view of it. Now,
to an amateur it's anything but dry. There is as much excitement in
hunting down a missing link in a pedigree that you have been on the
trail of for a long time, as there is in the chase of any other kind
of game."

"Do you ever get across the water? Travel, if I remember right, played
a large part in your scheme of life once."

"Yes; I've been over once, for a few months. But my income, though
very comfortable for the statics of existence, is rather short for the
dynamics, and so I mostly stay at home."

"Did you meet any interesting people over there? Any of the crowned
heads, famous wits, etc., whom you once proposed to cultivate?"

"No; nobody in particular. I went in a very quiet way. I had some good
letters to people in England, but I didn't present them. The idea of
introductions became a bore as I got nearer to it."

"And, of course, you didn't elope with the marquise?"

"Was that in my scheme? Well--no, I did not."

"You might have done worse, old man. You ought to have a wife, to keep
you from getting rusty up here. And, besides, a fellow that goes so
much into genealogy should take some interest in posterity. You ought
to cultivate the science practically."

"Oh, I'm past all danger of matrimony now," said Berkeley, with a
laugh. "There was a girl that I was rather sweet on a few years ago. I
was looking up a pedigree for her papa, and I found that I was related
to her myself, in eight different ways, though none of them very near.
I explained it to her one evening. It took me an hour to do it, and I
fancy she thought it a little slow. At all events, when I afterward
hinted that we might make the eight ways nine, she answered that our
relationship was so intricate already that she couldn't think of
complicating it any further. No, you may put me down as safe."

After this, we sat listening in silence to the distant beat of
paddle-wheels where a steamer was moving up river.

"The river is a deal of company," resumed my host. "Thirty-six
steamers pass here every twenty-four hours. That now is the _Mary
Powell_."

"Well," I said, answering not so much to his last remark as to the
whole trend of his autobiography, "I suppose you are happy in this
way of life, since you seem to prefer it. But it would be terribly
monotonous to me."

"Happy?" replied Berkeley, doubtfully. "I don't know. Happiness is a
subjective matter. You _are_ happy if you think yourself so. As for
me, I cultivat