h
the ease that never left him even in such high places. The tintype
establishment was soon to become a thing of the past, although its
deadly work along the peaceful and helpless Spanish Main was never
effaced. The restless partners were about to be off again, scouting
ahead of the slow ranks of Fortune. But now they would take different
ways. There were rumours of a promising uprising in Peru; and thither
the martial Clancy would turn his adventurous steps. As for Keogh, he
was figuring in his mind and on quires of Government letter-heads a
scheme that dwarfed the art of misrepresenting the human countenance
upon tin.

"What suits me," Keogh used to say, "in the way of a business
proposition is something diversified that looks like a longer shot
than it is--something in the way of a genteel graft that isn't worked
enough for the correspondence schools to be teaching it by mail. I
take the long end; but I like to have at least as good a chance to
win as a man learning to play poker on an ocean steamer, or running
for governor of Texas on the Republican ticket. And when I cash in my
winnings, I don't want to find any widows' and orphans' chips in my
stack."

The grass-grown globe was the green table on which Keogh gambled. The
games he played were of his own invention. He was no grubber after
the diffident dollar. Nor did he care to follow it with horn and
hounds. Rather he loved to coax it with egregious and brilliant flies
from its habitat in the waters of strange streams. Yet Keogh was a
business man; and his schemes, in spite of their singularity, were as
solidly set as the plans of a building contractor. In Arthur's time
Sir William Keogh would have been a Knight of the Round Table. In
these modern days he rides abroad, seeking the Graft instead of the
Grail.

Three days after Johnny's departure, two small schooners appeared
off Coralio. After some delay a boat put off from one of them, and
brought a sunburned young man ashore. This young man had a shrewd and
calculating eye; and he gazed with amazement at the strange things
that he saw. He found on the beach some one who directed him to the
consul's office; and thither he made his way at a nervous gait.

Keogh was sprawled in the official chair, drawing caricatures of
his Uncle's head on an official pad of paper. He looked up at his
visitor.

"Where's Johnny Atwood?" inquired the sunburned young man, in a
business tone.

"Gone," said Keogh, working caref