with it you were going back to break into life
again."

All the scarred face and washed eyes of Charles Stough Greenleaf beamed
as he held his glass up.

"Steward, I salute you. You understand. And you have said it well. I
was going back to break into the house of life. It was a crowbar, that
pitiful sum of money accumulated by two years of crucifixion. Think of
it! A sum that in the days ere the silver spoon had melted, I staked in
careless moods of an instant on a turn of the cards. But as you say, a
burglar, I came back to break into life, and I came to Boston. You have
a fine turn for a figure of speech, steward, and I salute you."

Again bottle and glass tinkled together, and both men drank eyes to eyes
and each was aware that the eyes he gazed into were honest and
understanding.

"But it was a thin crowbar, steward. I dared not put my weight on it for
a proper pry. I took a room in a small but respectable hotel, European
plan. It was in Boston, I think I said. Oh, how careful I was of my
crowbar! I scarcely ate enough to keep my frame inhabited. But I bought
drinks for others, most carefully selected--bought drinks with an air of
prosperity that was as a credential to my story; and in my cups (my
apparent cups, steward), spun an old man's yarn of the _Wide Awake_, the
longboat, the bearings unnamable, and the treasure under the sand.--A
fathom under the sand; that was literary; it was psychological; it
smacked of the salt sea, and daring rovers, and the loot of the Spanish
Main.

"You have noticed this nugget I wear on my watch-chain, steward? I could
not afford it at that time, but I talked golden instead, California gold,
nuggets and nuggets, oodles and oodles, from the diggings of forty-nine
and fifty. That was literary. That was colour. Later, after my first
voyage out of Boston I was financially able to buy a nugget. It was so
much bait to which men rose like fishes. And like fishes they nibbled.
These rings, also--bait. You never see such rings now. After I got in
funds, I purchased them, too. Take this nugget: I am talking. I toy
with it absently as I am telling of the great gold treasure we buried
under the sand. Suddenly the nugget flashes fresh recollection into my
mind. I speak of the longboat, of our thirst and hunger, and of the
third officer, the fair lad with cheeks virgin of the razor, and that he
it was who used it as a sinker when we strove to catch fish.

"But ba