, I 
 don t say that s what I m going to do, nor I 
 don t say what I m calculating to trade for. 
 Maybe I have an idea, and maybe I haven t." 
 
 I says, " Course you have." 
 
 " You think so ? " he says. " It s no more 
 than reasonable. But look at all this now " 
 with one thumb in the armhole of his vest 
 and waving his cigar with the other hand 
 toward the moon and sea " look at this 
 here hemisphere. It s big and still. The 
 kinks and creases of me are smoothing out. 
 I m expanding, permeating. I look out. I 
 
King Julius 171 
 
 see those there shining waves. I says to 
 myself, J. R., as a romantic man, you may 
 be said to be getting there. " 
 
 He used to read some in the daytime, 
 but mostly he d smoke and meditate and pull 
 his chin beard, sitting on deck in a red plush- 
 covered easy-chair, with his feet on the rail. 
 One time he had a volume of poetry in his 
 hand, turning over the leaves. 
 
 " Some of it appears to be sawed down 
 smooth one side," he says, " and left ragged 
 on the other, and some of it s ragged both 
 sides." 
 
 Then he read a bit of it aloud, but it 
 didn t go right, for sometimes he d trot, as 
 you might say, when he ought to have gal 
 loped, and sometimes he d gallop when he 
 ought to have trotted, and sometimes he d 
 come along at a mixed gait. As a rule, he 
 bumped. 
 
 He was no hand at poetry. Nor was he 
 romantic to look at, but thin, and sinewy, 
 and one-eyed, and some dried up, clean 
 
172 King Julius 
 
 shaven except for a wisp of greyish whisker 
 on his chin, and always neatly dressed now. 
 When he d laugh to himself, the wrinkles 
 would spread around his eyes, one blind, and 
 the other calm and calculating, and absent- 
 minded. He d sit with his cigar tilted up in 
 one corner of his mouth, and his hat tilted 
 forward, and whittle sticks. He d talk with 
 anybody, but mostly with me and Kamelillo, 
 whom he appeared to be asking for informa 
 tion. Kamelillo knew island dialects about 
 the same as he did English, but wasn t much 
 for conversation. Craney came one day 
 with a bundle of charts, and he collected me 
 and Kamelillo in a corner and spread his 
 charts on the deck. They were old charts. 
 
 "Now," he says, "here is the lines of 
 trade." 
 
 He had the regular routes all marked on 
 his charts. 
 
 " There appears to be some vacant spaces, 
 he says. And there did. " And here s about 
 the biggest! " And it was. " There don t 
 
King Julius 173 
 
 seem to be any island there, but here s a 
 name, Lua, only you can t tell what it be 
 longs to." No more you could. The name 
 appeared to be dropped down there so that 
 section of the Pacific wouldn t look so lonely. 
 I brought out the ship s chart, but it didn t 
 give any name, only two or three islands 
 sorted around where Craney s chart said 
 " Lua." It looked as if you might find one 
 of them, and then again you might not. 
 
 " Ever been on any of em ? " he asked. 
 I hadn t and Kamelillo didn t know, but 
 Jooked as if he might have swallowed one 
 without remembering it. 
 
 "Nor I," says Craney, " but I know 
 there s likely to be natives when the islands 
 are sizable." 
 
 " These might be only coral circles," I 
 says. 
 
 " Well, I guess we ll go and look at 
 Lua, anyway," he says. " A man don t 
 put * Lua on a map without he s got some 
 idea." 
 
174 King Julius 
 
 It was nearly two months from the day we 
 left the coast of the States when we came to 
 the edge of the letter " L," as according to 
 Craney s chart, and we sailed along the bot 
 tom of it and around the curve of " U," and 
 up the inside on the right, where the ship s 
 chart had an island, but we missed it, if it 
 was there. Then we came to the top of the 
 right leg of " U," where there might be an 
 island on Craney s chart, except that it looked 
 more like part of the letter. Craney says : 
 
 " Try A. " 
 
 We cut across into " A." It was in the 
 curve of the twist at the end of the " A " that 
 we sighted land at last. The ship s chart 
 had an island in the neighbourhood, but 
 somewhat to the north. Likely Craney s no 
 tion of coasting the edge of the letters was 
 as good as any. I never claimed the ship s 
 chart was a good one, for it wasn t. I only 
 told him I d rather sail by the advertise 
 ments in a newspaper than by his. 
 
 There was a reef at the north end of the 
 
King Julius 175 
 
 island, and we ran south down the coast some 
 miles to where it fell away to the southwest, 
 and dropped anchor at night in a bay with 
 a white beach and a long row of huts back 
 from it under the trees. A bunch of natives 
 ran down and stood looking at us. Some of 
 them swam out a little, or paddled on a log, 
 and then went back. There was a splash 
 ing and calling all night, and fires shining 
 on the beach. Kamelillo thought he d 
 been there before, but he didn t remember 
 when; but if he had, it stuck in his mind, 
 there was some trouble connected with it, 
 and with one he called a " bad-lot chief " ; 
 but I told Craney that Kamelillo had seen 
 too many islands and too much strong drink 
 in his career, and he might be thinking of 
 something that happened in New Zealand. 
 
 In the morning Craney took Kamelillo 
 and went ashore. I saw the natives gath 
 ered around him. They all went up the 
 beach and disappeared, and the boat came 
 back with word from Craney that he ana 
 
176 King Julius 
 
 Kamelillo were going inland and wouldn t 
 be back before night. I didn t think he ought 
 to go off careless like that; but they came 
 back safely about seven o clock, only Craney 
 seemed to be thoughtful and not talkative. 
 He said there was a business opening there, 
 and he guessed he d speculate; and he sat 
 on deck in his red plush chair till past twelve, 
 smoking fat cigars and staring at the shore. 
 The next day he had up three or four 
 cases from the hold. There was a crowd 
 waiting for him on the beach, and I saw 
 him tying the boxes on poles, and some of 
 the barbarians shouldered the poles, and 
 they all went off in procession. I didn t ask 
 him when he d come back, and he didn t 
 come for near a week. Only every day 
 there would be a native come down and 
 dance around in the shallow to attract atten 
 tion, or maybe swim out to the ship with a 
 bit of paper in his mouth. And the paper 
 would read : " O. K. Business progressing. 
 Yours, J. R." or; " I m permeating. Yours, 
 
King Julius 177 
 
 Julius R." So I judged it was a peaceful 
 island, and likely Craney had found some 
 thing worth trading for. We went ashore 
 every day, but not inland. We were satisfied 
 to stay on the beach, and to watch the naked 
 little children dive in the surf, and to play 
 tag with the population. 
 
 But one day I followed a path a mile in 
 land, and climbed a hill and saw an open val 
 ley to the south with several hundred palm- 
 leaf huts, and farther up was more open 
 country and some hills beyond thickly wood 
 ed. I judged the island was twenty miles 
 north and south, but couldn t see how far it 
 went westward, and coming back, found a 
 note for me : " O. K. I never see folks so 
 open to conviction. Yours, J. R." 
 
 It was Craney s business, and not mine. 
 I thought to myself, sometimes these men 
 you d think lunatic weren t that way, only 
 they had their point of view. Next day there 
 was another note : " Two of em are dead. 
 I guess it s a good thing. I bought it any- 
 
178 King Julius 
 
 way. Julius R." And while I was thinking 
 it over, and thinking sometimes these men 
 that claimed they d got a point of view were 
 really lunatic, Craney came back. He must 
 have had three hundred natives following 
 him, and they camped on the beach and 
 seemed to rejoice, for they danced and sang 
 most of the night, while he and I sat on the 
 deck and talked it over. 
 
 " This island," says Craney, " is full of 
 politics. I ll tell you. They had a king 
 lately, and, according to accounts, he was 
 old and fat, and his morals were bad. But 
 he died, and up came five candidates for the 
 place, and their claims to it I didn t make out, 
 but if it was a question of votes, I gathered 
 the ballot was tolerable corrupt, and if it 
 was inheritance, I took it the late royalty had 
 so many heirs they were common like any 
 body else. But everybody was busy, and it 
 looked as if business would be dull for me, 
 and they told me it was no use trying to be 
 neutral. I d have to back one of em. Course, 
 
King Julius 179 
 
 I didn t know. Each of the candidates occu 
 pied a corner of the island, and now and 
 then they d meet in the middle for slaughter. 
 What could I do? Well, I tell you what I 
 did. I hired five messengers and invited the 
 candidates to a congress. I says: 
 
 " Not more n ten to each party. And 
 they came. 
 
 " Kamelillo s a good enough interpreter, 
 only he s sort of condensed. If a man makes 
 a speech of half an hour, Kamelillo gives 
 a grunt to cover most of it, and then he 
 states what he guesses is the point of the 
 rest. But he did well enough. 
 
 " Then I got in the middle of em and I 
 argued. I says: 
 
 " * Gentlemen, this is a peaceful inter 
 view. Pile your weapons. 
 
 " I got em piled in a heap and I sat on 
 em, and argued, and the candidates argued. 
 They did pretty well, considering only one 
 of em had a shirt. He was old, too, and 
 had chicken bones in his hair, and, it was 
 
1 80 King Julius 
 
 curious, but he knew considerable English, 
 and could cuss skilful in it. The other four 
 were younger,, and they appeared a good 
 deal surprised with the way I argued it. I 
 says: 
 
 " Gentlemen, there ain t room in this 
 island for a Civil War. You see it for your 
 self. Now I ll show you. Each of you five 
 take one spear and one shield, and get into 
 the middle here and fight it out. The rest of 
 us 11 watch/ 
 
 " I appealed to the fifty followers, and 
 they all agreed that was a good thing. The 
 five candidates were doubtful. The old man 
 said he wasn t any good at that. I says: 
 
 " Venerable, what you want is comfort, 
 not to say luxury, for your declining years. 
 I ll guarantee you that. You stay quiet. 
 Then I knocked open a box and showed him 
 assorted drygoods, and says, What do you 
 say? 
 
 " He thought it looked luxurious, and 
 said he d think it over. By this time the 
 
King Julius 181 
 
 others were willing to fight, for their follow 
 ers all agreed it was a good thing. 
 
 " I never saw the equal of it, Tom, never ! 
 I never saw a dog-fight come up to it for 
 prompt execution. I won t harrow your 
 feelings as mine were harrowed. I won t 
 puncture you with thrills as I was punctured. 
 We buried two of em decent. The other 
 two were cut up and played out quite a little. 
 I collected weapons, and I says: 
 
 " Now there are two ways. Either you 
 two can have it out, and when you re 
 through, anything that s left can have it out 
 with me, or I ll buy you as you stand. 
 
 " They looked surprised to see it put that 
 way. They were low in their spirits. They 
 said they didn t want to fight any more 
 that week. I knocked open the boxes and 
 spread the goods, and then they acted avari 
 cious, particularly the old man with the 
 chicken bones. Burying two of em was 
 economic. I says : 
 
 " Gentlemen, what s the value you put 
 
1 82 King Julius 
 
 on your claims? State em, and state em 
 reasonable." 
 
 " I dribbled out gingham dresses, and 
 hair-brushes, and pocket mirrors, and col 
 ored prints, and bottles of bay-rum. I never 
 saw folks act happier. I bought up the 
 claims. I scattered what was left of the 
 goods among the crowd. I got on the empty 
 boxes, and I says: 
 
 " Here s your monarch. That s m.e, 
 Julius the First, and only. If anybody else 
 from now on claims he s a monarch in these 
 regions, he shall be skinned and melted. 
 And they all cried : Hoi ! Hoi ! or words 
 to that effect. They were unanimous. Kame- 
 lillo said they liked it good. 
 
 Craney was silent a while, and I didn t 
 say much. I didn t know how to get along 
 with monarchs, anyway. The men forward 
 were working by lantern, hauling up stuff 
 from the hold, and piling it on deck to start 
 unloading in the morning. 
 
 "I m going out of trade," he went on. 
 
King Julius 183 
 
 " I m going into royalty. That s my retinue 
 on the beach. What s more, it s most of the 
 male population, including nobility and 
 masses. I ll show em. The old king was a 
 bad lot. I ll be a benevolent monarch. I ll 
 give em free schools and a constitution. 
 
 " Tommy," he says after a long silence, 
 " you ll be going back to San Francisco, and 
 maybe you ll see some folks that are looking 
 for me, and maybe they ll be hostile. Very 
 good. You come back with em and you 
 watch me. You re an old friend of me, 
 Tommy. You re a man capable of expand 
 ing. You can get on to large ideas. You 
 can take in vastness. You come back, and 
 I ll make you heir to the throne." 
 
 But I didn t hanker for Craney s throne. 
 The last I saw of him for that time was 
 bidding him good-bye on the beach. He ap 
 peared to have most of the public to carry 
 up his cargo, and he appeared to be popular. 
 Kamelillo stayed with him as interpreter. 
 
 At Honolulu there came two men aboard 
 
1 84 King Julius 
 
 with a letter from the agent in San Fran 
 cisco, which agent was irritating on account 
 of slowness, and had weedy-looking hair. 
 But the letter said : 
 
 " Put the Good Sister at service of bear 
 ers. They have a warrant for Phipp." I 
 says: 
 
 " Warrant for Phipp ! What for ? " 
 One of them was a sheriff named Breen, 
 a slow, temperate man, and the other a de 
 tective named Jessamine, a yellow-bearded 
 one with light open eyes, who seemed a pleas 
 ant talker, but to the best of my recollection 
 was one you might call obstinate. They 
 showed me their papers, and these appeared 
 to be correct. Jessamine s papers stated that 
 he represented parties in St. Louis, whose 
 names don t count. 
 
 " Warrant ! " I says. " What for? " 
 
 " Why," says Jessamine, " Phipp isn t his 
 
 name, as you will see by the warrant; " which 
 
 was no particular news to me. But I didn t 
 
 like the job of going back after Craney. I 
 
King Julius 185 
 
 didn t seem to take much interest in parties 
 in St. Louis, but it set me arguing again 
 whether he was a lunatic, or had a point of 
 view. And so, though I thought it might be 
 they were going to be surprised when they 
 came to Lua, I said nothing about that, but 
 fitted up a bit in Honolulu, taking my time, 
 and set sail once more for Lua. We came 
 there in a high wind on a rainy morning, 
 about six weeks since I d left it. 
 
 No one was in sight on the beach at first, 
 but the sky clearing, I went ashore with 
 Breen and Jessamine, and several natives 
 ran out of the huts and across the beach to 
 meet us. I says, " Man, Ship," and pointed 
 inland, at which they seemed to be pleased 
 and set off ; and we followed them by a long 
 trail that came at last in the cleared valley, 
 where were long-strung-out villages, leading 
 inland to the open country this side of the 
 wooded hills. By this time w r e were a pro 
 cession. We knew when we had arrived, for 
 there appeared a long range of roofs through 
 
86 King Julius 
 
 the stems of a palm grove, and a broad path 
 led to it through bushes covered with red 
 thick-scented flowers. It was King Julius s 
 palace. The front of it was all one piazza, 
 maybe two-hundred feet long and forty deep, 
 with slim bamboo pillars; and men seemed 
 to be still shingling one end of it with layers 
 of plantain leaves. But the king was out in 
 a sort of square to one side, and had about 
 fifty warriors with feathers in their hair, 
 practising spears at a mark. Then he saw 
 us, and then he said something sharp, and 
 the fifty fell into line behind, with spears 
 and shields in disciplined order. They 
 marched very pretty, and came down on us 
 in a way to make a man feel shy. I says, 
 " Which of you is going to arrest him, and 
 how s he going to do it?" Breen says, 
 " You have me ! " And Jessamine says : 
 " Let s see." 
 
 Then the king halted his company and 
 came on alone, looking calm, with the thumb 
 of one hand in the armhole of his vest, and 
 
King Julius 187 
 
 the other pulling his chin beard. And Jessa 
 mine stepped forward and says : 
 
 " J. R. Craney, I arrest you for embez 
 zlement." And the king looked him over 
 calm and benevolent. He says, " You don t 
 mean it ! Better be careful. Why, the trou 
 ble is, the army ain t really disciplined yet. 
 They d jab you full of holes, when I wasn t 
 looking, if they caught your idea. Better 
 come and have tea. I didn t expect you d 
 be along for two months yet." 
 
 It appeared he calculated on three or 
 four months, and my meeting Jessamine at 
 Honolulu had cut him short. But I didn t 
 see but he held the cards. Jessamine might 
 arrest till he was blown. The crew of the 
 Good Sister hadn t shipped to be speared by 
 a king s bodyguard, and I didn t care much 
 for parties in St. Louis. 
 
 Soon we were eating comfortably, sit 
 ting on the big piazza around one of Craney s 
 black walnut tables. The palace seemed to 
 be fitted and furnished so far mainly from 
 
1 88 King Julius 
 
 the cargo. Each of us had two or three 
 waiters back of his chair, some men, some 
 women. The warriors squatted in line out 
 in front among the flowers. Whenever we 
 were through with a dish, Craney would 
 send the rest of it down to the warriors, and 
 they d gobble it, and watch for more, with 
 their eyes shining, but very quiet. I recol 
 lect there was something that was like a 
 duck, and some canned tomatoes, and a kind 
 of fruit with a yellow rind. 
 
