rnia!" was the way he
usually wound up his reminiscences. Another would draw his picture of
the firing on Fort Sumter, and would assert that the battle of Antietam
in which he took part was the hottest of the war. The favorite topic
of the third raconteur was the flush times on Oil Creek in the early
'60's, when he had drilled a dry hole near "Colonel Drake's" pioneer
venture. And so it would go till it was time to "douse the glim." One
thing they all agreed on--that the whiskey was good but the drinks were
small on the _Cork_.

[Illustration: THE PARTHENON, ATHENS, GREECE--THE MOST IMPRESSIVE RUIN
IN EXISTENCE]

There was a young southern Colonel on board who was a charming
companion and a good-natured, all-round fellow, always willing to do
anything for anybody, young or old. The ladies soon found out his
weakness, and they "pulled his leg" "right hard," as he would have put
it. When ashore he bought them strawberries, ice-cream, wine,
confectionery, lemonade, and anything else he could think of. He was a
veritable packhorse, and many times when he was already loaded with
impedimenta they would, as a matter of course, toss him wraps,
umbrellas and fans, followed by photo's, _bric-a-brac_ and other
purchases, till the man was fairly loaded to the gunwales. This they
would do with an airy grace all their own, remarking perhaps:

"Here, Colonel, I see you haven't much to carry; take this on board for
me like a good boy, won't you?"

He stood the strain like a Spartan to the bitter end, and when the trip
was over he, like Lord Ullen, was left lamenting in the shuffle of the
forgotten, and didn't even get a kiss in the final good-byes, when they
fell as thick as the leaves in Vallombrosa.

The most picturesque and amusing man on board was a Mexican rubber
planter from Guadalajara, known on the ship's list as Senor Cyrano de
Bergerac. He hadn't a Roman nose--but that's a mere detail; he had a
Numidian mane of blue-black hair which swung over his collar so that he
looked like the leader of a Wild West show. He was a contradiction in
terms: his voice proclaimed him a man of war, while all the fighting he
ever did, so far as we knew, was with the flies on the Nile. To look
at him was to stand in the presence of a composite picture of
Agamemnon, Charles XII. and John L. Sullivan; but to hear him
_shout_--ah! that voice was the megaphone of Boanerges! It held tones
that put a revolving spur on every syllable an