diff options
Diffstat (limited to '3169-h/3169-h.htm')
| -rw-r--r-- | 3169-h/3169-h.htm | 4826 |
1 files changed, 4826 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/3169-h/3169-h.htm b/3169-h/3169-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d2495d8 --- /dev/null +++ b/3169-h/3169-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4826 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Pursuit of the House-Boat, by John Kendrick Bangs</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .5em; + text-decoration: none;} + span.red { color: red; } + body {background-color: #ffffc0; } + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Pursuit of the House-Boat, by John +Kendrick Bangs + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: The Pursuit of the House-Boat + + +Author: John Kendrick Bangs + + + +Release Date: September 1, 2019 [eBook #3169] +[This file was first posted on January 30, 2001] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PURSUIT OF THE HOUSE-BOAT*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1919 Harper and Brothers edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/cover.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Book cover" +title= +"Book cover" + src="images/cover.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/fpb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Stranger drew forth a bundle of business cards" +title= +"The Stranger drew forth a bundle of business cards" + src="images/fps.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1>THE PURSUIT OF THE<br /> +HOUSE-BOAT</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>BEING SOME FURTHER</i><br /> +<i>ACCOUNT OF THE DOINGS</i><br /> +<i>OF THE ASSOCIATED SHADES</i>,<br /> +<i>UNDER THE LEADERSHIP</i><br /> +<i>OF SHERLOCK HOLMES ESQ.</i></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +JOHN KENDRICK BANGS<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">AUTHOR OF “A HOUSE-BOAT ON THE +STYX,” ETC.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">ILLUSTRATED</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/tpb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Decorative graphic" +title= +"Decorative graphic" + src="images/tps.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center">LONDON <span +class="GutSmall">AND</span> NEW YORK<br /> +HARPER AND BROTHERS<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">45, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.</span><br /> +1919</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">FOURTEENTH +IMPRESSION</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<h2><a name="pagev"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +v</span>CONTENTS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">CHAP.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">I.</p> +</td> +<td><p>The Associated Shades take Action</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page1">1</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">II.</p> +</td> +<td><p>The Stranger Unravels a Mystery and Reveals Himself</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page19">19</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">III.</p> +</td> +<td><p>The Search-Party is Organized</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page42">42</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">IV.</p> +</td> +<td><p>On Board the House-Boat</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page58">58</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">V.</p> +</td> +<td><p>A Conference on Deck</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page73">73</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">VI.</p> +</td> +<td><p>A Conference Below-Stairs</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page89">89</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">VII.</p> +</td> +<td><p>The “Gehenna” is Chartered</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page105">105</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">VIII.</p> +</td> +<td><p>On Board the “Gehenna”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page121">121</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">IX.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Captain Kidd Meets with an Obstacle</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page139">139</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">X.</p> +</td> +<td><p>A Warning Accepted</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page157">157</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XI.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Marooned</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page172">172</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XII.</p> +</td> +<td><p>The Escape and the End</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page189">189</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="pagevii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +vii</span>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p>“The Stranger drew forth a bundle of business +cards”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>Frontispiece</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“Dr. Johnson’s point is well taken”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image8">8</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“What has all this got to do with the +question?”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image10">10</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“Poor old Boswell was pushed overboard”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image22">22</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“Three rousing cheers, led by Hamlet, had been +given”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page42">42</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“A black person by the name of Friday finds a +bottle”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image54">54</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Madame Récamier has a plan</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image66">66</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The hard features of Captain Kidd were thrust through</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image70">70</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“Here’s a kettle of fish!” said Kidd</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image74">74</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“Every bloomin’ million was represented by a +certified check, an’ payable in London”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image84">84</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Queen Elizabeth desires an axe and one hour of her olden +power</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image90">90</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><a name="pageviii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +viii</span>“The committee on treachery is ready to +report”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image102">102</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“You are very much mistaken, Sir Walter”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image108">108</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“In the dead of night he had stolen quietly up the +gang-plank”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image118">118</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Shem in the lookout</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image128">128</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Judge Blackstone refuses to climb to the mizzentop</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image126">126</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Captain Kidd consents to be cross-examined by Portia</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image148">148</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Kidd’s companions endeavouring to restore +evaporating portions of his anatomy with a steam-atomizer</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image154">154</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“He told us we were going to Paris”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image160">160</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“You are a very clear-headed young woman, +Lizzie,” said Mrs. Noah</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image170">170</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“That ought to be a lesson to you”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image178">178</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“The pirates made a mad dash down the rough, rocky +hill-side”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image180">180</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“Now, my child,” said Mrs. Noah, firmly, +“I do not wish any words”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image192">192</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“A great helpless hulk ten feet to the +rear”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image200">200</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span>I<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">THE ASSOCIATED SHADES TAKE +ACTION</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> House-boat of the Associated +Shades, formerly located upon the River Styx, as the reader may +possibly remember, had been torn from its moorings and navigated +out into unknown seas by that vengeful pirate Captain Kidd, aided +and abetted by some of the most ruffianly inhabitants of +Hades. Like a thief in the night had they come, and for no +better reason than that the Captain had been unanimously voted a +shade too shady to associate with self-respecting spirits had +they made off with the happy floating club-house of their +betters; and worst of all, with them, by force of circumstances +over which they had no control, had sailed also the fair Queen +Elizabeth, the spirited Xanthippe, and every other strong-minded +and beautiful woman of Erebean society, whereby the men thereof +were rendered desolate.</p> +<p>“I can’t stand it!” cried Raleigh, +desperately, as with his accustomed grace he presided over a +special meeting of the club, called on the bank of the inky +Stygian stream, at the point where the missing boat had been +moored. “Think of it, gentlemen, Elizabeth of +England, Calpurnia of Rome, Ophelia of Denmark, and every +precious jewel in our social diadem gone, vanished completely; +and with whom? Kidd, of all men in the universe! +Kidd, the pirate, the ruffian—”</p> +<p>“Don’t take on so, my dear Sir Walter,” said +Socrates, cheerfully. “What’s the use of going +into hysterics? You are not a woman, and should eschew that +luxury. Xanthippe is with them, and I’ll warrant you +that when that cherished spouse of mine has recovered from the +effects of the sea, say the third day out, Kidd and his crew will +be walking the plank, and voluntarily at that.”</p> +<p>“But the House-boat itself,” murmured Noah, +sadly. “That was my delight. It reminded me in +some respects of the Ark.”</p> +<p>“The law of compensation enters in there, my dear +Commodore,” retorted Socrates. “For me, with +Xanthippe abroad I do not need a club to go to; I can stay at +home and take my hemlock in peace and straight. Xanthippe +always compelled me to dilute it at the rate of one quart of +water to the finger.”</p> +<p>“Well, we didn’t all marry Xanthippe,” put +in Cæsar firmly, “therefore we are not all satisfied +with the situation. I, for one, quite agree with Sir Walter +that something must be done, and quickly. Are we to sit +here and do nothing, allowing that fiend to kidnap our wives with +impunity?”</p> +<p>“Not at all,” interposed Bonaparte. +“The time for action has arrived. All things +considered, he is welcome to Marie Louise, but the idea of +Josephine going off on a cruise of that kind breaks my +heart.”</p> +<p>“No question about it,” observed Dr. +Johnson. “We’ve got to do something if it is +only for the sake of appearances. The question really is, +what shall be done first?”</p> +<p>“I am in favor of taking a drink as the first step, and +considering the matter of further action afterwards,” +suggested Shakespeare, and it was this suggestion that made the +members unanimous upon the necessity for immediate action, for +when the assembled spirits called for their various favorite +beverages it was found that there were none to be had, it being +Sunday, and all the establishments wherein liquid refreshments +were licensed to be sold being closed—for at the time of +writing the local government of Hades was in the hands of the +reform party.</p> +<p>“What!” cried Socrates. “Nothing but +Styx water and vitriol, Sundays? Then the House-boat must +be recovered whether Xanthippe comes with it or not. Sir +Walter, I am for immediate action, after all. This ruffian +should be captured at once and made an example of.”