 " There s two hundred in my army," says 
 Craney sociably, " in four divisions. This is 
 a special one. Mighty fond of drilling they 
 are. Fact, most everybody s in the army. 
 They re softening under discipline, but some 
 of em are bloodthirsty yet." 
 
 " J. R.," says Jessamine, " I hate to do 
 it. It s a painful duty." Craney says: 
 " Just so. Say no more. You couldn t be 
 expected to know the law of this state touch 
 ing the person of the king. Fact is, foreign 
 ers ain t allowed to arrest royalty here. Fact, 
 
King Julius 189 
 
 it s a new law. I just passed it the other 
 day. You didn t mean any harm. We ll 
 say no more." 
 
 Jessamine looked hurt. " Come now, J. 
 R., it s no use. You re not going to resist 
 the law." 
 
 " I m going to maintain it, Jessamine, 
 maintain it." 
 
 " I say, I got the authority of the States 
 of Missouri and California." 
 
 " I asks you, what authority they ve got 
 here? First place, you want extradition 
 papers. You can t have em. I won t give 
 em to you. Trouble with you, Jessamine, 
 is you re narrow. You re small, there ain t 
 any vastness about you, Jessamine." 
 
 " J. R.," says Jessamine, remonstrating, 
 " this isn t right, and you know it." 
 
 " You don t expand, Jessamine," says 
 Craney. " You don t permeate. You ain t 
 got on to large ideas." 
 
 Craney here distributed cigars, lit a fat 
 one himself, pushed back from the table, 
 
190 King Julius 
 
 crossed his legs, stuck a thumb in the arm- 
 hole of his plush vest, and went on unfold 
 ing his mind. 
 
 " It ain t the king s pleasure to leave" this 
 island, nor it ain t the ways of monarchs, 
 as I take it, to apologise. But putting aside 
 all that, and supposing you was expanded 
 enough to take that in, I m going on to state 
 the way it appears. You says, J. R., how d 
 you come to take the cash of parties that 
 trusted you ? I answers, It comes from 
 being romantic. You ain t romantic, Jes 
 samine ? That s too bad. You don t see it. 
 You don t expand to my circumference. 
 You don t permeate my orbit. You don t 
 get on to me. It was this way. I got up 
 and looked out on the world. I says : * J. R., 
 it s clear you haven t enough cash for your 
 ambitions. But you ve got a opportunity. 
 Throw it in. Be bold. If your conscience 
 squirms, let it squirm. If it wriggles, let 
 it wriggle. Take the risk. Expand to large 
 ideas. I took it. Say, I made parties un- 
 
King Julius 191 
 
 willing investors in me. Now, then, there 
 they are, as delegated in you. Here s me, 
 Julius R., monarch by purchase and election 
 of the sovereign state of Lua. You asks, 
 What next ? I says : This. I ll pay. I ll 
 settle the claims with interest on investment. 
 But I ve got to have time. Pay with what? 
 Now there s the point. I ve been investi 
 gating the produce of this island, the pearl- 
 fishing, the coral, the hardwood. The pearl- 
 fishing is good. As a business man, I tell 
 you it can be done." 
 
 Jessamine shook his head. " I haven t 
 any authority to settle the case. I m told to 
 go and bring you. I ve got to do it. It s a 
 painful duty." 
 
 The king smoked a while silently, then 
 said something to his warriors, who got up 
 and marched away around the corner. 
 " Mighty, Jessamine ! " he says, " you re 
 slow. Most mulish man I ever saw. Well, 
 let it go. You can t do it. Recollect, at 
 tempting the person of the king is a capital 
 
192 King Julius 
 
 crime. That s the law of this land. It s de 
 cided and it don t change. We ll drop it." 
 
 So nothing more was said of the matter, 
 and we talked agreeably. Whether Craney s 
 account of his motives was accurate I 
 couldn t say. It didn t seem likely he ever 
 expected to settle, when he started, or he 
 took all the chances that he never would. 
 Maybe he cooked up the theory to suit 
 things as they stood. Maybe not. I don t 
 defend him, and I m not clear where he lied 
 or where he fancied. But it seemed to me 
 if he d made a long calculation, his luck 
 was standing by him at that point. 
 
 When the king left us we went for a 
 walk through the village, talking it over. 
 Breen said they d better take the offer, and 
 I thought they d have to, but Jessamine 
 wasn t satisfied. He says: 
 
 " We haven t the authority. How do 
 you know we wouldn t get into trouble at 
 home? We ve got to take him back. But 
 you see, that isn t the point. The point is, 
 
King Julius 193 
 
 here s where we make a hit. It s profes 
 sional with me. It s reputation. It s the 
 chance of a lifetime." 
 
 I say: " But where s the chance? " 
 
 "We ll see. But J. R. s been the one 
 white man so far. Now we re three to one. 
 If he can usurp a crown, I don t see but 
 what we can get up an insurrrection." 
 
 The village was a long row of huts 
 built of bamboo and big brown leaves, and 
 stretched up and down the valley. There 
 was a large hut with two doors opposite us, 
 and sitting on mats in front was a fat man 
 with little bones stuck at angles in his griz 
 zled hair. He wore a pink shirt with studs 
 and a pair of carpet slippers, and around 
 his neck a lot of glass pendants from a 
 chandelier, and he looked surly and sleepy. 
 I says: 
 
 " You can leave me out. I think you 
 ought to take the offer. If you slip up, the 
 king 11 hang you for treason. If he s the 
 government here, he s got a right to say 
 
IQ4 King Julius 
 
 what the law is. I m going back to the 
 ship. You needn t ask me for backing, for 
 you won t get it." 
 
 We stopped beside the fat man, and I 
 asked him if he hadn t been one of the rival 
 candidates, thinking it might be the old one 
 with the chicken bones that spoke English; 
 and he set to work swearing, so I knew it 
 was; and I judged from the style he swore 
 in he d been intimate one time with seamen, 
 and I judged, too, he felt dissatisfied. He 
 said he was rightly chief of the island, and 
 that man, all of whose grandfathers were 
 low and disgusting, meaning Julius R., was 
 living in his house, and, moreover, had 
 given him only three pink shirts. Jessamine 
 sat down by him, and said nothing, but list 
 ened, and I went and found some of the 
 beach natives, and came back with them to 
 the Good Sister. 
 
 That night passed, and it came the 
 morning of the next day, and I heard noth 
 ing from them. I went ashore, but found 
 
King Julius 195 
 
 no one about the huts there but children and 
 a few old women. The old women jab 
 bered at us excitedly. 
 
 I took six of the men and started inland 
 through the hot woods, where the green and 
 red parrots screamed overhead. When we 
 came out to look up the valley to the open 
 country, we saw no signs of fighting, nor 
 any one moving about. Through the valley, 
 as we went up it, there was no smoke from 
 the huts, no women bruising nuts and 
 ground roots into meal, no fat man before 
 the hut with two doors sitting on his mats, 
 not a soul in the village. 
 
 But coming near the palace we could 
 see all the red flower shrubs were trampled 
 and smashed. Then we came on a dead 
 body by the path ; then more bodies, bloody 
 and spitted with spears; and one man, who 
 was wounded, lifted himself, and glared, 
 and dropped again among the red flowers. 
 Through the palm stems we saw the roofs 
 of the palace, and the piazza with the bam- 
 
196 King Julius 
 
 boo pillars. The line of the bodyguard was 
 squatted on the piazza, with their spears up 
 right before them. Everything was still. 
 
 Then we heard a cry behind us, and 
 looked, and saw Jessamine and Breen, but 
 no others with them, running through the 
 village towards us. They came up to us, 
 and said they had been in the woods hunt 
 ing for the villagers who had run away, but 
 found none. We sat down not far from the 
 wounded man. Jessamine had his arm in a 
 sling, and he told what had happened, so 
 far as he made it out. 
 
 " It was the way I fancied," he says ; " J. 
 R. wasn t so solid with his army as he 
 thought, except the bodyguard, but I d no 
 idea they d go off like a bunch of fireworks. 
 The old fat one sent messengers around in 
 the afternoon, and at night we went with 
 him over back of that hill, and met a crowd 
 who had a few torches, but it was pretty 
 dark, and I couldn t see how many there 
 were along the hillside. I made them a 
 
King Julius 197 
 
 speech: how J. R. had run away from his 
 land, and was ruling them here when he had 
 no right, and they oughtn t to stand it ; but I 
 don t know that the fat one interpreted it. I 
 guess he made a speech of his own. All 
 I know is they went off like gunpowder. 
 Whether all of them yelled for battle and 
 rebellion I don t know ; some of them might 
 have been yelling against it. They all 
 yelled, and pretty soon they started hot-foot 
 across the country for the palace, fighting 
 some with each other, so I gathered they 
 disagreed. There are corpses all along be 
 tween here and the hill, and it was there I 
 caught a cut in the arm. Breen and I agreed 
 to slide out of it. We went and sat on the 
 hillside and watched. Maybe J. R. had 
 word of what was coming. He seemed to 
 be ready for them. I judged the bodyguard 
 met them just above here, and there was a 
 grand mix-up, but we couldn t see well at 
 the distance. It was an awful noise. And 
 suddenly it died out. Not a sound for a 
 
198 King Julius 
 
 while. By-and-by a gang of forty or more 
 ran by us a hundred yards away, and into 
 the woods before we d decided what to do; 
 and later, after a long time, there was a 
 sort of chanting like a ceremony over here 
 at J. R. s palace, and this came at intervals 
 all night. This morning we came and found 
 the village empty, and came up a little be 
 yond here, till some one threw a spear past 
 Breen s head, and we went away to look for 
 the villagers. I don t know what J. R. is 
 up to. He appears to be laying low with his 
 wild-cats around him." 
 
 While we were speaking there came some 
 one past the bodyguards, and down to meet 
 us, and it was Kamelillo. Kamelillo didn t 
 have much to say, except that the king 
 wanted to see us, but he answered some 
 questions. He thought that in the attack on 
 the palace the other two candidates and the 
 fat one fell to quarrelling, and their follow 
 ers joined, and it might be the first two 
 had been inclined to stand by the king, only 
 
King Julius 199 
 
 they thought it was time to have some fight 
 ing. But they weren t going to put up with 
 the fat one. Instead of having it out then, 
 they had all gone off to different corners of 
 the island, the same as they used to do, and 
 that suddenly. Kamelillo didn t know how 
 it came about, and doubted if the candidates 
 knew either. He said they were a " fool lot," 
 and the king could settle them, give him 
 time to hang the fat one. But it was no use 
 now " Too damn quick/ he said. The 
 women and children had all run to the woods 
 in the beginning. Being asked about King 
 Julius, Kamelillo only grunted, and not hav 
 ing any expression of face, you couldn t 
 gather much from that. But when we came 
 to the piazza, where the bodyguard squatted, 
 what was left of it, with reddened spears, 
 ghastly to make you sick, Kamelillo grunted 
 again and said, " He gone die," and passed 
 in. The guard broke out wailing and chant 
 ing, and rocked to and fro, but only a mo 
 ment, after which they held their spears up 
 
2oo King Julius 
 
 stiff, as the king had taught them, and sat 
 still. 
 
 Now we followed Kamelillo to a great 
 room, where it seemed the king held au 
 diences and gave out laws and justice. The 
 red plush chair was on a raised platform at 
 the far end, and over and on three sides 
 were heavy red curtains, and glass chande 
 liers hung from the rafters of the roof, and 
 a row of mattresses covered with carpet was 
 laid in front, maybe so that subjects could 
 prostrate themselves comfortable. But the 
 room was dusky, and still. It seemed to be 
 empty. But we passed up it and stopped, 
 for on the carpeted mattresses before the 
 throne lay Craney, all alone. 
 
 His coat and vest were put back, his shirt 
 torn open, and his breastbone split by a 
 spear or hatchet, and it was clear he hadn t 
 long to live. 
 
 A ribby chest he had, and a dry, leathery 
 skin. The blood soaked out from under the 
 cloth he held there against it, and ran down 
 
King Julius 201 
 
 the little gullies between the ribs. Jessa 
 mine sat down and acted nervous. He says : 
 
 " I m downright sorry for this, J. R.," but 
 Craney didn t seem to hear, but motioned 
 with his hand and says softly: 
 
 " You d better clear out." 
 
 Jessamine says, " Now, we can t leave you 
 this way." 
 
 But Craney didn t hear and says, " Call 
 in the guard." The spearmen came filing in, 
 barefooted, stepping like cats, and took posi 
 tion on each side, so that you could see it 
 was according to discipline, and maybe 
 they d done it every day when he d held a 
 court or something. We slid back, feeling 
 shy of the spears, and J. R. looked pleased, 
 and he says: 
 
 " You re narrow, Jessamine. You don t 
 permeate. You don t expand. You don t 
 rise to large Oh, Jessamine! I m dying, 
 and I m sick of your face. Tommy," 
 he says, speaking hoarse and low 
 " you d better go." His eyes wandered ab- 
 
202 King Julius 
 
 sent-minded to the plush chair with the cur 
 tains and chandeliers and the spearmen 
 standing around it, and down the long room, 
 like he was taking his leave of things he d 
 thought of, and things he d been fond of, 
 and things he d hoped for, and things he d 
 meant to do. He muttered and talked to 
 himself : " I sat there," he said, " and I did 
 the right thing by the people. Gentlemen, 
 these black idjits are friends of mine. If 
 you don t mind, I d rather you d go. But 
 you can stay, Tommy, if you want to." 
 
 So I stayed until he was gone. When 
 I came away I left the spearmen chanting 
 over him. 
 
 That was Julius R. Craney. Why, I 
 don t praise him, nor put blame on him. 
 Kamelillo said he was " old boy all right," 
 but Kamelillo s notions of what was virtu 
 ous weren t civilised notions. A man ought 
 to be honest. I ve known thieves that were 
 singular human. He was mighty happy 
 when he was a king, was Julius R. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 Cbe IrtBt proposition SaDlec Conclu&eD 
 
 IT happened in the year 84 that I took 
 in sailing orders at Hong-Kong to go 
 round to Rangoon for a cargo of teak wood. 
 It s a hard wood that s used in shipbuilding. 
 That was a new port to me, and it wasn t 
 a port-of-call at all till the English took it. 
 You go some thirty miles up the Rangoon 
 River, which is one of the mouths of the 
 Irrawaddy, which is the main river of Bur- 
 mah; and the first you see of the town is 
 the Shway Dagohn Pagoda, the gilded cone 
 above the trees. Rangoon had already a 
 good deal that was European about it, hotels 
 and shops, stone blocks of buildings, the 
 custom house, offices of the Indian Empire, 
 and houses of English residents. The gilded 
 pagoda looks over everything from a hill. 
 The crowds in the streets are Eastern, 
 Chinamen, Malays, and Bengalees, and 
 203 
 
204 The Kiyi Proposition 
 
 mainly the Burman of the Irrawaddy. I 
 was anchored over against the timber yards. 
 I says to myself : 
 
 "Rangoon! Pagoda! Why, Green 
 Dragons and Kid Sadler ! " I wondered if 
 he was there to be asked, " How s business ? 
 How s the dyspeptic soul ? " and whether 
 he had an office maybe near the custom 
 house, and. exported gold leaf and bronze 
 images of Buddha. I started to find the 
 temple of Green Dragons, and followed a 
 broad street, leading to the right, for nearly 
 a mile. Then it grew wooded on each side. 
 Gateways with carved stone posts and plas 
 ter griffins, took the place of shops, and be 
 hind them you could see the slanting roofs 
 of the monasteries, and their towers, strung 
 to the top with rows of little roofs. A 
 stream of people moved drowsy in the road, 
 monks in yellow robes with their right shoul 
 ders bare, women with embroidered skirts, 
 men with similar skirts, men with tattooed 
 legs, and men in straw hats with dangling 
 
The Kiyi Proposition 205 
 
 brims. There were covered carts looking 
 like sun-bonnets on wheels and pulled by 
 humped-necked oxen. There were little 
 skylarking children, and Chinamen, and 
 black-bearded Hindoos. 
 
 Then I saw a stone stairway going up 
 the side of the hill. I went on, staring ahead 
 at the cone that shone in the air, and getting 
 bewildered to see so near by the quantity of 
 dancing statues on the roofs of the temples 
 that crowded the hill, and those acres of 
 tangled-up carving. So I came to the foot 
 of the stairs. 
 
 Close to the right was a gateway in a 
 white wall, and on each side was a green 
 lacquer dragon, that had enamelled goggle 
 eyes and a size that called for respect. The 
 gateway led under a row of roofs held up 
 by shiny pillars. Over the wall you could 
 see a gilded cone pagoda with a bell on top. 
 
 It looked pretty inside of the gate, with 
 flowers and trees and little white and gold 
 buildings. A yellow-robed man sat under 
 
2o6 The Kiyi Proposition 
 
 a roof near the gate with some children 
 squatted around. He wasn t Sadler. He 
 didn t look as if an inquiry for Sadler would 
 start anything going in his mind. There 
 was a faint tinkle of bells, and the far-off 
 mutter of a gong. 
 
