ck in Boston. Yarns and yarns, when seemingly I was gone in
drink, I told my apparent cronies--men whom I despised, stupid dolts of
creatures that they were. But the word spread, until one day, a young
man, a reporter, tried to interview me about the treasure and the _Wide
Awake_. I was indignant, angry.--Oh, softly, steward, softly; in my
heart was great joy as I denied that young reporter, knowing that from my
cronies he already had a sufficiency of the details.

"And the morning paper gave two whole columns and headlines to the tale.
I began to have callers. I studied them out well. Many were for
adventuring after the treasure who themselves had no money. I baffled
and avoided them, and waited on, eating even less as my little capital
dwindled away.

"And then he came, my gay young doctor--doctor of philosophy he was, for
he was very wealthy. My heart sang when I saw him. But twenty-eight
dollars remained to me--after it was gone, the poor-house, or death. I
had already resolved upon death as my choice rather than go back to be of
that dolorous company, the living dead of the poor-farm. But I did not
go back, nor did I die. The gay young doctor's blood ran warm at thought
of the South Seas, and in his nostrils I distilled all the scents of the
flower-drenched air of that far-off land, and in his eyes I builded him
the fairy visions of the tradewind clouds, the monsoon skies, the palm
isles and the coral seas.

"He was a gay, mad young dog, grandly careless of his largess, fearless
as a lion's whelp, lithe and beautiful as a leopard, and mad, a trifle
mad of the deviltries and whimsies that tickled in that fine brain of
his. Look you, steward. Before we sailed in the _Gloucester_ fishing-
schooner, purchased by the doctor, and that was like a yacht and showed
her heels to most yachts, he had me to his house to advise about personal
equipment. We were overhauling in a gear-room, when suddenly he spoke:

"'I wonder how my lady will take my long absence. What say you? Shall
she go along?'

"And I had not known that he had any wife or lady. And I looked my
surprise and incredulity.

"'Just that you do not believe I shall take her on the cruise,' he
laughed, wickedly, madly, in my astonished face. 'Come, you shall meet
her.'

"Straight to his bedroom and his bed he led me, and, turning down the
covers, showed there to me, asleep as she had slept for many a thousand
years, the mummy of a slender Eg