sh called _ablettes_,
that had been crushed in the basin, and she had neglected to throw the
water out.

"M. Jaquin was very glad, for once, that she had neglected her duty. He
began experimenting with the scales of the ablette, or bleak--a little
fish about the size of a sardine, and very abundant in certain parts of
Europe. After several trials he adopted the plan of washing the scales
several times in water, and saving the sediment that gathered at the
bottom of the basin. This was about the consistency of oil, and had the
lustre he desired. Next, he blew some beads of very thin glass, and
after coating the inside of a bead with this substance, he filled it up
with wax, so as to give it solidity. Thus the fish scales gave the
lustre, the glass gave the polish and brilliancy that we find on the
genuine pearl, and the wax furnished a solid backing to the thin glass.
It is fortunate that the bleak is very abundant, or he would run the
risk of extermination."

"Is the manufacture of false pearls so great as that?" Fred inquired.

"It is pretty extensive," was the Captain's response, "but not
enormously so. The fact is, it requires more than a thousand of these
little fish to make an ounce of the 'essence d'Orient,' as the French
call it, or essence of pearl. Other substances have been tried, in the
hope of obtaining the same result for a smaller outlay, but none of them
have been entirely successful.

"In China and Japan the natives have long followed the practice of
putting small beads of porcelain inside the oyster, and then returning
him to the water, where he is left undisturbed for three or four years.
At the end of that time he is taken up and opened, and the beads are
found to be coated with the pearly substance. They also have the trick
of putting little images or idols into the oyster, and in course of time
these become coated over in the manner I have described."

[Begun in No. 31 of HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE, June 1.]

THE MORAL PIRATES.

BY W. L. ALDEN.

CHAPTER VIII.

The next morning the boys awoke early, having had a thoroughly good
night's rest. Tom, whose turn it was to go for milk, found a
well-stocked farm-house, where he obtained not only milk, bread, and
eggs, but a supply of butter, and a chicken all ready for cooking. After
breakfast the boat was put in the water, and, to the delight of all,
proved to be almost as tight as she was before running into the rock. A
little water came in