 Anyway there were green dragons. I 
 went in, thinking of the years gone, of Fu 
 Shan, who used to sit, sucking his porcelain 
 pipe on Sadler s porch, and looking down 
 on the creek where the boys were rowing 
 with his countrymen, and looking down on 
 Saleratus that was a pretty unkempt com 
 munity, and saying, " Vely good joss house, 
 gleen dlagon joss house by Langoon ; " and 
 then of Sadler saying : " Stuck-up little cast- 
 eyed ghost! Speak up, Asia, if you ve got 
 any medicine for me." 
 
 Farther on another man in a blue robe 
 sat under a tree, with his feet stuck out in 
 front. By the black clay pipe he was smok 
 ing, and by his hair that was red enough to 
 keep a man surprised as not harmonious 
 
The Kiyi Proposition 207 
 
 with his robin s-egg blue robe, the same was 
 Irish. 
 
 He whooped joyful to see me, and said 
 I d find Sadler over " beyont the boss 
 pagody." 
 
 "Tommy boy," he says anxious, "ye 
 won t be shtirrin oop the Kid. He ain t 
 been into anything rampageous, nor the 
 women, nor the drink, nor clawin to do 
 nothin , since we coom, and me gettin fat 
 with the pacefulness of it. Lave him aisy 
 for the love of God!" 
 
 In the cone pagoda there were people 
 praying on the floor, and it was ringed with 
 little bronze Buddhas and big wooden Bud- 
 dhas, standing, sitting, and lying, that all 
 smiled, three hundred identical smiles. Then 
 I came out beyond to a small temple on a 
 mound, a sort of pointed roof on a circle of 
 lacquer pillars. A yellow-robed man sat 
 on the floor, with right shoulder bare, lean 
 ing against a pillar. A woman stood in 
 front of him. talking fast. Three children 
 
208 The Kiyi Proposition 
 
 were playing on the grass. You could look 
 over the wall, and see the shuffling crowd 
 in the streets, and those going up and down 
 the stairway to the Shway Dagohn. The 
 yellow robe was smoking a pipe. More 
 over he was Sadler. 
 
 The woman stared at me and scuttled 
 away, and I says, " How s business? How s 
 the dyspeptic soul? " 
 
 " Business good," he says. " Dyspeptic s 
 took a pill. Sit down, Tommy. Glad to 
 see you." Those were his remarks, and it 
 didn t look as if the East had swallowed 
 him, except that he was remarkable calm, 
 and his head was shaved, and his clothes 
 didn t seem proper on a white man. 
 
 Then bit by bit, he unloaded his mind, 
 which appeared full of little things, like a 
 junk shop. He says : " See that woman that 
 left ? " he says. " She has four children, 
 all girls, and she s mad over it. Around 
 here, when a woman s going to have a child, 
 she generally puts in a bid at the temple for 
 
The Kiyi Proposition 209 
 
 a boy. Queer, ain t it ! Well, that one has 
 had four girls. Every time she comes 
 around afterwards and lays down the law. 
 Sometimes she brings her man, and they 
 both lay down the law. Well, it s lively! 
 That one on the left," he says, pointing to 
 the children, " that s Nan, proper name An- 
 anda. She s one of their four. She s got 
 the nerve of a horsefly ! The chunky one in 
 the middle, his name s Sokai, but I call him 
 Soaker for short. His folks work in the 
 rice fields. The littlest one s Kishatriya, 
 which I call him Kiyi on account of his sol- 
 emnness. Seemed to me it ought to cheer 
 things up, to call him Kiyi. His folks died 
 of cholera. He keeps meditatin all the 
 time. 
 
 " Business/ he says. " Oh ! Fu Shan 
 LumShan. Why. Yes! Saleratus!" He 
 seemed to have trouble getting his mind to 
 those long-past things. I says, " Fu Shan 
 introduced you to his brother, didn t he?" 
 
 " Why, Fu Shan gave me a letter. You 
 
210 The Kiyi Proposition 
 
 remember that? Well, as I recollect, it 
 turned out this way. Lum Shan, he just 
 says, All light, and lit out. All there was 
 to it. He left me kind of surprised. I 
 thought, * There must be some poison 
 around here/ but there wasn t. But it don t 
 suit him. Then I looked up the title to the 
 temple. Old Lo Tsin had got it recorded 
 in the English courts in 53, when they an 
 nexed the town, and the title appeared to 
 be good. I investigated some more. There 
 were twenty yellow monks teaching school 
 here. There s forty now. I got em in. 
 But they appeared to think Lum Shan, or 
 me, was a sort financial manager, that man 
 aged affairs mysterious. They said, Why 
 should the holy be troubled? All things are 
 one. I thought they were pretty near right 
 there, but I didn t see any advantage in it. 
 I thought it was an all-round discouragin 
 statement. It was the oneness of things that 
 was tiresome. I strolled around and 
 thought it over. Then I says: Lend me 
 
The Kiyi Proposition 2 1 1 
 
 one of them robes. * But, says they, it 
 is the garment of the phongyee. You are 
 not a holy one. Think not? I says. 
 Right again. Any kind of a blanket will 
 do. 
 
 " They gave me a blue cotton sheet, and 
 recommended I go and sit three or four 
 weeks in the pagoda, and consider that All 
 things are one. I says, All right, I 
 squatted every day before them bronze or 
 wooden individuals, and remarked to each 
 one some fifty times a day, All things are 
 one, till it seemed to me every one of em 
 was thinking that identical thing too, and 
 every one of em had the same identical and 
 balmy smile over it. Take it on the whole, 
 I says, * that s a singular coincidence, ain t 
 it ? After three or four weeks I says, All 
 things are one, and felt about it the same 
 way as they looked. There was no getting 
 away from the amiableness of em. Then 
 I says : How s this ? Is monotony a bene 
 fit? Is enterprise a mistake? Is the Cau- 
 
212 The Kiyi Proposition 
 
 casian followin up a blind trail? What s 
 up ? I says. 
 
 " Then I went out and strolled around. 
 A lot of yellow monks live over the west 
 wall, and pass the time, meditatin on selec 
 ted subjects and teachin school. Monks, 
 now, are the mildest lot of old ladies out. 
 The institution furnishes two meals a day, 
 and they all go into the city mornings with 
 begging bowls to give people a chance to 
 acquire merit by charity. Then they come 
 back and give away what they ve collected 
 to poverty that s collected at the gate. That 
 way they acquire merit for themselves. Eco 
 nomical, ain t it? Then I saw how old Lo 
 Tsin felt He admired the economy of it 
 anyway. I guess he admired it all around. 
 He stood pat by his own temple, and then 
 got himself buried there. The thing give 
 him a soft spot on the head. 
 
 " Now, they think I m a sort of an ab 
 bot, and folks come in from everywhere 
 to show me a cut finger and discuss their 
 
The Kiyi Proposition 2 1 3 
 
 sinfulness, and if Xarvs mother ain t mad 
 because the temple keeps puttin her off with 
 girls, then Kiyi s got the fever and chills, or 
 somethin else is goin on. Always some 
 thing to worry about. But a man can go 
 over to the Pagoda, and tell em All things 
 are one/ and get three hundred identical 
 opinions to agree with. Cheers you up re 
 markable. Look at Kiyi ! Ain t he great ? " 
 Sadler went on in this way unloading 
 his mind of odds and ends. Down on the 
 slope below Nan was thumping Soaker on 
 the back to make him mind her. She wore 
 a striped cloth and a string of beads for her 
 clothes. Laying down the law appeared to 
 run in her family. Soaker took his thump 
 ing in a way that I judged it was a custom 
 between them. Little Kiyi crept up the steps 
 and squatted on the stone floor in front of 
 us. He had a big head, and arms and legs 
 like dry reeds. He sat, solemn and still, 
 while Sadler was unloading his mind, and it 
 seemed to me that Kiyi was mysterious, 
 
214 The Kiyi Proposition 
 
 same as the bronze Buddhas in the cone 
 pagoda. 
 
 "He s got it," says Sadler, speaking 
 husky. " Worse n I did." 
 
 "Got what?" I says. 
 
 Sadler s face had grown tired, sort of 
 heavy and worn, while he was looking down 
 at Kiyi. " Born with it. He got injected 
 with the extract of misery beforehand," he 
 says. " He was born wishing he wasn t. I 
 know what it is, but he don t know what 
 it is, Kiyi don t. He don t know what s the 
 matter. First thing he saw was the cholera." 
 
 All about the gardens there was a tinkle 
 of bells made by the wind blowing them, 
 and a gong kept muttering somewhere. Kiyi 
 rolled over on the edge of Sadler s yellow 
 robe, curled up, and shut his eyes, and went 
 to sleep. He had no clothes but a green loin 
 cloth. His hair was done up in a topknot. 
 Then I looked at Sadler, and then at Kiyi, 
 and then I thought he was the littlest and 
 saddest thing in Asia. 
 
The Kiyi Proposition 215 
 
 When I was about ready to sail, I took 
 the Shway Dagohn road again, with Stevey 
 Todd, thinking Sadler might have messages 
 to send. It was a windy afternoon. The 
 hot dust was blowing in the road. The yel 
 low old man sat inside the gate alone. There 
 were no children under the trees. He came 
 out of his dream, and motioned to stop 
 us, and mumbled something about " Tha- 
 Thana-Peing," which was the Kid s title 
 in that neighbourhood. Whether it meant 
 " His Solemn High Mightiness," or meant 
 " The Man That Pays the Bills," I didn t 
 know. " No go, no go," mumbles the yel 
 low old man. 
 
 " Ain t you keeping school to-day ? " I 
 says. 
 
 " Dead," mumbles the yellow old man. 
 
 "Who? Not Sadler! No. Tha- 
 Thana!" 
 
 " Kishhatriya," he mumbles, " Kiyi," and 
 he fell back into his absent-mindedness. So 
 we went past him to the little temple behind 
 
21 6 The Kiyi Proposition 
 
 the gilded cone. Most of the monks were 
 sitting around it on the grass, and Irish, 
 with his hair remarkable wild, among them, 
 and against a pillar sat Sadler, bent over 
 Kiyi s body that was on his knees. One of 
 the yellow robes recited a monotonous chant. 
 Maybe it was a funeral service, or maybe 
 they were going over their law and gospels 
 for the benefit of Sadler. He looked up, 
 and the reciter stopped, and it was all quiet. 
 Sadler says: 
 
 " See here, boys, what s the use? They 
 can t make an Oriental of me. This ain t 
 right, Tommy. Now, is it? No, it ain t 
 right." He looked old and weighted down. 
 He looked as old as a pyramid. " See 
 here," he says, " Tommy, what s the idea of 
 this?" 
 
 Then we backed out of that assembly. 
 Seemed to me it was a proposition a man 
 might, as well dodge. Only, I recollect how 
 little Kiyi looked like a wisp of dry hay, and 
 Sadler uncommon large, with his fists on the 
 
The Kiyi Proposition 217 
 
 stone floor on either side, and his head hung 
 over Kiyi, and how the yellow men squatted 
 and said nothing. 
 
 Maybe Sadler is studying the " Kiyi 
 Proposition," still, to find out how the three 
 hundred bronze Buddhas can give three 
 hundred cheerful agreements to the state 
 ment that " All things are one," when, on 
 the contrary, some things have Kiyi luck 
 and some don t. I don t know. The rights 
 and wrongs of this world always seemed 
 to me pretty complicated. There was Julius 
 R. that was slippery and ambitious; there 
 was Sadler that had a worm in his soul; 
 there was Clyde that kept one conscience 
 for argument, and another for the trade; 
 there was Tommy Buckingham who was 
 getting older and troubled about the inten 
 tions of things. And yet again there was folks 
 like Kreps and Stevey Todd, say, mild and 
 warm people, and a bit simple, each in his 
 way, and yet they always kept themselves 
 entertained somehow. " All things are 
 
2i 8 The Kiyi Proposition 
 
 one," are they? I couldn t see it either, no 
 more than Sadler. For this is the Kiyi 
 Proposition. You says : " Here s a bad job. 
 Who did it?" I says: "I don t know." 
 You says : " Well, who pays f or it ? " I 
 says: "Ain t any doubt about that. It s 
 Kiyi." 
 
 It was quite a parcel of years I sailed 
 the Pacific, ten years, or thereabout, alto 
 gether. The time I saw Sadler behind the 
 Green Dragons was my last cruise there. I 
 says to myself: 
 
 " Tommy, you ain t a bonny sailor boy 
 any more. Why don t you sail your own 
 ship ? Haven t you got a bank in the West 
 Indies ? Why don t you liquidate on Clyde ? 
 Why don t you quit your foolishness ? " and 
 when Stevey Todd and I got back to San 
 Francisco, I left Shan Brothers and the 
 Good Sister for good, and we came east by 
 railroad to New Orleans. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 XTbe ttosaae ot tbe 4< VooDoo " narrative 
 Continues 
 
 MONSON was the man s name that I 
 came to deal with in New Orleans. 
 He had a schooner named the Voodoo, a 
 coast cruiser that never went further to sea 
 than the Windwards. There was another 
 white man on the crew, but the rest were 
 negroes. Monson was billed already for 
 Martinique and Trinidad, and that was why 
 I dealt with him, and got him cheap for a 
 short trip beyond Tobago. 
 
 Stevey Todd set out for the north to 
 find some relatives he thought he had, but 
 found none to his mind, and concluded he 
 was an orphan. But he found a restaurant 
 to his mind in South Street in New York, 
 and there he settled himself and waited for 
 me to come along. It s a place where sea 
 men generally turn up sooner or later, and 
 219 
 
22O Voyage of the "Voodoo" 
 
 I told him I would come there. Monson 
 and I set sail the third of September in the 
 year 85. 
 
 Now, Monson was a man of great size 
 and long yellowish hair and beard, and shy, 
 innocent-looking eyes. It always gave me 
 a start to look up six feet of legs and chest, 
 and end in an expression of face which 
 seemed about to remark that the world was 
 a strange place, and might be wicked. The 
 other white man and the negroes were a bad 
 lot, and given to viciousness, but Monson 
 ruled them with a heavy fist. He hadn t 
 been three hours away from the river before 
 he was banging a negro with a board, the 
 others looking on and grinning. He was 
 spanking him, in a way. He ran to me with 
 tears in his eyes. " I ll throw that nigger 
 overboard ! " he shouted, dancing about, and 
 shortly after he appeared to have forgotten 
 the matter. I thought I should get along 
 with him, but I thought I d have to keep cool 
 and calm in dealing with him. He was 
 
Voyage of the "Voodoo" 221 
 
 such a man as it seemed better to be ac 
 quainted with in a big open space where 
 there was room for him to explode. He was 
 apt to be either gay or outrageous, and that 
 about any little thing. He was simple and 
 furious and very hearty, and that all made 
 him good company. The negroes looked 
 murderous, and the other white man shifty 
 and dirty, but he was a competent sea 
 man. 
 
 Three weeks later we passed Tobago 
 and were looking for Clyde s little island. 
 We dropped anchor there one evening about 
 eight o clock. The moon was high and the 
 sea bright. It was sixteen years since I d 
 seen that shore last, the night I rowed old 
 Clyde up the inlet, and we buried his canvas 
 bags. It was hard won enough by the old 
 man, that money, with twenty years dodg 
 ing South American customs. We d buried 
 it in the middle of a triangle of three trees. 
 I remembered how black the sea had been, 
 and rough off shore. I remembered the 
 
222 Voyage of the "Voodoo" 
 
 black cruiser with its pennon of smoke. The 
 inlet had been reedy, and the water there 
 quiet, and the soil we dug in punky and 
 wet. 
 
 " I sat in the stern of the dingey now and 
 let Monson row, which he did powerfully. 
 His forearm was like a log of wood, the 
 muscles coming out of it in knots. I was 
 glad enough there was no danger to sea 
 ward, and wished I could carry Clyde s 
 money away in a check, instead of the meal 
 bags we had in the dingey. 
 
 We rowed along and came to the inlet. 
 There was a lot of marsh grass and deep- 
 growing reeds, and clear water between that 
 stretched away inland. It made a straight 
 line between the water reeds leading up to a 
 triangle of three trees. There was a little 
 white house in the middle of the triangle, 
 with two lit windows. 
 
 I says : " Monson ! Somebody s squat 
 ted on it!" 
 
 "What!" he says. 
 
Voyage of the " Voodoo" 223 
 
 Somebody was singing in the house. 
 Monson looked around from his rowing, 
 and found it very funny to his mind, for he 
 laughed with a roar, and the singing stopped 
 short. 
 
 " Turn into the reeds ! " I says, and we 
 crouched there in the boat. 
 
 " It s just where the house is," I says, 
 " or it was. There wasn t any house then." 
 
 Monson shook with laughter though he 
 kept it quiet, and I don t know what pleased 
 him. It would have pleased me then to see 
 him dead, I was that savage for the people 
 in the house. One spot on a mean little 
 island, and they d squatted on it! Yet it 
 was plain enough, for the inlet led up to the 
 three trees, which seemed to invite a man 
 to do there whatever he had planned to 
 do. 
 
 " Stuff em up their chimney," says Mon 
 son. "Tip the hut into the creek. That 
 joke s on them, ain t it?" 
 
 I didn t see how the joke was on them. 
 
224 Voyage of the " Voodoo " 
 
 " Why, I never knew an Injy islander 
 to dig a cellar," he says : " They lie on the 
 ground and get ague. Course, they might 
 dig a hole." 
 