</p> +<p>“Excuse me, Socrates,” put in Lindley Murray, +“but, ah—pray speak in Greek hereafter, will you, +please? When you attempt English you have a beastly way of +working up to climatic prepositions which are offensive to the +ear of a purist.”</p> +<p>“This is no time to discuss style, Murray,” +interposed Sir Walter. “Socrates may speak and spell +like Chaucer if he pleases; he may even part his infinitives in +the middle, for all I care. We have affairs of greater +moment in hand.”</p> +<p>“We must ransack the earth,” cried Socrates, +“until we find that boat. I’m dry as a +fish.”</p> +<p>“There he goes again!” growled Murray. +“Dry as a fish! What fish, I’d like to know, is +dry?”</p> +<p>“Red herrings,” retorted Socrates; and there was a +great laugh at the expense of the purist, in which even Hamlet, +who had grown more and more melancholy and morbid since the +abduction of Ophelia, joined.</p> +<p>“Then it is settled,” said Raleigh; +“something must be done. And now the point is, +what?”</p> +<p>“Relief expeditions have a way of finding things,” +suggested Dr. Livingstone. “Or rather of being found +by the things they go out to relieve. I propose that we +send out a number of them. I will take Africa; Bonaparte +can lead an expedition into Europe; General Washington may have +North America; and—”</p> +<p>“I beg pardon,” put in Dr. Johnson, “but +have you any idea, Dr. Livingstone, that Captain Kidd has put +wheels on this House-boat of ours, and is having it dragged +across the Sahara by mules or camels?”</p> +<p>“No such absurd idea ever entered my head,” +retorted the Doctor.</p> +<p>“Do you, then, believe that he has put runners on it, +and is engaged in the pleasurable pastime of taking the ladies +tobogganing down the Alps?” persisted the philosopher.</p> +<p>“Not at all. Why do you ask?” queried the +African explorer, irritably.</p> +<p>“Because I wish to know,” said Johnson. +“That is always my motive in asking questions. You +propose to go looking for a house-boat in Central Africa; you +suggest that Bonaparte lead an expedition in search of it through +Europe—all of which strikes me as nonsense. This +search is the work of sea-dogs, not of landlubbers. You +might as well ask Confucius to look for it in the heart of +China. What earthly use there is in ransacking the earth I +fail to see. What we need is a navel expedition to scour +the sea, unless it is pretty well understood in advance that we +believe Kidd has hauled the boat out of the water, and is now +using it for a roller-skating rink or a bicycle academy in Ohio, +or for some other purpose for which neither he nor it was +designed.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image8" href="images/p8b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Dr. Johnson’s point is well taken" +title= +"Dr. Johnson’s point is well taken" + src="images/p8s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“Dr. Johnson’s point is well taken,” said a +stranger who had been sitting upon the string-piece of the pier, +quietly, but with very evident interest, listening to the +discussion. He was a tall and excessively slender shade, +“like a spirt of steam out of a teapot,” as Johnson +put it afterwards, so slight he seemed. “I have not +the honor of being a member of this association,” the +stranger continued, “but, like all well-ordered shades, I +aspire to the distinction, and I hold myself and my talents at +the disposal of this club. I fancy it will not take us long +to establish our initial point, which is that the gross person +who has so foully appropriated your property to his own base uses +does not contemplate removing it from its keel and placing it +somewhere inland. All the evidence in hand points to a +radically different conclusion, which is my sole reason for +doubting the value of that conclusion. Captain Kidd is a +seafarer by instinct, not a landsman. The House-boat is not +a house, but a boat; therefore the place to look for it is not, +as Dr. Johnson so well says, in the Sahara Desert, or on the +Alps, or in the State of Ohio, but upon the high sea, or upon the +waterfront of some one of the world’s great +cities.”</p> +<p>“And what, then, would be your plan?” asked Sir +Walter, impressed by the stranger’s manner as well as by +the very manifest reason in all that he had said.</p> +<p>“The chartering of a suitable vessel, fully armed and +equipped for the purpose of pursuit. Ascertain whither the +House-boat has sailed, for what port, and start at once. +Have you a model of the House-boat within reach?” returned +the stranger.</p> +<p>“I think not; we have the architect’s plans, +however,” said the chairman.</p> +<p>“We had, Mr. Chairman,” said Demosthenes, who was +secretary of the House Committee, rising, “but they are +gone with the House-boat itself. They were kept in the safe +in the hold.”</p> +<p>A look of annoyance came into the face of the stranger.</p> +<p>“That’s too bad,” he said. “It +was a most important part of my plan that we should know about +how fast the House-boat was.”</p> +<p>“Humph!” ejaculated Socrates, with ill-concealed +sarcasm. “If you’ll take Xanthippe’s word +for it, the House-boat was the fastest yacht afloat.”</p> +<p>“I refer to the matter of speed in sailing,” +returned the stranger, quietly. “The question of its +ethical speed has nothing to do with it.”</p> +<p>“The designer of the craft is here,” said Sir +Walter, fixing his eyes upon Sir Christopher Wren. +“It is possible that he may be of assistance in settling +that point.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image10" href="images/p10b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"What has all this got to do with the question" +title= +"What has all this got to do with the question" + src="images/p10s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“What has all this got to do with the question, anyhow, +Mr. Chairman?” asked Solomon, rising impatiently and +addressing Sir Walter. “We aren’t preparing for +a yacht-race, that I know of. Nobody’s after a cup, +or a championship of any kind. What we do want is to get +our wives back. The Captain hasn’t taken more than +half of mine along with him, but I am interested none the +less. The Queen of Sheba is on board, and I am somewhat +interested in her fate. So I ask you what earthly or +unearthly use there is in discussing this question of speed in +the House-boat. It strikes me as a woful waste of time, and +rather unprecedented too, that we should suspend all rules and +listen to the talk of an entire stranger.”</p> +<p>“I do not venture to doubt the wisdom of Solomon,” +said Johnson, dryly, “but I must say that the +gentleman’s remarks rather interest me.”