en Brisbane and
Honolulu. For a few days it was satisfying enough to pick up the lost
ends of the world's stale news. While I had been marking time the world
had been marching; a hundred paragraphs had been lived into history.

On the fourth day a slender thread of smoke rose over the western
horizon which grew into a clean-painted and white-cabined steamer. As
the gap closed white-clad men and even women stood crisply out against
the deck-rail. Then with much signaling from the halyards the two
vessels had converse of which I was the subject, and I with my chest
went over the side of the _Gretchen_. I told the steamer's purser as
much of my story as I had told on the _Gretchen_, and when that evening
I appeared at the captain's table transformed by bathing in a real tub
and submission to a real razor in the hands of a real barber, it was to
find that my story had traveled forward and aft.

St. Paul was a very good man. He had piety and fervor, but also in a
superior and godly fashion he was a man of the world. Perhaps he gained
a firmer grip on his following by reason of his ability to say to the
youth of his generation, "I have been twice stoned and thrice
shipwrecked." I had been only once shipwrecked, yet a ready-made
audience awaited entertainment.

It was on the second afternoon that Captain Keller appeared in the
smoke-room. He was a man of about my own build and almost as bronzed,
but fair haired and his carriage proclaimed the soldier before he
introduced himself. I was idly enjoying the comfort of wicker chairs and
windows which framed white decks and dancing seas. The few other
occupants of the place were lounging about in pongee and linen, chatting
lazily of those things which make talk among men coming out of the
East: tribal risings in Java, the late race-meet in Melbourne. The
military-looking young man dropped into a seat at my table and signaled
to the spotless Jap, who officiated as smoking-room steward.

"Left you alone yesterday," he began by way of introduction. "I saw you
didn't relish being treated like the newest and strangest animal in
captivity. I guess they're accustomed to you now. What will you have?"

"Brandy and soda," I decided; then I added, "Perhaps after being rescued
I ought to make myself more volatile and amusing, but the fact is I'm
readjusting. Did you ever happen to spend six months on an undiscovered,
cannibal island?"

He shook his head and laughed with a pleasant gleam o