 The door of the little house was closed, 
 when we came soft along the muddy shore 
 and crept up to the window. There were 
 five men inside, around a table, leaning for 
 ward, whispering together and drinking 
 aguardiente. That s what Kid Sadler on the 
 Hebe Maitland used to call " affectionate 
 water." They were small men, but fierce- 
 looking and black-eyed, and they appeared 
 as if they were talking state secrets, or each 
 explaining his special brand of crime. Mon- 
 son roared out and struck the door with his 
 fist, and they disappeared. Three of them 
 went under the table. 
 
 Monson had to bend his head to enter, 
 and his shaggy hair pressed along the ceil 
 ing. He pulled some by their legs from 
 under the table, and one from a bench in a 
 dark corner by the hair, whom he left sud- 
 
Voyage of the " Voodoo " 225 
 
 denly, for it was a woman, and the two 
 others he hauled from a closet. 
 
 "Bring us some more!" he shouted in 
 Spanish, laughing uproariously. " Aguar 
 diente ! Hoorah ! " 
 
 I don t know, or forget, how he quieted 
 them, but pretty soon we were seven men 
 about the table, and the woman was serving 
 us with " affectionate water." One of them, 
 with the woman, was owner of the house, 
 and the others, it seemed, lived across the 
 island. They had heard Monson s laugh, 
 and afterward, hearing and seeing nothing 
 more, they d taken it to be ghosts and were 
 afraid. They were fierce-looking little men, 
 but pleasant enough and simple-minded. 
 " Doubtless," they said, " the senores were 
 distinguished persons, who had come on a 
 ship and would buy tobacco." We arranged 
 that the four, who lived across the island, 
 should come back in the morning with their 
 tobacco. So the four went away affection 
 ate with aguardiente, and we were left alone 
 
226 Voyage of the " Voodoo " 
 
 with the fifth. His name was Pedronez 
 and his wife s Lucina. Then I asked how 
 long they d lived there. 
 
 " One year, six months/ 1 he says, count 
 ing on his fingers. 
 
 "Build the house?" 
 
 " Si, seiior. A noble house ! A mir 
 acle!" 
 
 "Ever dig a hole here?" 
 
 "A hole! But why a hole? In the 
 ground of the noble house! Ah, no! By 
 no means ! " 
 
 Monson roared again, to the fright of 
 Pedronez and Lucina, who flattened herself 
 against the wall. He went out and brought 
 in the spade, and the bags. I guarded the 
 door, and Monson dug where I pointed in 
 the hard trodden earth of the floor. Pe 
 dronez and Lucina backed into corners and 
 chattered crazy. They seemed to think the 
 hole was for them, and Monson meant to 
 bury them in it, which had a$ reasonable 
 a look as anything. 
 
Voyage of the " Voodoo " 227 
 
 Clyde s money was there still, lying no 
 more than two feet from where Pedronezand 
 Lucina had walked over it eighteen months, 
 grubbing out a poor living. The brown 
 bags were all rotted away and the coin was 
 sticky with clay. I laid a handful on the 
 table, and told Pedronez to buy the tobacco 
 of the others in the morning, but I didn t 
 suppose he would. It seemed a hard sort 
 of joke played by luck on the little Wind 
 ward Islander, Clyde s money lying there 
 so long, twenty-four inches from the soles 
 of his feet. I remember how Pedronez 
 clutched his throat and shrieked after us into 
 the night. He had shiny black eyes and 
 skin wrinkled about the mouth, and Lucina 
 was draggled-looking. When we were out 
 of the inlet we could hear him yelling, and 
 I had an idea he and Lucina took to fight 
 ing to ease up their minds. 
 
 We came under the dark of the ship s 
 side. One of the negroes leaned over above 
 us, and Monson told him to turn in, so short 
 
228 Voyage of the " Voodoo " 
 
 that he scuttled away with a grunt. We 
 heaved the stuff aboard, and took it below, 
 and stowed the whole four meal bags under 
 my bunk. We got up sail before daybreak, 
 and slipped away while the stars were still 
 shining. 
 
 Now, I took Monson to be a simple 
 man, though sudden in action, and a man 
 with an open mind, and sure to blow up with 
 anything it was charged with, and in that 
 way safe, as not having the gifts to de 
 ceive. I don t say the estimate was all gone 
 wrong, but I d say a man may act so simple 
 as to take in a cleverer man than me. He 
 came to me the next day and took me down 
 below, acting mysterious, and he put on an 
 expression that was like a full moon trying 
 to look like a horse trader, which wasn t a 
 success. Then he jerked his beard, and 
 looked embarrassed. 
 
 " Why," he says, " it s this way. I think 
 I ll have half that pile, don t you see?" 
 
 I says: "What?" 
 
Voyage of the "Voodoo" 229 
 
 I felt like an empty meal bag with sur 
 prise. Then I says, " Of course I was mean 
 ing to make you a present, Captain," 
 
 " No," he says. " That s not it. It s this 
 way. The niggers is so tricky, they d drop 
 you overboard, tied to a chunk of iron, if 
 I told em they might, don t you see? And 
 if I don t tell them they might, seems as if 
 I ought to have half. Because," he says, 
 " they d love to do it, because they re that 
 way, those niggers, and it seems that way, 
 as if I d ought to have half, don t it? " 
 
 "Why don t you take it all?" I says, 
 sarcastic and mad. 
 
 "Why?" he says, looking like a full 
 moon that was shocked. " No ! That 
 wouldn t be fair, don t you see? " 
 
 I kept still a while, and then I thought 
 maybe there d be a way or two out, and 
 I spoke mild. 
 
 " There s some reason in it, when you put 
 it that way." 
 
 " That s right," he says, and acted joyful 
 
230 Voyage of the "Voodoo" 
 
 and free. " It s that way " ; and he went 
 above, and I heard him banging the negroes, 
 likely for the wickedness they were capable 
 of. I sat on my bunk and wondered why 
 a man like me was always having trouble. 
 
 Then I took a lantern and went explor 
 ing down in the hold of the ship, which was 
 pretty much empty of cargo, and foul, and 
 smelt as if things had rotted there a hundred 
 years. There were barrels and boxes and 
 old canvas, and heaps of scrap iron, and 
 some lead pipe, and coils of bad rope. Af 
 terward I came on deck, and had supper and 
 talked with Monson. He kept nudging me 
 now and then, and saying, " It s that way ; " 
 and me answering, " There s reason in it, 
 when it s put that way." 
 
 About nine o clock I went below. By 
 ten Monson and all the negroes were asleep, 
 except two with the other white man on 
 watch. I waited an hour, and then took a 
 saw and a lantern, and crept from the cabin 
 down the ladder to the hold. The sea was 
 
Voyage of the " Voodoo " 231 
 
 easy, though moving some, and slapping the 
 ship s sides and the hold was full of loud 
 echoes, smelling bad, and very black beyond 
 the space of lantern light, a slimy cold place, 
 and full of sudden noises. I worked till far 
 in the morning, sawing lead pipe into thin 
 sections of maybe an eighth of an inch thick, 
 and thinking about Monson and whether he 
 was deep or not. I thought he was right 
 about the negroes, but I thought Monson 
 wasn t deep, but simple by nature. It was 
 the same as when one small boy says to 
 another, " You give me your jackknife and 
 I won t tell anybody to lick you." That 
 gives him a sense of good morals that s com 
 fortable inside him. 
 
 I carried up maybe thirty pounds of lead 
 pipe in eighth-inch sections, and emptied out 
 two of the bags, and shovelled in the lead 
 pipe. I put in enough sticky coin on top to 
 cover it well, and the rest I put some in 
 the other two bags, but most in a leather 
 satchel under some clothes. Then I tied up 
 
232 Voyage of the "Voodoo" 
 
 the bags and shoved them under the bunk, 
 with the lead pipe ones in front. Eighth 
 inch sections of lead pipe aren t so different 
 from gold coin, so long as they re in a meal 
 bag with the proper deceptiveness on top. 
 Then I turned in and went to sleep. 
 
 In the morning I went to Monson and 
 said, as glum as I could, that I guessed he d 
 do as he liked, and as to the negroes drop 
 ping me overboard he was probably right. 
 Then he acted shy and timid. He followed 
 me back to my cabin, and stood around like 
 he was part ashamed and part confused, 
 kicking his heels together nervous, and 
 smoothing his hair. 
 
 " Why," he said, " you see, it s this way. 
 I think I ll take em now." 
 
 Then he fished out the two front bags, 
 opened them, squinted in, tied them up, and 
 walked off. I sort of gaped after him, and 
 sat down on my bunk, and wondered why 
 a man like me should have that kind of 
 trouble, and how soon Monson would take 
 
Voyage of the "Voodoo" 233 
 
 to fooling with his bags, and find out he 
 owned so much lead pipe. But I heard him 
 banging one of the negroes, and judged he 
 was cheerful yet. I went up on deck and lay 
 down on some cordage. Monson left the 
 deck soon after. 
 
 Fd calculated on the bags staying under 
 my bunk till we came to New Orleans, think 
 ing to pass off the two that were doctored 
 on Monson in a hurry, and then to get out 
 of reach hot-footed. I calculated now that, 
 as soon as he found his bags had been doc 
 tored, he d mention it candid and loud, and 
 meanwhile I might as well get my gun in 
 working shape for trouble. Maybe I might 
 make a bargain with the shifty-looking 
 white man, and organize an argument as 
 to which should be dropped overboard, 
 Monson or me. But I hadn t got to the 
 point, when Monson came lounging up the 
 gangway, still acting apologetic. I judged 
 maybe he d stowed away his bags without 
 digging into diem. I says : 
 
2 34 Voyage of the " Voodoo " 
 
 " Let bygones be, Captain," and he says, 
 " That s right ! It s that way. 1 
 
 It was a remarkable thing how friendly 
 and kind we got, hoping there was no hard 
 feeling. 
 
 That day the wind rose to a gale and 
 the sea went wild. It kept Monson on deck 
 night and day for four days. It kept us in 
 a boiling pot, and on the fifth we entered 
 the mouth of the Mississippi. Then Monson 
 went down to sleep, and he hadn t waked 
 when we anchored off the levee at New Or 
 leans, which was six o clock in the evening. 
 By eight I was on a train going north, with 
 a new trunk in the baggage car. 
 
 I ve never happened to see Monson since. 
 I guess he was contented. When I opened 
 the bags, one of them was mainly full of 
 eighth-inch sections of lead pipe. 
 
 Maybe he d heard me go down to the 
 hold in the first place, but probably he found 
 first his lead pipe at the time he left me on 
 the deck, and then he d changed things a bit 
 
Voyage of the " Voodoo " 235 
 
 more to his ideas of what was right, bear 
 ing in mind the natural wickedness of the 
 negroes. He didn t appear to have noticed 
 that some of the stuff was stowed in my 
 leather satchel, but he got nearly a third of 
 Clyde s savings. 
 
 I came to New York and I walked along 
 South Street, thinking of the day, twenty 
 years back, when I first walked along South 
 Street, cocky and green. Then I came to 
 ward the slip where the Hebe Maitland had 
 lain that day, and where I d looked at her 
 and said, " Now, there s a ship." I thought 
 of Clyde and that odd talk in the cabin of 
 the Hebe Maitland, where all my deep-sea 
 goings began. And I looked up and I says, 
 " Now, there s a ship!" 
 
 The prow of her came up to the side 
 walk, and the bowsprit stretched over the 
 street, pointing at a house on the other side 
 that was a restaurant by its sign. The^n- 
 nalee was the ship s name in gilt lettering, 
 and the clean lines of her and her way of 
 
236 Voyage of the " Voodoo " 
 
 lying in the water would give you joy. 
 I walked alongside her on the dock, and I 
 went across the street to look at her that 
 way, and stood in front of the restaurant. 
 And there I sniffed around a bit, and there 
 I smelt hot waffles. It s a tasty smell," 
 I says. " Smells like Stevey Todd," and I 
 went into the restaurant, and there was 
 Stevey Todd. " Stevey," I says, " if you ll 
 give me some hot waffles and honey, I ll 
 buy that ship out there if she s buyable." 
 And Stevey Todd gave me hot waffles and 
 honey, and I bought the Annalee. 
 
 It might be thought, and some would 
 say so, that the trouble I had with Monson 
 came of Clyde s money being unclean, as 
 not got honestly, but through dodging South 
 American customs, and I m free to admit 
 it was sticky when I dug it up. But it s 
 never acted other than respectable since that 
 time. I never agreed with Clyde in argu 
 ment, more than did Stevey Todd. A man 
 falls in with various folks by sea and land, 
 
Voyage of the " Voodoo " 237 
 
 and he finds many that are made up of ill- 
 fitting parts. Clyde was an odd man and a 
 bold one, though old and dry. Monson I 
 took for a loud and joyful one, simple and 
 open in his mind, and violent in his habits 
 and free of language, and yet he acted to 
 me both secret and moderate, and I guess 
 I mistook him. 
 
 Stevey Todd and I went to sea again in 
 the coasting trade, and mainly to the south, 
 and saw the coasts and parts we knew in the 
 Hebe Maitland days. So I passed several 
 years more. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 Cbe fflannagan an& "Imperial Continuing tbe 
 
 I WAS taking a cargo of machinery and 
 carts one time to the city of Tampico 
 in Mexico, and from there I was to go for 
 return cargo to a little republic to the south 
 that we ll call Guadaloupe, whose capital 
 city we ll call Rosalia. The real names of 
 them sounded that way, soft and sleepy, and 
 warm and sweet, like hot waffles and honey. 
 According to reputation it was a place where 
 revolutions were billed for Mondays, Wed 
 nesdays, and Fridays, and the other days 
 left for siestas and argument. They were 
 fixed that way in respect to entertain 
 ment. 
 
 But there came to me in Tampico a man 
 
 named Flannagan, who said he was man 
 
 ager of " The Flannagan and Imperial Itin 
 
 erant Exhibition," a company composed of 
 
 238 
 
The Flannagan and Imperial 239 
 
 three Japanese performers, a tin-type man 
 from New England, and a trick dog who 
 was thoughtful and spotted. Flannagan 
 said he wanted to go far, far from Tampico, 
 because, he says, " Thim Tampican peons 
 ain t seen tin cints apiece since they sold 
 their souls," he says, " at that price," he 
 says, " to the divil that presides over loaf 
 ers." I told him I was going to Rosalia in 
 Guadaloupe which had a local system of en 
 tertainment already, and he says, " Guada 
 loupe!" he says, "Rosalia! D ye moind 
 thim names ! It s like sthrokin a cat " ; and 
 the company came aboard at five dollars a 
 head, three polite Japanese tumblers and 
 rope-walkers, the thoughtful dog, whose 
 name was David, and the tin-type man, who 
 was cynical. He d gone into tin-typing, 
 Flannagan said, so as to express contempt 
 and satire for his fellow-men. 
 
 " But," says Flannagan, " it do be curi 
 ous how thim Dagoes in this distimpered 
 climate rejoice to see thimsilves wid a vill* 
 
240 The Flannagan and Imperial 
 
 yanous exprission an pathriotic attichude in 
 a two be four photygraph." 
 
 We sailed away down the Gulf, through 
 the Strait of Honduras and into the Carib 
 bean Sea, with quiet weather, so that the 
 Japanese could rope-walk in the rigging 
 and tumble peaceable about the deck. The 
 only trouble was the feeling created by the 
 vicious photographs the tin-typer took of 
 the crew. David used to sit quiet mostly, 
 and look over the sea, and scratch his spots, 
 for some of them were put on. 
 
 Flannagan was a fiery-eyed and easy- 
 spoken man, who had picked up the tumblers 
 in California and the tin-type man some 
 where on the plains. But David was a 
 friend of his of years standing, and he was 
 a dog I should call naturally gifted, and with 
 that of a friendly nature, sober, decent, mid 
 dle-aged, comfortable, and one who took 
 things as they came. But Flannagan had 
 hair that was wild and red, and his com 
 plexion was similar. He was large and 
 
The Flannagan and Imperial 241 
 
 bony. His voice was windy, his manner 
 oratorical, and his nature sudden. The Jap 
 anese spoke little English and couldn t be 
 told apart, but as to that there was no need 
 of it. They were skilful, small, and dark, 
 with rubber bones and extra joints, and 
 they could smile from a hundred and thir 
 teen classified and labelled attitudes. We 
 came one afternoon into the harbour of 
 Rosalia. 
 