</p> +<p>“Of course they do,” ejaculated Solomon. +“He agreed with you. That ought to make him +interesting to everybody. Freaks usually are.”</p> +<p>“That is not the reason at all,” retorted Dr. +Johnson. “Cold water agrees with me, but it +doesn’t interest me. What I do think, however, is +that our unknown friend seems to have a grasp on the situation by +which we are confronted, and he’s going at the matter in +hand in a very comprehensive fashion. I move, therefore, +that Solomon be laid on the table, and that the privileges of +the—ah—of the wharf be extended indefinitely to our +friend on the string-piece.”</p> +<p>The motion, having been seconded, was duly carried, and the +stranger resumed.</p> +<p>“I will explain for the benefit of his Majesty King +Solomon, whose wisdom I have always admired, and whose endurance +as the husband of three hundred wives has filled me with +wonder,” he said, “that before starting in pursuit of +the stolen vessel we must select a craft of some sort for the +purpose, and that in selecting the pursuer it is quite essential +that we should choose a vessel of greater speed than the one we +desire to overtake. It would hardly be proper, I think, if +the House-boat can sail four knots an hour to attempt to overhaul +her with a launch, or other nautical craft, with a maximum speed +of two knots an hour.”</p> +<p>“Hear! hear!” ejaculated Cæsar.</p> +<p>“That is my reason, your Majesty, for inquiring as to +the speed of your late club-house,” said the stranger, +bowing courteously to Solomon. “Now, if Sir +Christopher Wren can give me her measurements, we can very soon +determine at about what rate she is leaving us behind under +favorable circumstances.”</p> +<p>“’Tisn’t necessary for Sir Christopher to do +anything of the sort,” said Noah, rising and manifesting +somewhat more heat than the occasion seemed to require. +“As long as we are discussing the question I will take the +liberty of stating what I have never mentioned before, that the +designer of the House-boat merely appropriated the lines of the +Ark. Shem, Ham, and Japhet will bear testimony to the truth +of that statement.”</p> +<p>“There can be no quarrel on that score, Mr. +Chairman,” assented Sir Christopher, with cutting +frigidity. “I am perfectly willing to admit that +practically the two vessels were built on the same lines, but +with modifications which would enable my boat to sail twenty +miles to windward and back in six days’ less time than it +would have taken the Ark to cover the same distance, and it could +have taken all the wash of the excursion steamers into the +bargain.”</p> +<p>“Bosh!” ejaculated Noah, angrily. +“Strip your old tub down to a flying balloon-jib and a +marline-spike, and ballast the Ark with elephants until every +inch of her reeked with ivory and peanuts, and she’d +outfoot you on every leg, in a cyclone or a zephyr. Give me +the Ark and a breeze, and your House-boat wouldn’t be +within hailing distance of her five minutes after the start if +she had 40,000 square yards of canvas spread before a +gale.”</p> +<p>“This discussion is waxing very unprofitable,” +observed Confucius. “If these gentlemen cannot be +made to confine themselves to the subject that is agitating this +body, I move we call in the authorities and have them confined in +the bottomless pit.”</p> +<p>“I did not precipitate the quarrel,” said +Noah. “I was merely trying to assist our friend on +the string-piece. I was going to say that as the Ark was +probably a hundred times faster than Sir Christopher +Wren’s—tub, which he himself says can take care of +all the wash of the excursion boats, thereby becoming on his own +admission a wash-tub—”</p> +<p>“Order! order!” cried Sir Christopher.</p> +<p>“I was going to say that this wash-tub could be +overhauled by a launch or any other craft with a speed of thirty +knots a mouth,” continued Noah, ignoring the +interruption.</p> +<p>“Took him forty days to get to Mount Ararat!” +sneered Sir Christopher.</p> +<p>“Well, your boat would have got there two weeks sooner, +I’ll admit,” retorted Noah, “if she’d +sprung a leak at the right time.”</p> +<p>“Granting the truth of Noah’s statement,” +said Sir Walter, motioning to the angry architect to be +quiet—“not that we take any side in the issue between +the two gentlemen, but merely for the sake of argument—I +wish to ask the stranger who has been good enough to interest +himself in our trouble what he proposes to do—how can you +establish your course in case a boat were provided?”</p> +<p>“Also vot vill be dher gost, if any?” put in +Shylock.</p> +<p>A murmur of disapprobation greeted this remark.</p> +<p>“The cost need not trouble you, sir,” said Sir +Walter, indignantly, addressing the stranger; “you will +have carte blanche.”</p> +<p>“Den ve are ruint!” cried Shylock, displaying his +palms, and showing by that act a select assortment of diamond +rings.</p> +<p>“Oh,” laughed the stranger, “that is a +simple matter. Captain Kidd has gone to London.”</p> +<p>“To London!” cried several members at once. +“How do you know that?”</p> +<p>“By this,” said the stranger, holding up the tiny +stub end of a cigar.</p> +<p>“Tut-tut!” ejaculated Solomon. “What +child’s play is this!”</p> +<p>“No, your Majesty,” observed the stranger, +“it is not child’s play; it is fact. That cigar +end was thrown aside here on the wharf by Captain Kidd just +before he stepped on board the House-boat.”</p> +<p>“How do you know that?” demanded Raleigh. +“And granting the truth of the assertion, what does it +prove?”</p> +<p>“I will tell you,” said the stranger. And he +at once proceeded as follows.</p> +<h2><a name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 19</span>II<br +/> +<span class="GutSmall">THE STRANGER UNRAVELS A MYSTERY AND +REVEALS HIMSELF</span></h2> +<p>“I <span class="smcap">have</span> made a hobby of the +study of cigar ends,” said the stranger, as the Associated +Shades settled back to hear his account of himself. +“From my earliest youth, when I used surreptitiously to +remove the unsmoked ends of my father’s cigars and break +them up, and, in hiding, smoke them in an old clay pipe which I +had presented to me by an ancient sea-captain of my acquaintance, +I have been interested in tobacco in all forms, even including +these self-same despised unsmoked ends; for they convey to my +mind messages, sentiments, farces, comedies, and tragedies which +to your minds would never become manifest through their +agency.”