-should I then be wise?"

"No, you are much too wise, so that you often bore me."

"Nor should he be poor?"

"No."

"Nor rich?"

"Certainly not. Rich men also usually are bores--they talk about
themselves too much."

"Should he be a tall man?"

"Not too tall, for they're lanky, nor short, because they get fat. You
see, each girl has her own ideal about such matters. Then, she always
marries a man as different as possible from her ideal."

"Why does she marry a man at all, Helena?"

"She never knows. Why should she? But look--" she pointed out across
the water--"the train is leaving the ferry boat. Isn't that Captain
Peterson going aboard the train?"

"Yes, Helena, I've sent him down-town to get some light reading for
you and your Aunt Lucinda--_Fox's Book of Martyrs_, and the _Critique
of Pure Reason_--the latter especially recommended to yourself. I
would I had in print a copy of my _magnum opus_, my treatment on
native American _culicidae_. My book on the mosquito is going to be
handsomely illustrated, Helena, believe me."

She turned upon me with a curious look. "Harry," said she, "you've
changed in some ways. If I were not so bored by life in yonder hat
box, I might even be interested in you for a few minutes. You used
always to be so sober, but now, sometimes, I wonder if I understand
you. Honestly, you were an awful stick, and no girl likes a stick
about her. What do girls care which dynasty it was that built the
pyramids?--it's Biskra they want to see. And we don't care when or why
Baron Haussmann built the Boulevard Haussmann in Paris--it's the
boulevard itself interests us."

"It is the fate of genius to be cast aside," said I. "No doubt even I
shall be forgotten--even after my book on the _culicidae_ shall have
been completed."

"--So that," she went on, not noticing me, "there is that one point in
your favor."

"Then there is a chance?"

"Oh, yes, for me to study you as you once did me--as one of the
_culicidae_, I presume. But if you would listen to reason, and end this
foolishness, and set us all ashore, why, I would be almost willing to
forgive you, and we might be friends again,--only friends, Harry, as
we once were. Why not, Harry?"

"You wheedle well," said I, "but you forget that what you ask is
impossible. I am Black Bart the Avenger, and the hand of every man is
against me. I am too deep in this adventure to end it here. Why? I did
not even dare go down-town for fear I might be