 Speaking of Rosalia, it s a green and 
 pink and white town, in a valley that opens 
 on the sea, with mountains behind it. It s 
 a prettier town than Portate. In the centre 
 is the little square or plaza, filled with palms 
 and roses and bushes. There s a lamp-post 
 near the middle and the ruins of a stone 
 fountain. Around three sides of the plaza 
 are shops, where you can buy your hands 
 full of bread and fruit for a cent or two; 
 and casinos or saloons where they play 
 monte and fight gamecocks; and a hotel, 
 with men asleep on the steps of it. On the 
 
242 The Flannagan and Imperial 
 
 fourth side is the Palazio del Libertad, 
 which they commonly call it La Libertad. 
 It contains the government and the families 
 of most of it. There are the offices and 
 residences of the President and the depart 
 mental ministers, the legislative chambers, 
 courtrooms, soldiers barracks, and other 
 things. It s the pride of Guadaloupe and 
 the record of its revolutions. It s been sixty 
 years in building, and each new government 
 adds something to remember it by. It has 
 white stucco fronts, and towers, doors, inner 
 courts, and roofs. If you are looking for 
 a department, you walk along the fronts till 
 you see a likely-looking sign that seems to 
 refer in figures of speech to that depart 
 ment. Then you go in. But when the gov 
 ernment changes by revolution or by elec 
 tion, which sometimes happens, when no one 
 is looking why, then the departments shift 
 around in La Libertad to suit themselves 
 better, and they re apt to leave their signs 
 behind them. Besides that, each new minis- 
 
The Flannagan and Imperial 243 
 
 ter will decorate himself and his department 
 with names to fit his ideas of beauty and 
 usefulness, and he ll proclaim these in the 
 official gazette for the intention of his de 
 partment. The Guadaloupeans argue the 
 competence of a minister according as he 
 has a department with titles that sweep the 
 horizon and claim kin with the Antipodes 
 and the Resurrection. Only it seemed to 
 me that these things tended in time to make 
 the figures of speech on the signs sort of 
 far-fetched. 
 
 It was that way that Flannagan and I, 
 with David, the tin-type man and the tum 
 blers, fell on the " Department of Military 
 and Internal Peace/ when we were looking 
 for permits to ship cargoes and deliver Jap 
 anese performances, under the sign " Office 
 of Discretionary Regulations." That may 
 have been all right enough, for most of the 
 departments were that accommodating they 
 would do any agreeable business that came 
 their way; but it appeared to me, the revo- 
 
244 The Flannagan and Imperial 
 
 lutions left the government too full of 
 idioms. 
 
 There we waited till Flannagan became 
 fierce with the heat and the impatience of 
 him. 
 
 " Discretionary ! " he says, striding around 
 with his nostrils full of wrath, and banging 
 at doors. " Would they be boilin us the 
 night wid the discreetness of em ? " 
 
 With that there was an opening of a 
 door, and there waddled in a little fat mes 
 tizo, both shorter and fatter than seemed 
 right or natural. He wore red and yellow 
 livery and shining buttons, and we thought 
 he was likely the official butler or door boy. 
 He seemed to have eaten too much, as a 
 rule, and looked sleepy and in a bad temper. 
 
 " Boy/ says Flannagan, striding up to 
 him, " where s the misbegotten and corrupt 
 official of Disthressionary Regularities? Do 
 we wait here till the explosion of doom? 
 Spheak, ye lump of butther ! " he says. " Or 
 do we not ? " 
 
The Flannagan and Imperial 245 
 
 " Carambos ! " says the extraordinary 
 clothes, backing off and speaking snappish. 
 " If you don t like it, get out ! " 
 
 " Carambos, is it?" says Flannagan, en 
 raged and grabbing him by the collar. " Im- 
 pidence ! " he says, " an ye talk so to the 
 Manager of the Flannagan and Imparial ! " 
 
 With that he gets him also by his new 
 trousers and heaves him into the corridor, 
 where was a handsome half-caste Spanish 
 woman, more Spanish than Indian, who 
 looked dignified and happy in a purple dress. 
 She fell against the wall to avoid him, and 
 appeared surprised. He scrambled up. Then 
 he clutched his hair, and waddled down the 
 corridor, shrieking, and the purple dress be 
 gan to gobble with her laughter. 
 
 " Why," she says, in a mellow voice 
 " Ho ! ho ! haw ! haw ! Why does the distin 
 guished serior cast the Minister of Military 
 and Internal Peace thus upon his digesting, 
 immediately his too great meal thereafter? " 
 
 " Hivins ! " says Flannagan. 
 
246 The Flannagan and Imperial 
 
 " Now he will say the internal peace is 
 disturbed, meaning his digestion, and bring 
 the military, to the end that the distinguished 
 seiiors shall be placed in the dungeons of La 
 Libertad, which," she says kindly, " beyond 
 expectation are wet, and the seiiors will prob 
 ably decay. He is my husband Ho, ho! 
 haw, haw! " she says. " He is a pig." 
 
 Flannagan was speechless for a moment. 
 The tin-type man pointed his camera at the 
 purple dress, and was going to take a misan 
 thropic photograph, and David went and 
 stood on his head before her, so that she 
 laughed harder : " Ho ! ho ! haw ! haw ! " and 
 spread out her hands, which had two rings 
 to a finger, and the mixed stones of her neck 
 lace clicked together with her laughter. 
 
 " Put up yer camery, typist," says Flan 
 nagan, getting hold of his diplomacy. 
 " None of your contimptimous photographs 
 of the lady. Sure/ he says, " it s wid great 
 discomposure I m taken to be treatin so the 
 iligint buttons an canned-tomato clothes en- 
 
The Flannagan and Imperial 247 
 
 closin ," he says, " the milithary an internal 
 digestion of the husband of yourself," he 
 says, " as foine a lady, an that educated, as 
 me eyes iver beheld. Tis me impulses," he 
 says, " tis me warm an hearty nature. But 
 your ladyship won t be allowin a triflin 
 incident to interfere wid enjoyin the ex 
 hibition by me Japanese frinds of the mys- 
 therious art of ancient Asia, an me that 
 proud of your ladyship s approvin ! " 
 
 "What can they do?" she says, looking 
 interested, while the three Japanese bowed 
 in a limber manner, and smiled thin and 
 mystical Asiatic smiles. 
 
 "Oh, hivins!" said Flannagan. "Oh, 
 that I might see thim again for the first time, 
 in the bloom of me innocence of marvels! 
 For a thousand years by the imerald seas of 
 the Orient," he says, and then one of them 
 bent backward, and brought his head up be 
 tween his legs, and smiled; and the purple 
 dress fell against the wall with pleasure and 
 surprise. 
 
248 The Flannagan and Imperial 
 
 " Come after me," she says, opening a 
 door in the corridor, " heretofore the ar 
 rival of my pig husband." 
 
 We went up twisting staircases that ap 
 peared unaccountable and weren t counted. 
 We saw furnished rooms through open 
 doors, and at last we came to a large room, 
 high up under a tower, and looking out over 
 the Plaza, and in another direction over the 
 roofs of La Libertad. It seemed to be un 
 used, and was darkened with shutters, and 
 littered with the miscellaneous and upset 
 furniture of past administrations. 
 
 The Minister of Military and Internal 
 Peace was named " Georgio Bill," from 
 which a man might argue the origins of his 
 family. The purple dress was called " Ma 
 dame Bill/ because French titles were popu 
 lar with the official ladies. She left us 
 there in a stately manner, and then fell down 
 the stairs through mixing her feet. She 
 was dignified and cheerful, but she had large 
 feet. 
 
The Flannagan and Imperial 249 
 
 Through the shutters we saw the Plaza 
 beginning to stir with the evening crowds. 
 A few blocks over the flat roofs of houses, 
 we saw the harbour, and the Annalee float 
 ing at anchor. 
 
 When Madame Bill came back she brought 
 with her two negresses with baskets, who 
 straightened the furniture and laid the 
 table. The shutters were closed, and a lamp 
 or two lit, and we dined sumptuous to the 
 elegant dialogue of Flannagan and Madame 
 Bill. " For a thousand years," says Flanna 
 gan, " by the imerald seas of the Orient"; 
 and the Japanese did moderate after-dinner 
 tumbling, with mild but curious bow-knots. 
 David marched and saluted, and after that 
 he climbed into his chair, and got his pipe, 
 which Flannagan lit for him ; he got it fixed 
 between his teeth, laid his head on his paws, 
 pulled a few puffs, and went to sleep. He was 
 a calm one, David, as I said, and ingenious, 
 and experienced. Madame Bill lit her cheroot 
 thoughtful, and there was conversation. 
 
250 The Flannagan and Imperial 
 
 "The Senor Bill/ she says, "is at the 
 present pursuing the foreigners through 
 out Rosalia and La Libertad with a por 
 tion of the Guadaloupean army. It was 
 not wise to cast the Minister of Military and 
 Internal Peace so upon his digestion, which 
 is to him important. But without doubt you 
 are distinguished and experienced, especially 
 the Senor David. They will not look for 
 you perhaps here, which is over my apart 
 ments, but will attack, it may be, the ship of 
 your coming here, and in that way be imbe 
 cile and foolish." 
 
 " Hivins ! " says Flannagan. " But I m 
 thinkin , wid great admiration for yourself, 
 ma am, I m thinkin this country wid its in- 
 terestin people in pajamies, its scenery re- 
 semblin a lobster salad, an government 
 illuminated by figures of spache an inspired 
 wid seltzer-wather I m thinkin it would 
 make its fortune, sure, by exhibition of itself 
 in the capitals of the worrld, ma am. Not 
 Barnum s, nor the Flannagan an Imparial, 
 
The Flannagan and Imperial 251 
 
 would compare with it. An tis thrue, 
 ma am, as a showman in the profession, I 
 couldn t be exprissin betther me wondher an 
 admiration." 
 
 Then the tin-type man put in, and he 
 sneered some : " I ain t much on admiration 
 and wonder." 
 
 " You re not, typist," says Flannagan. 
 " Tis curdled like he is, ma am, wid invet 
 erate scorn, the poor man ! " 
 
 " The human bein is vicious from origi 
 nal sin," says the tin-type man. " It comes 
 out in the camery," he says. " You can t 
 fool the camery. It tells ye the Bible truth," 
 he says. " Nor I ain t expectin anything 
 from a broiled and frizzled country like this, 
 where the continent s shaved down so nar 
 row you could take a photograph of two 
 oceans. And yet it s as good as anywhere 
 else. I takes tin-types and says nothing." 
 
 " Santa Maria! " says Madame Bill. 
 
 And Flannagan says proudly : " Tis as 
 I told ye, ma am. There s not such an 
 
252 The Flannagan and Imperial 
 
 other to be seen for extinsive scornful- 
 fulness." 
 
 " Speaking of the ship, ma am," I says, 
 " I guess it s all right. Ain t you afraid 
 your husband will get internationally com 
 plicated?" 
 
 She gestured and grinned. 
 
 " Afraid ! I ! My Georgio ! Neither for 
 him nor of him. Moreover, I think," paus 
 ing with her cheroot in the air " that he has 
 heard from below, and is now outside the 
 door. He pants. He has climbed the stairs 
 in haste, the little pig. Ho, ho ! haw, haw ! " 
 
 At that the Minister of Military and In 
 ternal Peace burst in, with the sweat of his 
 fatness on his face, his teeth sticking out, 
 and his features expressing intentions. 
 
 " You do, you Madame," he says, " you 
 woman! You hide them, my enemies, in- 
 sulters ! " 
 
 " You would do best/ she says to Flan 
 nagan, " without doubt, now to enclose and 
 suppress him, my Georgio." 
 
The Flannagan and Imperial 253 
 
 "I go! I return!" he says, stamping 
 his feet. 
 
 " Nayther," says Flannagan, enclosing 
 his collar with one hand, and suppressing his 
 features with the other. " Ye sits in the 
 chair, me little man. Ye smokes a cigar in 
 genteel conviviality afther coolin down to 
 be recognised by a thermometer an ye lis 
 tens to the advice of your beaucheous an 
 accomplished lady," he says, " that has in 
 moind a bit of domestic discipline." 
 
 He dropped him in a chair facing Ma 
 dame Bill. David, in the next chair, woke up, 
 and appeared to say to himself, " They re do 
 ing something else," and went to sleep again. 
 The tin-type man sat by the window and 
 looked through the shutters at the Plaza. 
 They were making a noise on the Plaza. 
 Now and then a military let off his gun, 
 and the people shouted as if they wanted 
 him to do it again. The Japanese bowed 
 to Bill across the table, and smiled mys 
 tical. 
 
254 The Flannagan and Imperial 
 
 " By the tomb of my mother, you shall 
 pay ! " gurgled Bill. 
 
 " Come off ! " says Flannagan kindly. 
 " She hadn t any tomb, an ye disremember 
 who she was." 
 
 " Why," says Madame Bill, " the Senor 
 Flannagan on that point speaks nearly the 
 truth." 
 
 "A-r-r-r! I ll have your blood!" says 
 the Minister. 
 
 " An me givin ye the soft word," says 
 Flannagan, " an apologies for takin ye for 
 a decorated rubber ball, an bouncin ye on 
 the floor ! Twas wrong of me. Sure, now, 
 Misther Bill, an is there more needed be 
 tween gentlemen ? " He looked for help to 
 Madame Bill, who gazed at the smoke of her 
 cheroot and seemed absent-minded. 
 
 " Listen, my Georgio," she began at last, 
 " I have considered, and I say you have done 
 foolishly to scatter the soldiers about the 
 city to hurry and to inquire, so that the peo 
 ple become excited. Hear in the Plaza al- 
 
The Flannagan and Imperial 255 
 
 ready how they cry out like children, and 
 each one is angry at a different thing." 
 
 The Minister started, and listened, and 
 wiped his wet forehead with his sleeve. 
 The roar in the Plaza, was increasing. He 
 sprang to his feet, and puffed, and he 
 says: 
 
 " The military is scattered ! It is a mob ! 
 I must go ! Attend me, my wife ! " 
 
 But Flannagan enclosed his collar. " Re- 
 spict for me own intherests," he says, " is me 
 proudest virtue. Would ye have me missin 
 the sight of a rivolution from a private box, 
 an the shpectacle of explodin liberty? An 
 ye ll be havin me blood to-morry by the 
 tomb of your mother ? Ah, now ! " 
 
 " Let me go ! " he says, shrieking and 
 struggling. " I accept your apology ! Say 
 no more ! " 
 
 Flannagan looked at Madame Bill. The 
 crowd was shouting more in unison now. 
 They says, " Vivo Alvarez ! " and " Bill al 
 f uego ! " which the latter means, as you or 
 
256 The Flannagan and Imperial 
 
 I might say, "To hell with Bill!" The 
 Minister shivered and struggled, but more 
 moderate. 
 
 " The military will be confused, will do 
 nothing without order ! " he pleaded to Ma 
 dame Bill. 
 
 " The military," says the tin-type man, 
 from the shutters, speaking through his nose, 
 soft and scornful, " they appear to feel toler 
 able good. There s a batch of em on the 
 steps under here, a-sittin in their sins, and 
 shoutin Down with Bill ! very hearty 
 like." 
 
 " Mutiny ! " howled the Minister. " Alas ! " 
 and he sat down, wiped his forehead with 
 his sleeve, and panted, and appeared more 
 composed. 
 
 Flannagan sat down, too. " I do be feel- 
 in warm the same," he says. " Shall we 
 have a drink ? " 
 
 Madame Bill was still turning things over 
 in her mind. " Doubtless they so shout," 
 she says. " They are not without sense. Lis- 
 
The Flannagan and Imperial 257 
 
 ten again, my Georgio. I have considered. 
 It is perhaps not bad. Moreover, it is done. 
 But the Department of the Military is not 
 good for you. It worries you, therefore you 
 disturb it, therefore it does not like you. 
 Also, we have lost popularity in Rosalia. But 
 in the interior, as yet, no. Therefore, con 
 sider. Seiior Alvarez is perhaps generous. 
 If he overthrow the government, he will de 
 sire there come an election, and who knows ? 
 We may for him go to the interior, and in 
 reward be Minister of Agriculture, which is 
 cooler. But if he overthrow not the govern 
 ment, but by compromise become Minister of 
 Military and Internal Peace, then my 
 Georgio will be in innocence a victim, and 
 perhaps will have to hide, which is hot and 
 dull, or go to the dungeons of La Liber- 
 tad, which is dull and wet; or we would 
 escape from the country in the distinguished 
 ship of the Seiior Buckingham, or in the Im 
 perial Company of Seiior Flannagan, which 
 would be better." 
 
258 The Flannagan and Imperial 
 
 " An it s proud I d be to have ye," says 
 Flannagan, " as I said, ma am, in the capi 
 tals of the world. Hivins ! " he says, " the 
 tropical advertisements ! By the mimory of 
 Ireland, tis a filibuster expedition I foresee! 
 Me genius is long suppressed." 
 
 Madame Bill shrugged her shoulders. 
 " Who knows ? Therefore be calm, little one. 
 We will see what they do in the Plaza." 
 
 The fallen or falling Minister emptied a 
 glass of iced wine, and looked more con 
 tented than before. He was a pleasant 
 enough man as a rule, except when not di 
 gesting well, and generally submissive to 
 Madame Bill. We put out the lights and 
 opened the shutters, and all looked out on the 
 Plaza except David, who woke up, and tak 
 ing things in, appeared to say to himself, 
 " They re doing something else," and went 
 to sleep again. 
 
 The Plaza was a boiling mess, but the 
 military were enjoying themselves in good 
 order. They were collected on the steps of 
 
The Flannagan and Imperial 259 
 
 La Libertad below, about five hundred of 
 them. They seemed to be leading the cheer 
 ing. The hotel across the Plaza was lit up 
 and the windows full of heads. 
 
 Then a hush fell everywhere, and the 
 faces were turned toward the portico, with 
 the six great pillars and lamps on each, that 
 formed the centre of the Plaza front of La 
 Libertad. Two men stood on the top step, 
 one in a sombrero, and the other in black 
 coat and tall hat. The tall hat, by his ges 
 tures, was addressing the crowd, but we 
 couldn t hear him. 
 