</p> +<p>The company drew closer together and formed themselves in a +more compact mass about the speaker. It was evident that +they were beginning to feel an unusual interest in this +extraordinary person, who had come among them unheralded and +unknown. Even Shylock stopped calculating percentages for +an instant to listen.</p> +<p>“Do you mean to tell us,” demanded Shakespeare, +“that the unsmoked stub of a cigar will suggest the story +of him who smoked it to your mind?”</p> +<p>“I do,” replied the stranger, with a confident +smile. “Take this one, for instance, that I have +picked up here upon the wharf; it tells me the whole story of the +intentions of Captain Kidd at the moment when, in utter disregard +of your rights, he stepped aboard your House-boat, and, in his +usual piratical fashion, made off with it into unknown +seas.”</p> +<p>“But how do you know he smoked it?” asked Solomon, +who deemed it the part of wisdom to be suspicious of the +stranger.</p> +<p>“There are two curious indentations in it which prove +that. The marks of two teeth, with a hiatus between, which +you will see if you look closely,” said the stranger, +handing the small bit of tobacco to Sir Walter, “make that +point evident beyond peradventure. The Captain lost an +eye-tooth in one of his later raids; it was knocked out by a +marine-spike which had been hurled at him by one of the crew of +the treasure-ship he and his followers had attacked. The +adjacent teeth were broken, but not removed. The cigar end +bears the marks of those two jagged molars, with the hiatus, +which, as I have indicated, is due to the destruction of the +eye-tooth between them. It is not likely that there was +another man in the pirate’s crew with teeth exactly like +the commander’s, therefore I say there can be no doubt that +the cigar end was that of the Captain himself.”</p> +<p>“Very interesting indeed,” observed Blackstone, +removing his wig and fanning himself with it; “but I must +confess, Mr. Chairman, that in any properly constituted law court +this evidence would long since have been ruled out as irrelevant +and absurd. The idea of two or three hundred dignified +spirits like ourselves, gathered together to devise a means for +the recovery of our property and the rescue of our wives, +yielding the floor to the delivering of a lecture by an entire +stranger on ‘Cigar Ends He Has Met,’ strikes me as +ridiculous in the extreme. Of what earthly interest is it +to us to know that this or that cigar was smoked by Captain +Kidd?”</p> +<p>“Merely that it will help us on, your honor, to discover +the whereabouts of the said Kidd,” interposed the +stranger. “It is by trifles, seeming trifles, that +the greatest detective work is done. My friends Le Coq, +Hawkshaw, and Old Sleuth will bear me out in this, I think, +however much in other respects our methods may have +differed. They left no stone unturned in the pursuit of a +criminal; no detail, however trifling, uncared for. No more +should we in the present instance overlook the minutest bit of +evidence, however irrelevant and absurd at first blush it may +appear to be. The truth of what I say was very effectually +proven in the strange case of the Brokedale tiara, in which I +figured somewhat conspicuously, but which have never made public, +because it involves a secret affecting the integrity of one of +the noblest families in the British Empire. I really +believe that mystery was solved easily and at once because I +happened to remember that the number of my watch was +86507B. How trivial and yet how important it was, to what +then transpired, you will realize when I tell you the +incident.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image22" href="images/p22b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Poor old Boswell was pushed overboard" +title= +"Poor old Boswell was pushed overboard" + src="images/p22s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The stranger’s manner was so impressive that there was a +unanimous and simultaneous movement upon the part of all present +to get up closer, so as the more readily to hear what he said, as +a result of which poor old Boswell was pushed overboard, and +fell, with a loud splash into the Styx. Fortunately, +however, one of Charon’s pleasure-boats was close at hand, +and in a short while the dripping, sputtering spirit was drawn +into it, wrung out, and sent home to dry. The excitement +attending this diversion having subsided, Solomon asked:</p> +<p>“What was the incident of the lost tiara?”</p> +<p>“I am about to tell you,” returned the stranger; +“and it must be understood that you are told in the +strictest confidence, for, as I say, the incident involves a +state secret of great magnitude. In life—in the +mortal life—gentlemen, I was a detective by profession, +and, if I do say it, who perhaps should not, I was one of the +most interesting for purely literary purposes that has ever been +known. I did not find it necessary to go about saying +‘Ha! ha!’ as M. Le Coq was accustomed to do to +advertise his cleverness; neither did I disguise myself as a +drum-major and hide under a kitchen-table for the purpose of +solving a mystery involving the abduction of a parlor stove, +after the manner of the talented Hawkshaw. By mental +concentration alone, without fireworks or orchestral +accompaniment of any sort whatsoever, did I go about my business, +and for that very reason many of my fellow-sleuths were forced to +go out of real detective work into that line of the business with +which the stage has familiarized the most of us—a line in +which nothing but stupidity, luck, and a yellow wig is required +of him who pursues it.”</p> +<p>“This man is an impostor,” whispered Le Coq to +Hawkshaw.</p> +<p>“I’ve known that all along by the mole on his left +wrist,” returned Hawkshaw, contemptuously.</p> +<p>“I suspected it the minute I saw he was not +disguised,” returned Le Coq, knowingly. “I have +observed that the greatest villains latterly have discarded +disguises, as being too easily penetrated, and therefore of no +avail, and merely a useless expense.”</p> +<p>“Silence!” cried Confucius, impatiently. +“How can the gentleman proceed, with all this conversation +going on in the rear?”</p> +<p>Hawkshaw and Le Coq immediately subsided, and the stranger +went on.