life story of an American
seaman written by himself with the assistance of a journalist. In the
course of his wanderings that American sailor worked for some months on
board a schooner, the master and owner of which was the thief of whom I
had heard in my very young days. I have no doubt of that because there
could hardly have been two exploits of that peculiar kind in the same
part of the world and both connected with a South American revolution.

The fellow had actually managed to steal a lighter with silver, and
this, it seems, only because he was implicitly trusted by his employers,
who must have been singularly poor judges of character. In the sailor's
story he is represented as an unmitigated rascal, a small cheat,
stupidly ferocious, morose, of mean appearance, and altogether unworthy
of the greatness this opportunity had thrust upon him. What was
interesting was that he would boast of it openly.

He used to say: "People think I make a lot of money in this schooner of
mine. But that is nothing. I don't care for that. Now and then I go
away quietly and lift a bar of silver. I must get rich slowly--you
understand."

There was also another curious point about the man. Once in the course
of some quarrel the sailor threatened him: "What's to prevent me
reporting ashore what you have told me about that silver?"

The cynical ruffian was not alarmed in the least. He actually laughed.
"You fool, if you dare talk like that on shore about me you will get a
knife stuck in your back. Every man, woman, and child in that port is
my friend. And who's to prove the lighter wasn't sunk? I didn't show you
where the silver is hidden. Did I? So you know nothing. And suppose I
lied? Eh?"

Ultimately the sailor, disgusted with the sordid meanness of that
impenitent thief, deserted from the schooner. The whole episode takes
about three pages of his autobiography. Nothing to speak of; but as I
looked them over, the curious confirmation of the few casual words
heard in my early youth evoked the memories of that distant time when
everything was so fresh, so surprising, so venturesome, so interesting;
bits of strange coasts under the stars, shadows of hills in the
sunshine, men's passions in the dusk, gossip half-forgotten, faces grown
dim. . . . Perhaps, perhaps, there still was in the world something to
write about. Yet I did not see anything at first in the mere story. A
rascal steals a large parcel of a valuable commodity--so peopl