 " The President and Alvarez," says Ma 
 dame Bill, very calm. " They compromise. 
 My Georgio will be hot and dull." 
 
 The crowd cried " Vivo " everything ex 
 cept Bill. They wanted him " al fuego " just 
 the same, which, as you might say, means 
 something like : " Oh, take him away. Put 
 him somewhere and boil him ! " They seemed 
 distressed with him that way, and I took 
 it Madame Bill was right that he d been too 
 
26 o The Flannagan and Imperial 
 
 lively with his military, and it was up with 
 him. A band began to play by the hotel. 
 
 " My wife is ever right," says Bill, and 
 began feeling toward the table for the iced 
 wine. " Carambos ! It is not with Madame 
 Bill to be discouraged. No! Bueno! All 
 right, my wife. What did you say ? " 
 
 Madame Bill said we d leave him there, 
 which we did, after closing the shutters. We 
 left him drinking iced wine, eating mangoes, 
 blowing smoke, and looking like a porpoise 
 in respect to complexion, but shorter and 
 fatter than a porpoise, and remarkable youth 
 ful. 
 
 It came on the Monday following and 
 my cargo was shipped. There was a plat 
 form put up on the Plaza, and I heard Flan 
 nagan making a speech there, in which the 
 feeling was eloquent, and the languages as 
 they came along. The tin-type man, under 
 the platform, was taking tin-types to make 
 a man remember how he was depraved. 
 David s spots were running with the heat, 
 
The Flannagan and Imperial 261 
 
 but he scratched them and made no trouble. 
 The Japanese sat on their heels and smiled. 
 
 " For a thousand years," says Flannagan, 
 " by the imerald seas of the Orient, have the 
 ancesthors of me frinds on me right devel 
 oped the soopleness of limb an the art that 
 is becalled by the Mahatmas an thim Bood- 
 hists the art of the symbolical attichude, 
 as discovered and practised in the Injian 
 Ocean s coral isles, which by the same they 
 do expriss their feelin s till ye get a mysthi- 
 cal pain in your stomick wid lookin at em. 
 Twas so done," he says, " by the imerald 
 seas of the Orient." 
 
 That evening they came secretly aboard, 
 Flannagan and the Company, and with them 
 Bill and Madame Bill. We weighed anchor 
 the next morning, and got away. The Bill 
 family became an addition and a credit to 
 the Flannagan and Imperial, as it turned out. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 3f lannagan anfc Steves So&D-Captain 
 
 bam Returns to <5reenou0b Gbe "Warra* 
 tive Continued 
 
 THE Flannagan and Imperial was the 
 last cargo I carried, but I carried it 
 near five years. It was what you might 
 call a continuous cargo; the Annalee was 
 in partnership with it; that is, Flannagan 
 and I went into partnership together. Ma 
 dame Bill s influence appeared to act expan 
 sive on Flannagan s ideas, and they ex 
 panded the Company. She was an uncom 
 mon woman, with a pushing mind, and 
 exhibited as " The Princess Popocatapetl, 
 Lineal Descendant of Montezuma and Queen 
 of the Caribbeans." Flannagan engaged 
 Bill to exhibit as " The Fat Boy," and he was 
 very successful in this way, weighing two 
 hundred, and in height four feet eight inches, 
 though thirty to forty years old. His face 
 262 
 
Flannagan and Stevey Todd 263 
 
 was round and smooth as an apple, and he 
 wore a little jacket and sailor hat, and car 
 ried a piece of gingerbread in general, when 
 on exhibition ; and in that way he looked as 
 young as might be needed, and satisfactory 
 to every one. Flannagan used to rent the ad 
 vertising space on Bill s legs, for " Infants 
 Foods " and " Patent Medicines for Dyspep 
 sia," which was popular and profitable. But 
 I was saying Madame Bill was a handsome 
 woman, and valuable, and Flannagan him 
 self hadn t a better eye for giving the public 
 sensations. She expanded his ideas. Yet 
 Flannagan had a knack. He was grand at 
 speech-making, and sudden and spectacular 
 by nature. 
 
 He shipped with me then from Rosalia 
 to the different ports ! was billed for that 
 voyage, picking up more additions to the 
 Company, till it was a large company. I 
 was free to admit he made good profits out 
 of the seaport cities between South America 
 and Charleston; so at Charleston, when lie 
 
264 Flannagan and Stevey Todd 
 
 offered me a partnership, I felt agreeable, 
 and took it, on this agreement; I to put in 
 the use and management of the Annalee, and 
 he to put in " The Flannagan and Imperial ; " 
 I to run the ship and he to run the show. 
 The profits should be divided half-yearly, 
 after paying expenses of ship and show. 
 
 We ran under this agreement several 
 years, and exhibited all the way from Boston 
 to Rio, according to the season, and some 
 times went inland up navigable rivers, such 
 as to Albany and Philadelphia. We sum 
 mered northward and wintered southward, 
 and did better than most shows on transport 
 ation expenses, besides having an open sea 
 son through the year. Prosperity kept us 
 together until after Bill died, which came 
 from his being too ambitious, and proud of 
 his line in the profession, and having his 
 heart set on two hundred and fifty pounds. 
 Stevey Todd, here, he got too interested in 
 helping Bill along in his career, and fatten 
 ing him up to a high standard. But Bill s 
 
Flannagan and Stevey Todd 265 
 
 digestion was never good. He died rather 
 young. 
 
 Stevey Todd has cooked for me so long, 
 that it s got to the point that other victuals 
 than Stevey Todd s seem unfriendly stran 
 gers, likely to be hostile. I claim that, as a 
 cook, Stevey s a bold and skilful one, and 
 enterprising. But outside the galley he s a 
 backward man and caution s his motto, and 
 in argument he s, as you might say, a grad 
 ual man. His nature, as differing there from 
 Flannagan s, might be seen in this way. For 
 when Bill was dead, Flannagan and Stevey 
 Todd each wanted to marry Madame Bill, 
 and their notions of it were as different as 
 sharks are different from mud-turtles, 
 Flannagan s notion mainly resembling a 
 shark s, as follows. He says : 
 
 " Popo," he says, pretty quick, " Bill s off. 
 Here s to him, an may his ghost weigh two 
 hundred and fifty. I m on," he says. 
 "Whin shall it be?" 
 
 Then a madder woman than Madame 
 
266 Flannagan and Stevey Todd 
 
 Bill was seldom seen, for she threw Monte- 
 zuma s crown at Flannagan, and chased him 
 under the tent ropes with the gilt-headed and 
 feather-tufted spear of the Queen of the 
 Caribbeans, which ruined an eighteen-dollar 
 crown and stuck Flannagan vicious in the 
 shoulder-blade with the spear. 
 
 Whereas Stevey Todd bided a while, as 
 a cautious man would do, until some decent 
 time had gone by; and then he gets me, as 
 a friend, in ambush inside the cabin window 
 for precaution and testimony, and plants the 
 scornful typist at a distance to take photo 
 graphs that might be useful, and then he 
 brings Madame Bill to the window. 
 
 " Now," he says to her, " supposing there 
 was a man that we ll call middle-aged, 
 and that might be a cook maybe by pro 
 fession, for it wouldn t do no harm if we 
 took it he had leanings that way, and if you 
 said he was as good a one as ever stepped 
 into a galley, I wouldn t go so far as to say 
 so myself, nor yet deny it, for Bill had that 
 
Flannagan and Stevey Todd 267 
 
 opinion himself, and he was a man of good 
 judgment on things that had to do with his 
 line, though when his feelings moved him 
 he was apt to put it warm, nor I ain t deny 
 ing that when his digestion was otherwise, 
 his remarks was sometimes contrary. Now, 
 supposing there was a lady, whose merits I 
 wouldn t nowise try to state, but if you was 
 to say her talents was good, and her weight 
 a hundred and forty, I wouldn t say you was 
 wrong, which I ve heard it put that as a 
 Lineal Descendant she was worth climbing 
 the volcano to see, which supposing she com 
 plimented it by borrowing that name, it s no 
 harm if she did. Now, supposing those par 
 ties was talking of this thing and that, as 
 anybody might do, and, say, they got to talk 
 ing of the show business maybe, or, say, they 
 happened to mention such a thing as matri 
 mony, now," says Stevey Todd, "what 
 would be your idea of that last as a sub 
 ject of conversation between those par 
 ties?" 
 
268 Flannagan and Stevey Todd 
 
 Madame Bill didn t answer the question, 
 though it seemed to me put delicate, but she 
 burst into melodious laughter, and ran away, 
 and the tin-type man, whose natural expres 
 sion was dislike of his fellow man, he looked 
 disgusted more n you d believe, and went 
 away too. Then Stevey Todd put his head 
 through the window, and he says: 
 
 " Now, supposing a party acted in such 
 or such a way to one party, which acted an 
 other way to another party, what would 
 you say might happen to be her mean- 
 ing?" 
 
 I gave my opinion candid, and truthful. 
 I said, as to Madame Bill, I judged some 
 thing or other pleased her, and by her be 
 haviour to Flannagan it looked as if there 
 was something then which she hadn t liked, 
 though what it might be in either case was 
 more than I could say, but speaking gen 
 erally it looked hopeful for Stevey Todd, 
 and I stated that same opinion. Stevey Todd 
 went back to the galley, and it seemed to me 
 
Flannagan and Stevey Todd 269 
 
 the difference between his nature and Flan- 
 nagan s was something to wonder at and ad 
 mire, and when I saw Flannagan he seemed 
 to have the same opinion with me, for he 
 says: 
 
 "Powers an fryin pans! Thot cook!" 
 he says. " Thot galley shlave! Thot boiled 
 pertaty widout salt ! Shall a barrel of flour 
 put me in the soup? Tell me thot! " 
 
 At the time we were exhibiting in the 
 larger towns about Long Island Sound, 
 where it happened we d never exhibited be 
 fore, dropping into harbours and setting up 
 the big tent on any bit of land convenient 
 to the pier. We stayed a long or short time, 
 according to patronage. 
 
 Whether it was that Flannagan was too 
 busy, or angry at Madame Bill for her ac 
 tions, and didn t know if he wanted a wife 
 with a spear, or one that was reckless with her 
 headgear, I couldn t have said at that time; 
 but he surely said no more to Madame Bill 
 that I knew of, whereas Stevey Todd kept 
 
270 Flannagan and Stevey Todd 
 
 arguing with her all over the ship, and mainly 
 under the cabin window. Sometimes he d 
 trim his sails close in to the subject of matri 
 mony, and sometimes he d be sailing so far 
 off the quarter that I couldn t but call out 
 to him through the window and tell him, 
 " Hard a lee there, Stevey! You ll never 
 fetch it that tack;" when he d shift his helm, 
 feeling the edge of the breeze with as neat 
 a piece of seamanship as a man could ask, 
 and come up dead into the wind, his sails 
 dropping back stiff on his yardarms, and the 
 subject of matrimony speared on the end of 
 his bowsprit; then Madame Bill would get 
 up, and run away laughing. She seemed to 
 enjoy those arguments, and I judged Stevey 
 Todd would fetch port maybe in course of 
 time. Meanwhile I sat smoking peaceful at 
 my cabin window, and watched the shore 
 slipping by, that I knew so well of old. 
 By-and-by I saw Telford Point, and then 
 the Musquoit River mouth by Adrian. 
 Stevey Todd sat under the window put- 
 
Flannagan and Stevey Todd 271 
 
 ting fine edges on his arguments. And I 
 says: 
 
 " Stevey/ I says, " I was born and bred 
 on this coast," but Stevey Todd was that 
 taken up with his points of argument to 
 Madame Bill that he didn t have any in 
 terest in my beginnings, and I went off to 
 find Flannagan. 
 
 " Flannagan," I says, " I got a senti 
 ment." 
 
 " Sintimint, is it ! " he says. " Come off ! 
 Ye salted codfish ! If I ain t got tin to your 
 one, I m another," he says. 
 
 It made me mad to hear him talk that 
 way, and I set him down on the starboard 
 anchor and I argued it. I told him of the 
 little town of Greenough, and then I told 
 him of Madge Pemberton, that afterwards 
 was Madge McCulloch, and how the old 
 shore village lay, its street and white houses 
 and its church with the gilded cupola, till 
 Flannagan got interested. And there we 
 talked a long time. 
 
272 Flannagan and Stevey Todd 
 
 " Why, ye are salted, Tom," he says, " but 
 I m not just sayin ye re canned. We ain t 
 due in New London till Thursday, an it s 
 on me moind we ll exhibit a bit in this town 
 of Greenough." 
 
 That afternoon, then, we hauled into the 
 harbour, by where the fishing boats lay, and 
 moored the Annake to the old stone pier. 
 Flannagan saw the tent, platform, and 
 benches put up, and in the early evening he 
 went inland to the village and didn t come 
 back for some hours. 
 
 It was a moonlight night, and the show 
 people were still getting ready for the next 
 day. I was at the deck-cabin window, smok 
 ing an evening pipe, looking at the tent that 
 stood on the sandy piece of land beyond the 
 pier. I could see the trees of the village, and 
 the church spire against the sky, and I 
 thought of the way I d meant to come back 
 to Greenough, when I left it to go " romp 
 ing and roaming," as Sadler had said, and 
 how now I was come home with grey hairs. 
 
Flannagan and Stevey Todd 273 
 
 There was the hill between Newport Street 
 and the harbour, and far along to the west 
 I could see where Pemberton s stood, and 
 see what might be its lights. 
 
 Pretty soon I heard David, the trick dog, 
 barking, and I looked out, and saw Stevey 
 Todd and Madame Bill coming along in the 
 wake of David, and I judged that Stevey 
 Todd was meaning to put in an odd moment 
 or two arguing, and that Madame Bill was 
 going to be joyous about it. David appeared 
 to be feeling tolerable cheerful, as if saying 
 to himself, " They re going to do something 
 now, sure." They sat down by the window, 
 and Madame Bill was speaking: 
 
 " Stevey Todd," she says, " I think it 
 would not be such advantage, not at all. Be 
 cause it is not good to my looks that I become 
 two hundred pounds like my Bill, and if now 
 I have a husband who cook so delicious, so 
 perfect, as you, and who make me laugh be 
 tween meals without rest and without pity, 
 as you, which gives the appetite enormous, 
 
274 Flannagan and Stevey Todd 
 
 so that I have gained five pounds since I 
 weigh before, and by this am alarmed, dis 
 consolate, helas! what do I do? Am I ele 
 phants in this show? But how? I observe 
 you do not ask that I marry you, but you say, 
 It is a good time to talk here or there, 
 about this or that eh ? Well, perhaps about 
 matrimony/ Haw! haw! ho! ho! But 
 how so ? If you do not say, Will you ? 
 how can I say No ? " 
 
 " Taking that argument so stated/* says 
 Stevey Todd, " it might be called a tidy argu 
 ment and no harm done, or you might say 
 there was two arguments in it. Now, tak 
 ing the first one, a man might make this 
 point as bearing on it : for you take the tin- 
 typist, who s a good eater and a well-fleshed 
 man, and yet he s a gloomy man, as you 
 might say, not putting it too strong; and 
 on the other hand here s David, who s what 
 you d call a joking dog, and as an eater with 
 out an equal of his size, though an elderly 
 dog, and yet he s a thin dog, as his business 
 
Flannagan and Stevey Todd 275 
 
 in the show makes needful for him. Which, 
 I says, might be put up as an argument by 
 such as wanted to use it, if any one was speak 
 ing contrary to cooks as being dangerous to 
 parties in the show business, on account of 
 interests not being along the line of weight, 
 nor yet advertising space on legs which 
 they re able to furnish. Now, taking the 
 second argument, I wouldn t deny you might 
 be right, and there s the point. For not to 
 speak of giving no cause for crowns throwed 
 around expensive, or spears stuck into par 
 ties disrespectful to memory of deceased, I 
 says, here s the point. For if you can t say 
 No, till I say Will you? it follows you 
 can t do it till I say those words." 
 
 " I can too! " says Madame Bill. 
 
 " No, ye can t ! No, ye can t ! " says 
 Stevey Todd. 
 
 Madame Bill began to laugh, and Flanna 
 gan, who was coming over the ship s side, 
 he stopped at hearing her, and slid across 
 the deck behind the companion. Then 
 
276 Flannagan and Stevey Todd 
 
 Madame Bill went below, ha-ha-ing melodi 
 ous, and Flannagan called in a loud whisper 
 over the roof : 
 
 " Hoi ! Stevey Todd ! Are ye done wid 
 it?" 
 
 " She ain t said no," says Stevey Todd. 
 " She ain t said no." 
 
 It came afternoon of the next day, and 
 the show was opened, and the people came 
 flocking in. Near by the tent door was 
 Stevey Todd s " Cocoanut Cake, Hot Waffle 
 and Fizz Table." On the platform the com 
 pany sat in a half-circle, ready for Flanna- 
 gan s opening speech to explain the qualities 
 and talents of each. It was a show to be 
 proud of, and in point of colour resembling 
 solar spectrums, or peacocks tails. Ma 
 dame Bill had charge of costumes, and her 
 tastes were what you might call exhilarated. 
 Flannagan began : 
 
 " Ladies and gintlemen," he says. " The 
 pleasure I take in inthroducin The Flan 
 nagan an Imparial Itinerant Exhibition, 
 
Flannagan and Stevey Todd 277 
 
 to this intelligent aujunce, has niver been 
 equalled in me mimory. 
 