</p> +<p>“It was in this way that I treated the strange case of +the lost tiara,” resumed the stranger. “Mental +concentration upon seemingly insignificant details alone enabled +me to bring about the desired results in that instance. A +brief outline of the case is as follows: It was late one evening +in the early spring of 1894. The London season was at its +height. Dances, fêtes of all kinds, opera, and the +theatres were in full blast, when all of a sudden society was +paralyzed by a most audacious robbery. A diamond tiara +valued at £50,000 sterling had been stolen from the Duchess +of Brokedale, and under circumstances which threw society itself +and every individual in it under suspicion—even his Royal +Highness the Prince himself, for he had danced frequently with +the Duchess, and was known to be a great admirer of her +tiara. It was at half-past eleven o’clock at night +that the news of the robbery first came to my ears. I had +been spending the evening alone in my library making notes for a +second volume of my memoirs, and, feeling somewhat depressed, I +was on the point of going out for my usual midnight walk on +Hampstead Heath, when one of my servants, hastily entering, +informed me of the robbery. I changed my mind in respect to +my midnight walk immediately upon receipt of the news, for I knew +that before one o’clock some one would call upon me at my +lodgings with reference to this robbery. It could not be +otherwise. Any mystery of such magnitude could no more be +taken to another bureau than elephants could +fly—”</p> +<p>“They used to,” said Adam. “I once had +a whole aviary full of winged elephants. They flew from +flower to flower, and thrusting their probabilities deep +into—”</p> +<p>“Their what?” queried Johnson, with a frown.</p> +<p>“Probabilities—isn’t that the word? +Their trunks,” said Adam.</p> +<p>“Probosces, I imagine you mean,” suggested +Johnson.</p> +<p>“Yes—that was it. Their probosces,” +said Adam. “They were great honey-gatherers, those +elephants—far better than the bees, because they could make +so much more of it in a given time.”</p> +<p>Munchausen shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid +I’m outclassed by these antediluvians,” he said.</p> +<p>“Gentlemen! gentlemen!” cried Sir Walter. +“These interruptions are inexcusable!”</p> +<p>“That’s what I think,” said the stranger, +with some asperity. “I’m having about as hard a +time getting this story out as I would if it were a serial. +Of course, if you gentlemen do not wish to hear it, I can stop; +but it must be understood that when I do stop I stop finally, +once and for all, because the tale has not a sufficiency of +dramatic climaxes to warrant its prolongation over the usual +magazine period of twelve months.”</p> +<p>“Go on! go on!” cried some.</p> +<p>“Shut up!” cried others—addressing the +interrupting members, of course.</p> +<p>“As I was saying,” resumed the stranger, “I +felt confident that within an hour, in some way or other, that +case would be placed in my hands. It would be mine either +positively or negatively—that is to say, either the person +robbed would employ me to ferret out the mystery and recover the +diamonds, or the robber himself, actuated by motives of +self-preservation, would endeavor to direct my energies into +other channels until he should have the time to dispose of his +ill-gotten booty. A mental discussion of the probabilities +inclined me to believe that the latter would be the case. I +reasoned in this fashion: The person robbed is of exalted +rank. She cannot move rapidly because she is so. +Great bodies move slowly. It is probable that it will be a +week before, according to the etiquette by which she is hedged +about, she can communicate with me. In the first place, she +must inform one of her attendants that she has been robbed. +He must communicate the news to the functionary in charge of her +residence, who will communicate with the Home Secretary, and from +him will issue the orders to the police, who, baffled at every +step, will finally address themselves to me. +‘I’ll give that side two weeks,’ I said. +On the other hand, the robber: will he allow himself to be lulled +into a false sense of security by counting on this delay, or will +he not, noting my habit of occasionally entering upon detective +enterprises of this nature of my own volition, come to me at once +and set me to work ferreting out some crime that has never been +committed? My feeling was that this would happen, and I +pulled out my watch to see if it were not nearly time for him to +arrive. The robbery had taken place at a state ball at the +Buckingham Palace. ‘H’m!’ I mused. +‘He has had an hour and forty minutes to get here. It +is now twelve-twenty. He should be here by +twelve-forty-five. I will wait.’ And hastily +swallowing a cocaine tablet to nerve myself up for the meeting, I +sat down and began to read my Schopenhauer. Hardly had I +perused a page when there came a tap upon my door. I rose +with a smile, for I thought I knew what was to happen, opened the +door, and there stood, much to my surprise, the husband of the +lady whose tiara was missing. It was the Duke of Brokedale +himself. It is true he was disguised. His beard was +powdered until it looked like snow, and he wore a wig and a pair +of green goggles; but I recognized him at once by his lack of +manners, which is an unmistakable sign of nobility. As I +opened the door, he began:</p> +<p>“‘You are Mr. —’</p> +<p>“‘I am,’ I replied. ‘Come +in. You have come to see me about your stolen watch. +It is a gold hunting-case watch with a Swiss movement; loses five +minutes a day; stem-winder; and the back cover, which does not +bear any inscription, has upon it the indentations made by the +molars of your son Willie when that interesting youth was cutting +his teeth upon it.’”</p> +<p>“Wonderful!” cried Johnson.</p> +<p>“May I ask how you knew all that?” asked Solomon, +deeply impressed. “Such penetration strikes me as +marvellous.”</p> +<p>“I didn’t know it,” replied the stranger, +with a smile. “What I said was intended to be +jocular, and to put Brokedale at his ease. The Americans +present, with their usual astuteness, would term it bluff. +It was. I merely rattled on. I simply did not wish to +offend the gentleman by letting him know that I had penetrated +his disguise. Imagine my surprise, however, when his eye +brightened as I spoke, and he entered my room with such alacrity +that half the powder which he thought disguised his beard was +shaken off on to the floor. Sitting down in the chair I had +just vacated, he quietly remarked:</p> +<p>“‘You are a wonderful man, sir. How did you +know that I had lost my watch?’