condemned on hearsay evidence, anyhow," said Adam, ruefully.

"Nonsense; you were caught red-handed," said Noah; "my grandfather told
me so. And now that I've got a chance to slip in a word edgewise, I'd
like mightily to have you explain your statement, Mr. Barnum, that I am
responsible for your errors. That is a serious charge to bring against a
man of my reputation."

"I mean simply this: that to make a show interesting," said Mr. Barnum,
"a man has got to provide interesting materials, that's all. I do not
mean to say a word that is in any way derogatory to your morality. You
were a surprisingly good man for a sea-captain, and with the exception of
that one occasion when you--ah--you allowed yourself to be stranded on
the bar, if I may so put it, I know of nothing to be said against you as
a moral, temperate person."

"That was only an accident," said Noah, reddening. "You can't expect a
man six hundred odd years of age--"

"Certainly not," said Raleigh, soothingly, "and nobody thinks less of you
for it. Considering how you must have hated the sight of water, the
wonder of it is that it didn't become a fixed habit. Let us hear what it
is that Mr. Barnum does criticise in you."

"His taste, that's all," said Mr. Barnum. "I contend that, compared to
the animals he might have had, the ones he did have were as ant-hills to
Alps. There were more magnificent zoos allowed to die out through Noah's
lack of judgment than one likes to think of. Take the Proterosaurus, for
instance. Where on earth do we find his equal to-day?"

"You ought to be mighty glad you can't find one like him," put in Adam.
"If you'd spent a week in the Garden of Eden with me, with lizards eight
feet long dropping out of the trees on to your lap while you were trying
to take a Sunday-afternoon nap, you'd be willing to dispense with things
of that sort for the balance of your natural life. If you want to get an
idea of that experience let somebody drop a calf on you some afternoon."

"I am not saying anything about that," returned Barnum. "It would be
unpleasant to have an elephant drop on one after the fashion of which you
speak, but I am glad the elephant was saved just the same. I haven't
advocated the Proterosaurus as a Sunday-afternoon surprise, but as an
attraction for a show. I still maintain that a lizard as big as a cow
would prove a lodestone, the drawing powers of which the pocket-money of
the small boy would be utterly u