 " I see before me," he says, " a ripresenta- 
 tive array of this grreat counthry s agricul 
 tural pursuits, to say nothin of thim that fish. 
 I see before me numerous handsome an im- 
 posin mathrons, to say nothin of foine 
 washed babies. I see before me many a rosy 
 girrl a-chewin cocoanut candy that ain t so 
 swate as herself, an many a boy wid his 
 pockets full of paynuts an his head full of 
 divelthries. 
 
 "Is it the prisence of such an aujunce 
 which gives me the pleasure unequalled in 
 me mimory? No! 
 
 " Ye see before ye The Flannagan an 
 Imparial Itinerant Exhibition/ he says. 
 " Yonder is the three Japanese tumblers 
 from the private company of the Meekado, 
 trained to expriss by motion an mysthical 
 attichude, the eternal principles of poethry 
 as understood by Orientals, Hinjoos. an 
 thim Chinaysers: forninst the same, the 
 
278 Flannagan and Stevey Todd 
 
 beaucheous Princess Popocatapetl, whose 
 royal ancesthors was discovered by Colum 
 bus, an buried by another cilibrated Dago, 
 that ought t have been ashamed of it; nixt 
 her, the Hairy Man, wid a chin beard on the 
 bridge of his nose an the hair of his head 
 growin out of the shmall of his back ; nixt, 
 the cilibrated performin dog, David, that 
 you ll recognise by his shmilin looks an 
 polkadot complexion ; an so on, the others in 
 due order, that will soon be increasin your 
 admiration for the marvels of creation, an 
 servin as texts, I doubt not, for the future 
 discoorses of me f rind, the venerable clergy 
 man of this parish, that sits in the front row 
 May Hiven bless him ! all mimbers of the 
 Flannagan an Imparial, including aye, even 
 down to the poor wake-minded man that sells 
 hot waffles at the door, which if ye tell him, 
 af ther this performance, that his waffles is the 
 same kind of waffles that a shoemaker pegs 
 on for the sole of a shoe, it s me private opin 
 ion he ll be in no timper to arguy the point. 
 
Flannagan and Stevey Todd 279 
 
 " Is it pride in this grreat show that gives 
 me the pleasure on this occasion unequalled 
 in me mimory? No! 
 
 " What is it, ladies and gintlemen ? 
 What is it ? 
 
 " Gintlemen and ladies," he says, " tis 
 no other than the approach of the public 
 ciremonial of the rite of mathrimony between 
 mesilf, Michael Flannagan, an a party that 
 has no notion what I m talkin about, but is 
 further named in this docyment, which if 
 your riverence will now shtep up on the plat 
 form, he will find to be signed and sealed by 
 the honourable town clerk of this pasthoral 
 an marine community. Ladies an gintle 
 men, was ye iver invited before to the wed- 
 din of a man of me impressive looks an 
 oratorical gifts, that first published his own 
 banns, an thin proposed, in your intelligent 
 an sympathetic prisence, to a lady of exalted 
 ancesthry an pre-eminent fame? Ye was 
 not ? Ye have now that unparallelled experi 
 ence. For, as ye see by this license an au- 
 
280 Flannagan and Stevey Todd 
 
 thority, this lady, the Lineal Descendant of 
 Mexican Emperors, is known an admired in 
 private life as Madame Anatolia Bill. " 
 
 With that he stepped back, and offered his 
 hand, and said something to Madame Bill 
 that was lost in the cheering of the audience. 
 Madame Bill near fell off her chair with sur 
 prise, and began ha-ha-ing melodious. What 
 with the roaring and clapping of the crowd, 
 Flannagan and Madame Bill were up in 
 front of the minister before Stevey Todd 
 could be heard from the door, crying, " She 
 ain t said no, Flannagan! She ain t said 
 no ! It ain t right ! " 
 
 " Will somebody near the door," says 
 Flannagan, "kindly take the hot-waffle- 
 man an dhrop a hot waffle down the back 
 of his neck, to disthract his attintion while 
 the ciremonies proceed ? " Stevey Todd ran 
 out of the door. But the people of Green- 
 ough was happy in front, and the show was 
 hilarious behind. David turned handsprings 
 till he sweated his spots into streaks. 
 
Flannagan and Stevey Todd 281 
 
 But I ve always had my doubts what 
 may have been previous in Madame Bill s 
 mind as regards intentions to Flannagan 
 and Stevey Todd. Which is not saying but 
 Flannagan s ambush was what you d call a 
 good ambush, as arranged by one that knew 
 Madame Bill well, and knew her to be a 
 show-woman by nature and gifts, that would 
 never have the heart to spoil a fine act in the 
 middle of it, when it was coming on well. 
 The facts are no more than that she did 
 nothing to spoil the act. She let it go 
 through. Her statement was she hadn t 
 made up her mind before. Stevey Todd s 
 opinion was that she d have taken himself, 
 barring Flannagan s laying that stratagem, 
 desperate and unrighteous. On the other 
 hand, Flannagan thought it was predestined 
 on account of his natural gifts. As for me, 
 I had my doubts. 
 
 But Stevey Todd wouldn t stay with the 
 show after that. We went on east, and left 
 him here, boarding at Pemberton s. He 
 
282 Flannagan and Stevey Todd 
 
 said he liked Pemberton s and would stay 
 there a bit. I says, " There s good points in 
 a quiet life, Stevey ; " and Stevey Todd says, 
 showing what was on his mind: 
 
 " Aye, but Abe Dalrimple, he argues mat 
 rimony ain t quiet, and I don t go so far as 
 to dispute he may be right, and that s a 
 point to be allowed, for she throwed Monte- 
 zuma s crown, not to speak of spears." 
 
 " Didn t neither," says Abe Dalrimple. 
 " It was kettles. It wa n t none of them 
 things," he says, alluding at Mrs. Dalrimple. 
 
 But as to Madame Bill, she was tropical, 
 but not balmy, and matrimony that wasn t 
 balmy wouldn t have been good for Stevey 
 Todd. 
 
 " But," says Stevey Todd, " as to her lean 
 ings to me and intentions pursuant," he says, 
 " I d argue it, as shown by actions previous." 
 
 It was Pemberton told me Madge Mc- 
 Culloch was dead. She died ten years back, 
 about the time I was leaving the Pacific. He 
 told me she left a daughter grown up since, 
 
Flannagan and Stevey Todd 283 
 
 and that Andrew McCulloch was an irri 
 tated man by nature. 
 
 I went on with the show, but I kept 
 thinking of a quiet life, and about Green- 
 ough and Pemberton s, and about things 
 that were long gone by. And then, eating 
 other victuals than Stevey Todd cooked was 
 come to seem to me like taking liberties \vith 
 strangers. Then I kept wondering if I 
 hadn t had enough going up and down the 
 seas. I says: 
 
 " What s the use of it? A man had best 
 get cured of his restlessness before he comes 
 to lie still for aye, and that s the truth," I 
 says. 
 
 At the end of October I sold out the 
 Annalee. Flannagan took his show inland, 
 and I came back, thinking to sit down at 
 Pemberton s and get over being restless. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Captain JSucfchigbam IDiaita Bfcrian. 
 and /EbaDfle /HbcCullocb and JBills Corliss. 
 Captain :fi3ucfcingbam 6 narrative 
 
 ONE day I left Pemberton s and took 
 the road to Adrian. It was an after 
 noon in November. The church in Adrian 
 stands on the edge of the graveyard, in the 
 middle of the village, and there I went about 
 looking for the McCulloch lot, and found it, 
 and there was Madge s stone. It s a flat 
 grey stone. There s many more like it, set 
 along on rows. It seemed a neighbourly sort 
 of place to rest in, if a man chose, after a 
 roaming life. I stood there till the shadow 
 came along across the churchyard from the 
 church steeple. Then it grew dusk, and it 
 seemed like now and then I heard a bell toll 
 ing. Aye, it was like a bell tolling. It 
 seemed to me I could hear it. But there was 
 no bell. 
 
 284 
 
Buckingham Visits Adrian 285 
 
 Then I came out and went to look for 
 Andrew McCulloch s house. It stands north 
 of the Green, looking across the churchyard. 
 I knocked at the door, then I backed off the 
 step, when it opened, thinking there must be 
 a mistake about the date, and maybe inscrip 
 tions on gravestones was exaggerated ; there 
 was a girl in the doorway that looked and 
 acted like Madge Pemberton complete. 
 Moreover an old seaman falling off the 
 doorstep didn t seem to upset her balmy 
 calmness. She says : 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " It s Tom Buckingham come home," I 
 says. " But I guess you re the next genera 
 tion," and I asked for Andrew McCul- 
 loch. 
 
 He s a red-faced man with short side 
 whiskers, a chunky, fussy, and hot-tempered 
 man, but whether Madge Pemberton had 
 managed him, or whether he d worn her out, 
 I couldn t make up my mind about the like 
 lihood. I sat a while talking with him, and 
 
286 Buckingham Visits Adrian 
 
 watching Madge McCulloch, his daughter, 
 lay the tea table. I thought how I d give 
 something to get her to lay the tea table for 
 me as a habit, and I didn t see how that was 
 likely to come about. 
 
 Andrew McCulloch appeared to think 
 most people in Adrian would be more to his 
 mind if buried with epitaphs describing them 
 accurate. 
 
 It was eight o clock when I came out 
 and started for Pemberton s. I came past 
 McCulloch s fence, and heard some one speak 
 near by, and there was a man sitting on the 
 top rail near the corner. It was considerable 
 dark. 
 
 " Been in to see King Solomon? " he says. 
 
 "What s that?" I says. 
 
 "Major General McCulloch," he says. 
 " Why, I believe you stayed to tea ! Why, 
 I haven t fetched that in thre,e months I " 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Oh," he says, " why, you see, the vener 
 able ecclesiastic he s afraid I d want to come 
 
Buckingham Visits Adrian 287 
 
 to breakfast too. He thinks I am a grass 
 hopper and a burden." 
 
 I thought it looked like a promising con 
 versation, and climbed on the fence beside 
 him, and took a look at him in the star 
 light. 
 
 He said his name was " Billy Corliss," 
 and explained why he sat on the fence. He 
 said it was on account of Andrew McCulloch. 
 He said he and Madge McCulloch were 
 agreed, but Andrew McCulloch wasn t 
 agreeable. That was partly because Andrew 
 wanted Madge to stay where she was, partly 
 because Corliss had no assets or prospects, 
 and partly because Andrew had an unreason 
 able low opinion of him, as a roaming and 
 unsettled sort. He spoke of Andrew by va 
 rious and soaring names, implying a high 
 opinion of him, and especially in speaking 
 of Andrew s warm temper, his respect got 
 remarkable. He d call him maybe, " St. 
 Peter," in that connection, or maybe " Sitting 
 Bull." For candour, and opening his mind, 
 
288 Buckingham Visits Adrian 
 
 and asking the world for sympathy, I took 
 him to be given that way. He said the town 
 of Adrian was divided into two parties on 
 the subject of him, and Madge, and Andrew 
 McCulloch, so I took it Andrew s temper 
 had had some reasonable exercise. 
 
 " St. Peter s got a good run of warm 
 language," he says, " but his fence is chilly. 
 He s got a toothache in his shoes, he has, 
 that man." 
 
 "Why don t you elope?" I says. 
 
 " That s the trouble," he says. " When I 
 ask Madge, * Why not? she says, * Where 
 to? I d been thinking I d take a look 
 around the world and see." 
 
 " Don t you do it," I says. " When you 
 get around the other side, it s a long way 
 back. It took me thirty years." 
 
 " You don t mean it ! " he says. " Why, 
 that wouldn t do." 
 
 "Assets take time," I says, "but you 
 might get some prospects." 
 
 Then I fell to thinking how it could come 
 
Buckingham Visits Adrian 289 
 
 about that Madge McCulloch might get into 
 the habit of making tea for me, seeing I 
 was too old to marry her, besides her being 
 spoken for. Then I thought she might do 
 it by keeping a hotel, and I says : 
 
 " Speaking of keeping hotels " 
 
 "Who s speaking of it?" 
 
 " I am. I kept a hotel once." 
 
 "Seaside?" he says. 
 
 " No. Inland a bit." 
 
 "Summer hotel?" 
 
 " Aye, summer hotel. Always summer 
 there." 
 
 " Why, she must have paid ! " 
 
 ;; Aye, she paid. She was put up in New 
 Bedford." I says, " and run in South Amer 
 ica." 
 
 "You don t mean it!" 
 
 " It s a good business if tended to," I 
 says. " But you don t tend to business, you 
 don t. That s the trouble with you. That 
 hotel fell into the river more n twenty years 
 ago, and it ain t to the point, but here Madge 
 
290 Buckingham Visits Adrian 
 
 McCulloch s been jerking the window shade 
 up and down like she had something on her 
 mind." 
 
 " It s a signal/ he says, and with that he 
 dropped off and disappeared toward the back 
 of the house. He left me on the fence. 
 
 I thought of the four men that had stood 
 by me most in my time ; now one was a miser 
 and smuggler, and got himself hung ; and one 
 was a thief, and died of a split wishbone, on 
 what he called " a throne ; " and one was a 
 fighter and gambler and poet, and he had a 
 heavy fist, and he turned remorseful into a 
 Burmese monk; and one was Stevey Todd. 
 And Madge Pemberton thought at one time 
 I was all right, but she was wrong there. 
 And I thought how here was Andrew and 
 another Madge, and here was Billy Corliss, 
 and here was the world galloping along 
 lively. I couldn t but admire the way it was 
 so made as to keep going, and me thinking 
 it had come pretty near to a standstill. 
 
 By-and-by, Corliss and Madge McCul- 
 
Buckingham Visits Adrian 291 
 
 loch came across the yard from the back of 
 the house, and climbed on the fence, and 
 Madge hooked her feet on the lower rail 
 and talked cheerful. They spread out what 
 was on their minds pretty confident. I never 
 knew a couple so open-minded. 
 
 " Billy wants to run away," she says, " but 
 he doesn t know where to yet, unless it s to 
 be a summer hotel in South America that 
 fell into a river. He thinks it was an in 
 teresting hotel," she says. " Do you think 
 it would be nice? But how would we get 
 there?" 
 
 "It s wrong side up now," I says; and 
 Billy Corliss says, " Why, there s a chance 
 for housekeeping ingenious ! Let s be social ! 
 Sure Mike ! says the dowager duchess, 
 wishing to be democratic. Why, look 
 here! " he says. " What right s a chimney 
 got to be haughty over a cellar ? " 
 
 " Oh, keep still, Billy! " says Madge Mc- 
 Culloch, and he closed up, sudden but cheer 
 ful, as if he d been hit by a kettle. 
 
292 Buckingham Visits Adrian 
 
 I said I wouldn t recommend the Helen 
 Mar now, but I d recommend hotel keeping 
 as a good and sociable business. 
 
 "For," I says, " the seaman travels around 
 the world seeking profit and entertainment, 
 but the hotel keeper sits at home comfortable, 
 and they come to him. I ve been a hotel- 
 keeper in South America," I says, " and 
 might have been one in Greenough for the 
 asking. I chose to be a seaman, and take a 
 look around the world, being foolish and 
 curious. Now, that was a mistake, for the 
 man that bides in his place for the main of 
 his life, has the best of it. He knows as 
 much of the world as another; for if a man 
 goes romping and roaming, and knows no 
 neighbours and no family of his own, why, 
 sure there s a deal of the world that he never 
 knows. That s the moral of me," I says, 
 " that s the moral of me. Now, as to hotel 
 keeping," I says, " I liked that business as 
 well as anything I ever did. I liked it well," 
 I says, and I looked around both sides of 
 
Buckingham Visits Adrian 293 
 
 me, and stopped, for no Madge and no Billy 
 Corliss was sitting on the fence. Nothing 
 there but lonesome sections of fence. 
 
 " Why," I says, " here s an open-minded 
 couple. And it s an energetic couple. Where 
 in the nation did it go to ? " 
 
 Then I saw Andrew McCulloch coming 
 down from the front door to the gate, but 
 he turned to the right at the gate, and went 
 stumping away up the street, and Madge 
 and Billy Corliss got up from crouching be 
 side the fence, and Madge says : 
 
 " Let s go in and get warm." 
 
 And I says to myself, " It s a couple 
 that s got good sense, too," for Andrew s 
 fence was chilly. 
 
 We went in the house and sat down by 
 the stove. 
 
 "As to hotel keeping," I says, " I ve 
 talked that over with Pemberton, and Stevey 
 Todd, who was the man that run the emi 
 grant hotel with me, and Pemberton s agree 
 able, and Stevey Todd don t argue against 
 
294 Buckingham Visits Adrian 
 
 it. I ve been thinking of building on to Pem- 
 berton s, and making a big summer hotel. 
 It stands in sight of the sea, and it s a likely 
 spot. Now," I says, "hotel keeping is a com 
 bination of hospitality and profit. The se 
 cret of it is advertising and a peaceable mind 
 to take things as they come. A good hotel 
 keeper is a moderate man. He sees folks 
 coming and going from day to day, and how 
 many does he see as comfortable as himself ? 
 Hotel keeping is a good life, you can take 
 my word." 
 