</p> +<p>“For a moment I was nonplussed; more than that, I was +completely staggered. I had expected him to say at once +that he had not lost his watch, but had come to see me about the +tiara; and to have him take my words seriously was entirely +unexpected and overwhelmingly surprising. However, in view +of his rank, I deemed it well to fall in with his humour. +‘Oh, as for that,’ I replied, ‘that is a part +of my business. It is the detective’s place to know +everything; and generally, if he reveals the machinery by means +of which he reaches his conclusions, he is a fool, since his +method is his secret, and his secret his stock-in-trade. I +do not mind telling you, however, that I knew your watch was +stolen by your anxious glance at my clock, which showed that you +wished to know the time. Now most rich Americans have +watches for that purpose, and have no hesitation about showing +them. If you’d had a watch, you’d have looked +at it, not at my clock.’</p> +<p>“My visitor laughed, and repeated what he had said about +my being a wonderful man.</p> +<p>“‘And the dents which my son made cutting his +teeth?’ he added.</p> +<p>“‘Invariably go with an American’s +watch. Rubber or ivory rings aren’t good enough for +American babies to chew on,’ said I. ‘They must +have gold watches or nothing.’</p> +<p>“‘And finally, how did you know I was a rich +American?’ he asked.</p> +<p>“‘Because no other can afford to stop at hotels +like the Savoy in the height of the season,’ I replied, +thinking that the jest would end there, and that he would now +reveal his identity and speak of the tiara. To my surprise, +however, he did nothing of the sort.</p> +<p>“‘You have an almost supernatural gift,’ he +said. ‘My name is Bunker. I am stopping at the +Savoy. I <i>am</i> an American. I <i>was</i> rich +when I arrived here, but I’m not quite so bloated with +wealth as I was, now that I have paid my first week’s +bill. I <i>have</i> lost my watch; such a watch, too, as +you describe, even to the dents. Your only mistake was that +the dents were made by my son John, and not Willie; but even +there I cannot but wonder at you, for John and Willie are twins, +and so much alike that it sometimes baffles even their mother to +tell them apart. The watch has no very great value +intrinsically, but the associations are such that I want it back, +and I will pay £200 for its recovery. I have no clew +as to who took it. It was numbered—’</p> +<p>“Here a happy thought struck me. In all my +description of the watch I had merely described my own, a very +cheap affair which I had won at a raffle. My visitor was +deceiving me, though for what purpose I did not on the instant +divine. No one would like to suspect him of having +purloined his wife’s tiara. Why should I not deceive +him, and at the same time get rid of my poor chronometer for a +sum that exceeded its value a hundredfold?”</p> +<p>“Good business!” cried Shylock.</p> +<p>The stranger smiled and bowed.</p> +<p>“Excellent,” he said. “I took the +words right out of his mouth. ‘It was numbered +86507B!’ I cried, giving, of course, the number of my own +watch.</p> +<p>“He gazed at me narrowly for a moment, and then he +smiled. ‘You grow more marvellous at every +step. That was indeed the number. Are you a +demon?’</p> +<p>“‘No,’ I replied. ‘Only +something of a mind-reader.’</p> +<p>“Well, to be brief, the bargain was struck. I was +to look for a watch that I knew he hadn’t lost, and was to +receive £200 if I found it. It seemed to him to be a +very good bargain, as, indeed, it was, from his point of view, +feeling, as he did, that there never having been any such watch, +it could not be recovered, and little suspecting that two could +play at his little game of deception, and that under any +circumstances I could foist a ten-shilling watch upon him for two +hundred pounds. This business concluded, he started to +go.</p> +<p>“‘Won’t you have a little Scotch?’ I +asked, as he started, feeling, with all that prospective profit +in view, I could well afford the expense. ‘It is a +stormy night.’</p> +<p>“‘Thanks, I will,’ said he, returning and +seating himself by my table—still, to my surprise, keeping +his hat on.</p> +<p>“‘Let me take your hat,’ I said, little +thinking that my courtesy would reveal the true state of +affairs. The mere mention of the word hat brought about a +terrible change in my visitor; his knees trembled, his face grew +ghastly, and he clutched the brim of his beaver until it +cracked. He then nervously removed it, and I noticed a dull +red mark running about his forehead, just as there would be on +the forehead of a man whose hat fitted too tightly; and that +mark, gentlemen, had the undulating outline of nothing more nor +less than a tiara, and on the apex of the uttermost extremity was +a deep indentation about the size of a shilling, that could have +been made only by some adamantine substance! The mystery +was solved! The robber of the Duchess of Brokedale stood +before me.”</p> +<p>A suppressed murmur of excitement went through the assembled +spirits, and even Messrs. Hawkshaw and Le Coq were silent in the +presence of such genius.</p> +<p>“My plan of action was immediately formulated. The +man was completely at my mercy. He had stolen the tiara, +and had it concealed in the lining of his hat. I rose and +locked the door. My visitor sank with a groan into my +chair.</p> +<p>“‘Why did you do that?’ he stammered, as I +turned the key in the lock.</p> +<p>“‘To keep my Scotch whiskey from +evaporating,’ I said, dryly. ‘Now, my +lord,’ I added, ‘it will pay your Grace to let me +have your hat. I know who you are. You are the Duke +of Brokedale. The Duchess of Brokedale has lost a valuable +tiara of diamonds, and you have not lost your watch. +Somebody has stolen the diamonds, and it may be that somewhere +there is a Bunker who has lost such a watch as I have +described. The queer part of it all is,’ I continued, +handing him the decanter, and taking a couple of loaded +six-shooters out of my escritoire—‘the queer part of +it all is that I have the watch and you have the tiara. +We’ll swap the swag. Hand over the bauble, +please.’</p> +<p>“‘But—’ he began.</p> +<p>“‘We won’t have any butting, your +Grace,’ said I. ‘I’ll give you the watch, +and you needn’t mind the £200; and you must give me +the tiara, or I’ll accompany you forthwith to the police, +and have a search made of your hat. It won’t pay you +to defy me. Give it up.’</p> +<p>“He gave up the hat at once, and, as I suspected, there +lay the tiara, snugly stowed away behind the head-band.</p> +<p>“‘You are a great fellow,’ said I, as I held +the tiara up to the light and watched with pleasure the flashing +brilliance of its gems.</p> +<p>“‘I beg you’ll not expose me,’ he +moaned. ‘I was driven to it by necessity.’