 Then there was a noise in the hall out 
 side, but I went on : 
 
 " It s a good life," I says, and I looked 
 around on both sides of me, and I saw no 
 Madge McCulloch and no Billy Corliss. 
 Nothing but empty chairs, and two open 
 doors behind me. 
 
 I says, " That s a singular coincidence." 
 
 By the noise in the hall I judged Andrew 
 McCulloch w r as come back unexpected, and 
 J judged he might come in ambitious and 
 
Buckingham Visits Adrian 295 
 
 inquiring, and not easy to take as he came. 
 I started for the open doors, and got through 
 one of them hasty, and shut it behind. It 
 was soon enough to escape Andrew, and too 
 soon to see if it was the right door. It was 
 dark there except for the starlight through 
 a window, showing crockery on shelves. The 
 place was no more than a pantry. 
 
 I ve been in different circumstances by 
 sea and land, but I didn t recollect at that 
 moment ever being planted in just those, and 
 it seemed to me a couple, that could plant an 
 experienced seaman that way must be in 
 genious as well as open-minded. I heard 
 Andrew McCulloch talking to himself like 
 the forerunnings of an earthquake, and I 
 says: 
 
 " An experienced seaman might get out, 
 but not that way. Experienced seamen don t 
 put off on the windward side. But," I says, 
 " it seems to me experience and ingenuity 
 could keep a hotel." 
 
 With that I put up the window softly 
 
296 Buckingham Visits Adrian 
 
 and climbed out and dropped to the ground. 
 I went round the house looking for ingenious 
 couples, and then across the yard, and there 
 they sat on the same fence, with their feet 
 hooked as previous, and they appeared to 
 feel calm and candid. 
 
 " As to hotel keeping," I says, climbing 
 
 on the fence, "it s a good life, " and 
 
 there I stopped. 
 
 I looked over at the old churchyard on 
 the Green. It was dark and still over there. 
 The rows of flat tombstones were grey, like 
 planted ghosts. " Hie Jacet " means " here 
 lies," as I m told. Those folks that once 
 got their " Hie jacets " over them would 
 n t ever get up to argue the statement; but 
 those that left good memories behind, I 
 guessed they were glad of it. As for the liv 
 ing, if they were elderly, they d best go to 
 bed. With that I got down from the fence. 
 . " Madge," I says, " do you know why 
 I m backing you?" 
 
 " Yes," she says, " I know." 
 
Buckingham Visits Adrian 297 
 
 How the nation did she know? 
 
 " Happen Billy Corliss may ,want to run 
 away still," I says, " and maybe you ll be 
 asking, Where to ? and maybe he ll re 
 mark, Pemberton s. Then if you and he 
 should drop into Pemberton s most any time, 
 with a notion of connubiality, I guess likely 
 he d have prospects to modify Andrew Mc- 
 Culloch with afterward, Pemberton s sea 
 side Hotel. Peaceful Patronage Welcome. 
 No Earthquakes nor Revolutions Allowed/ 
 
 Then I left them on the fence and came 
 back to Greenough. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 Conclusion ot tbe "Cdbole 
 
 WHEN Captain Buckingham ended, it 
 was late and dark, the afternoon 
 long gone into evening. The storm still 
 roared around Pemberton s, and we five sat 
 anchored close to the chimney. It might 
 have been a quarter of an hour went by, and 
 it was past time when Pemberton or Stevey 
 Todd should be getting the supper ready, 
 when there came a sudden tumult in the hall 
 without, and some one bounced in, the snow 
 flying after him, and he cried, " I ve eloped 
 and I want a minister ! " That was how he 
 stated it : " I ve eloped and I want a min 
 ister!" 
 
 Then Pemberton said: 
 
 " I dare say now you re right there," and 
 Captain Buckingham said nothing, nor 
 
 looked up. 
 
 398 
 
Conclusion of the Whole 299 
 
 I knew it must be Billy Corliss, though 
 I didn t know him, nor did Uncle Abimelech, 
 nor Stevey Todd. He might have blown 
 down from Labrador, or eloped out of Nova 
 Scotia. 
 
 Pemberton and Corliss went out together. 
 Then Stevey Todd spoke up cautiously : 
 
 " When I look at it," he said, " when I 
 asks myself: * Is he right or is he not? I 
 don t hear no objections. And further," he 
 said, leaning forward and speaking low, 
 " it s my opinion there s a woman out 
 there." 
 
 Uncle Abimelech lifted his eyes from the 
 kettle that hung over the fire, and stared 
 about and seemed to be alarmed. 
 
 " Where? " said Uncle Abimelech. 
 
 Stevey Todd pointed over his shoulder 
 with his thumb. Uncle Abimelech followed 
 the direction slowly along the dark ceiling, 
 and seeing nothing alarming there, seemed 
 relieved. He turned back to the fire and 
 muttered: 
 
300 Conclusion of the Whole 
 
 " She throwed kettles, some." 
 
 Then Corliss came in again and after him 
 Pemberton, and with them was a tall girl in 
 layers of cloaks and veils, and layers of snow, 
 which being taken off, she came out as balmy 
 and calm as a tropic coast, and enough to 
 make a man forget his old troubles and lay 
 in new ones. Captain Buckingham only 
 looked at her, and said nothing. 
 
 Corliss was a slim young man with a can 
 did manner. For two that had run away 
 to look for matrimony in the snow they both 
 seemed remarkably calm. He looked us 
 over, and inquired our names, and appeared 
 to be satisfied with them, and to like the 
 looks of us. 
 
 " Why, that s good," he said. " Now, Miss 
 Madge McCulloch is Mr. Pemberton s grand 
 daughter, as you likely know, and she s am 
 bitious to be Mrs. Billy Corliss. That s a 
 good idea, isn t it? But there are parental 
 objections, hot but reasonable. Parent has 
 no sort of an opinion of me, and wants her to 
 
Conclusion of the Whole 301 
 
 run parental establishment. Both reason 
 able, aren t they? " he said in his candid way. 
 Madge McCulloch was kneeling before the 
 fire and warming her hands. She looked up 
 and laughed. 
 
 " You d better hurry, Billy, or the minister 
 will be snowed in." 
 
 " Why, that s reasonable, too," he said, 
 " I was only going to say that those reasons, 
 as stated, were warm;" and he once more 
 went out with Pemberton. 
 
 After a time she laughed again. 
 
 " If daddy should come here, what do you 
 think would happen ? " and she looked at 
 Captain Buckingham, who looked at her and 
 said nothing, his thin brown face as still as 
 an Indian s. 
 
 Stevey Todd said cautiously : 
 
 " I d almost think, Miss, in that case, 
 you d be in hot water." 
 
 "It s in the kettle," said Uncle Abime- 
 lech, and Madge McCulloch, " So it is! I 
 wonder if there s tea." 
 
302 Conclusion of the Whole 
 
 Then she and Stevey Todd laid the table, 
 and we sat watching her make tea, and saw 
 no objections. 
 
 "Shall I tell you about it?" she said 
 calmly, pouring tea. 
 
 " If so be it s agreeable, Miss," said Stevey 
 Todd ; and Uncle Abimelech said, " I takes 
 no sugar in mine," but Captain Tom was 
 silent. 
 
 She said she had run out of the back door 
 before it was beginning to grow dusk, and 
 climbed the fence and gotten into Corliss 
 sleigh, but she was afraid they were seen by 
 neighbours; so that it appeared likely An 
 drew McCulloch would hear about their go 
 ing. " He might come after by-and-by, and 
 do something that would be very hot, 
 Wouldn t it?" 
 
 Stevey Todd said, " It might be as you 
 say, Miss," and Uncle Abimelech, " It s 
 better when it s hot," looking into his tea 
 cup as if disappointed, but Captain Tom 
 said nothing. 
 
Conclusion of the Whole 303 
 
 " It was snowing and drifting," she went 
 on, " and we kept falling into ditches, but at 
 last we saw the light of the hotel by the 
 roadside and were glad." 
 
 So Billy Corliss had come and bounced 
 at the door, and said he wanted a minister, 
 and quite right he was with respect to 
 those circumstances and Madge McCulloch, 
 as Stevey Todd hinted, though cautiously. 
 
 When Pemberton and Corliss came back 
 with the minister, it was clear that Pember 
 ton agreed with Stevey Todd on that point. 
 It may be he was not in the habit of agreeing 
 with Andrew McCulloch. Certainly he gave 
 Madge McCulloch away in marriage to Billy 
 Corliss. And she, saying that she wanted a 
 maid-of-honour, chose Uncle Abimelech for 
 that purpose, which seemed scarcely reason 
 able, but the minister married them and went 
 his way. Then Stevey Todd could not get 
 over thinking he would have been a better 
 maid-of-honour than Uncle Abimelech, more 
 suitable and more according to the talents of 
 
304 Conclusion of the Whole 
 
 each, and he said this, though indirectly and 
 warily; and Uncle Abimelech said that he 
 recollected licking Stevey Todd thirty years 
 back on the Hebe Maitland, " took him across 
 his knee and whaled him good ;" and Stevey 
 Todd, though cautiously, seemed to hint that 
 some one who might be Abe Dalrimple, 
 couldn t do it again, and in other respects 
 resembled a dry codfish. Billy Corliss stood 
 up and said : 
 
 " Gentlemen, the elements are raging. 
 In the town of Adrian the ear of imagina 
 tion detects explosions. But Pemberton s 
 is dedicated to peace and connubial ity." 
 
 Then they retired with their connubiality, 
 and paid us no more attention, and Pember- 
 ton, Captain Buckingham, Stevey Todd, Un 
 cle Abimelech, and I sat by the fire. 
 
 Uncle Abimelech seemed to have some 
 thing on his mind that he would like to get 
 off, for his eyes wandered uneasily, and he 
 muttered : 
 
 " Kettles." 
 
Conclusion of the Whole 305 
 
 " Throwed em, did she?" said Pember- 
 ton to encourage him, and Uncle Abimelech 
 said: 
 
 " Some," and cast his eyes and jerked 
 his thumb vaguely upward, toward the ceil 
 ing, 
 
 " If she tfifows em at him Aye " 
 
 He struggled with the thought, bringing it 
 slowly out of dim recesses to the light. " She 
 ought to pour the bilin off first. It ain t 
 right." 
 
 Silence fell over us again. At last Cap 
 tain Tom said: 
 
 " Supposing a man is loose-jointed in his 
 mind, like Abe, or Billy Corliss a trifle, and 
 gets took back of the ear with something 
 hard, that steadies him, it s no great harm if 
 it s warm." 
 
 " She ought to pour off the bilin , " said 
 Uncle Abimelech uneasily. 
 
 After that we sat for a while, each taken 
 with his own thoughts, until Pemberton was 
 knocking out his pipe, like one approaching 
 
306 Conclusion of the Whole 
 
 the idea of a night s rest, when there came a 
 noise in the outer hall, and the wind blew 
 snow under the crack below the inner door. 
 Some one bounced into the room like a storm. 
 He was a short, thickset man with white 
 side whiskers, and looked like an infuriated 
 Santa Claus, for he was covered with snow. 
 
 " Most miserable, infernal, impossible 
 night ever made, Mr. Pemberton! Forty 
 
 thousand devils Ah! Give me some 
 
 of that, hot ! Detestable night ! " 
 
 " It is so, Andrew," said Pemberton, 
 soothing and agreeable. " You re near 
 right." 
 
 "As referring to weather," said Stevey 
 Todd, " though not putting it so strong, you 
 might " 
 
 But the newcomer broke in, and beat the 
 table with his fist. 
 
 "Weather! No! Not weather. Mr. Pem 
 berton, I ll tell you what s the matter. Here s 
 my daughter run away to be married with 
 the coolest, freshest, limber- tongued young 
 
Conclusion of the Whole 307 
 
 codfish that ever escaped salting. Not if I 
 know it! Til salt him! I ll pickle him! I 
 will, if my name s McCulloch." 
 
 He puffed hard, and sat down. Stevey 
 Todd looked at Andrew McCulloch, then he 
 looked at the others and winked cautiously, 
 and Pemberton winked back. But Cap 
 tain Tom did not look up. Uncle Abime- 
 lech too kept his eyes on the fire. He seemed 
 to be following his old train of thought, 
 which Andrew McCulloch s coming had 
 started again in his mind, for he began: 
 
 " Before I was married, her mother she 
 used to throw kettles at me. They was ket 
 tles," he said bitterly, " with spouts and 
 handles. Aye, afterw r ard she did too, 
 some." 
 
 Andrew McCulloch puffed and looked sur 
 prised and Pemberton said : 
 
 "Ran in the family?" 
 
 " Aye. Then she come across the bay in 
 a rowboat, and I was diggin clams, and she 
 says. If you dasn t come to the house, 
 
308 Conclusion of the Whole 
 
 what dast you do ? I see the minister down 
 the beach, diggin clams, an he had eleven 
 children, he had, diggin clams, and she 
 looked at him too, and I says, I das say 
 he d rather n dig clams. We went fishin 
 afterward, and got eight barrel o herring." 
 
 " You don t say ! " says Andrew McCul- 
 loch, puffing and looked surprised. 
 
 Uncle Abimelech kept his eyes fixed on 
 the kettle and wandered away in his mind. 
 Then Captain Tom roused himself, and 
 spoke thoughtfully. 
 
 " It was different with me," he said. " Her 
 parents wanted another one. He was richer, 
 but nowise so good-looking. I says to her, 
 Cut and run ! but she wouldn t, as being 
 undutiful. She took him. His name was 
 Jones. He went bankrupt, and got paral 
 ysis, and is living still. Her parents died in 
 different poorhouses." 
 
 Pemberton looked surprised at this too, 
 and then thoughtful, and then he winked at 
 Stevey Todd, who passed it back. 
 
Conclusion of the Whole 309 
 
 " I got my wife out of the back window of 
 a boarding school, second story," said Pem- 
 berton. " She came down the blinds." And 
 he wiped his face with his coat sleeve. 
 
 * Mine came through the cellar," said 
 Stcvey Todd. " She brought a pot of jam 
 in her pocket, or else," he added cautiously. 
 " or else it was pickles. It might ve been 
 pickles, but it runs in my mind it was 
 jam." 
 
 But Pemberton s wife had been a widow 
 first, as he once told me, and Captain 
 Tom s and Stevey Todd s romances didn t 
 run that way, by accounts. But as to Uncle 
 Abimelech, it may be what he said was true. 
 
 They all fell silent again, except Andrew 
 McCulloch, who whistled : " Whew, whew, 
 whew ! " and pulled his whiskers, now this 
 one and that, and said : 
 
 "Bless my soul! You don t mean it!" 
 and fidgeted in his chair. " I didn t suppose 
 it was so usual, I didn t! God bless my 
 soul ! " 
 
3 1 o Conclusion of the Whole 
 
 " It s their nature," said Captain Bucking 
 ham at length. " They re made that way." 
 
 "You don t mean it!" 
 
 " The best thing for em is hotel keeping." 
 
 "Eh!" 
 
 " Nothing like it, you can take my word. 
 Pemberton s Hotel. Pemberton and Buck 
 ingham, Owners and Proprietors. B. Cor 
 liss, Manager. Peace, Propriety, and Pa 
 tronage. Aye, that s it. They get restless. 
 If they elopes, let em keep a hotel. Nothing 
 like it." 
 
 " Whew, whew ! " whistled Andrew Mc- 
 Culloch. " But they ve gone ! " he says. 
 " See here ! How you going to catch em ? 
 How you going to set em to hotel keeping 
 when they elope off your hands ? Where ve 
 they gone? That s the point. Where ve 
 they gone ? " 
 
 " Up," said Uncle Abimelech. 
 
 "Eh!" 
 
 " Connubilated," said Uncle Abimelech, 
 pointing. " Gone up." 
 
Conclusion of the Whole 311 
 
 " Prayed over fifteen minutes," said 
 Stevey Todd, " which I wouldn t so state 
 without watching the clock." 
 
 "What!" cried Andrew McCulloch. 
 " Do you mean to say, you aided and abetted, 
 Mr. Pemberton " 
 
 " Peace and connubiality was his last 
 words," went on Stevey Todd, following his 
 train of thought. " Peace and connubiality, 
 he says, and he meant the same." 
 
 " Ain t the same! " said Uncle Abimelech. 
 
 " Do you mean to say," cried Andrew Mc 
 Culloch 
 
 " Don t throw nothin till you pour off the 
 bilin ," said Uncle Abimelech uneasily. " It 
 ain t right." 
 
 Andrew McCulloch puffed, "Whew! 
 whew ! whew ! " as if blowing off the steam 
 of his boiling. Then he said : 
 
 " Give me some of that, hot! " 
 
 And we all fell silent again. 
 
 The kettle sang, the chimney coughed in 
 its throat. One heard outside the whistle 
 
312 Conclusion of the Whole 
 
 of the wind, the moan of the surf far off in 
 the night, and the snow snapping against 
 the windows. 
 
 The clock struck ten. 
 
 THE END 
 
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