</p> +<p>“‘Not I,’ I replied. ‘As long as +you play fair it will be all right. I’m not going to +keep this thing. I’m not married, and so have no use +for such a trifle; but what I do intend is simply to wait until +your wife retains me to find it, and then I’ll find it and +get the reward. If you keep perfectly still, I’ll +have it found in such a fashion that you’ll never be +suspected. If, on the other hand, you say a word about +to-night’s events, I’ll hand you over to the +police.’</p> +<p>“‘Humph!’ he said. ‘You +couldn’t prove a case against me.’</p> +<p>“‘I can prove any case against anybody,’ I +retorted. ‘If you don’t believe it, read my +book,’ I added, and I handed him a copy of my memoirs.</p> +<p>“‘I’ve read it,’ he answered, +‘and I ought to have known better than to come here. +I thought you were only a literary success.’ And with +a deep-drawn sigh he took the watch and went out. Ten days +later I was retained by the Duchess, and after a pretended search +of ten days more I found the tiara, restored it to the noble +lady, and received the £5000 reward. The Duke kept +perfectly quiet about our little encounter, and afterwards we +became stanch friends; for he was a good fellow, and was driven +to his desperate deed only by the demands of his creditors, and +the following Christmas he sent me the watch I had given him, +with the best wishes of the season.</p> +<p>“So, you see, gentlemen, in a moment, by quick wit and a +mental concentration of no mean order, combined with strict +observance of the pettiest details, I ferreted out what bade fair +to become a great diamond mystery; and when I say that this cigar +end proves certain things to my mind, it does not become you to +doubt the value of my conclusions.”</p> +<p>“Hear! hear!” cried Raleigh, growing tumultuous +with enthusiasm.</p> +<p>“Your name? your name?” came from all parts of the +wharf.</p> +<p>The stranger, putting his hand into the folds of his coat, +drew forth a bundle of business cards, which he tossed, as the +prestidigitator tosses playing-cards, out among the audience, and +on each of them was found printed the words:</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td><blockquote><p style="text-align: center">SHERLOCK +HOLMES,</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="GutSmall">DETECTIVE.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">Ferreting Done +Here</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Plots for Sale</i>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p>“I think he made a mistake in not taking the £200 +for the watch. Such carelessness destroys my confidence in +him,” said Shylock, who was the first to recover from the +surprise of the revelation.</p> +<h2><a name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 42</span>III<br +/> +<span class="GutSmall">THE SEARCH-PARTY IS ORGANIZED</span></h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Well</span>, Mr. Holmes,” +said Sir Walter Raleigh, after three rousing cheers, led by +Hamlet, had been given with a will by the assembled spirits, +“after this demonstration in your honor I think it is +hardly necessary for me to assure you of our hearty co-operation +in anything you may venture to suggest. There is still +manifest, however, some desire on the part of the ever-wise King +Solomon and my friend Confucius to know how you deduce that Kidd +has sailed for London, from the cigar end which you hold in your +hand.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p42b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Three rousing cheers, led by Hamlet, had been given" +title= +"Three rousing cheers, led by Hamlet, had been given" + src="images/p42s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“I can easily satisfy their curiosity,” said +Sherlock Holmes, genially. “I believe I have already +proven that it is the end of Kidd’s cigar. The marks +of the teeth have shown that. Now observe how closely it is +smoked—there is barely enough of it left for one to insert +between his teeth. Now Captain Kidd would hardly have +risked the edges of his mustache and the comfort of his lips by +smoking a cigar down to the very light if he had had another; nor +would he under any circumstances have smoked it that far unless +he were passionately addicted to this particular brand of the +weed. Therefore I say to you, first, this was his cigar; +second, it was the last one he had; third, he is a confirmed +smoker. The result, he has gone to the one place in the +world where these Connecticut hand-rolled Havana cigars—for +I recognize this as one of them—have a real popularity, and +are therefore more certainly obtainable, and that is at +London. You cannot get so vile a cigar as that outside of a +London hotel. If I could have seen a quarter-inch more of +it, I should have been able definitely to locate the hotel +itself. The wrappers unroll to a degree that varies +perceptibly as between the different hotels. The Fortuna +cigar can be smoked a quarter through before its wrapper gives +way; the Felix wrapper goes as soon as you light the cigar; +whereas the River, fronting on the Thames, is surrounded by a +moister atmosphere than the others, and, as a consequence, the +wrapper will hold really until most people are willing to throw +the whole thing away.”</p> +<p>“It is really a wonderful art!” said Solomon.</p> +<p>“The making of a Connecticut Havana cigar?” +laughed Holmes. “Not at all. Give me a head of +lettuce and a straw, and I’ll make you a box.”</p> +<p>“I referred to your art—that of detection,” +said Solomon. “Your logic is perfect; step by step we +have been led to the irresistible conclusion that Kidd has made +for London, and can be found at one of these hotels.”</p> +<p>“And only until next Tuesday, when he will take a house +in the neighborhood of Scotland Yard,” put in Holmes, +quickly, observing a sneer on Hawkshaw’s lips, and +hastening to overwhelm him by further evidence of his +ingenuity. “When he gets his bill he will open his +piratical eyes so wide that he will be seized with jealousy to +think of how much more refined his profession has become since he +left it, and out of mere pique he will leave the hotel, and, to +show himself still cleverer than his modern prototypes, he will +leave his account unpaid, with the result that the affair will be +put in the hands of the police, under which circumstances a house +in the immediate vicinity of the famous police headquarters will +be the safest hiding-place he can find, as was instanced by the +remarkable case of the famous Penstock bond robbery. A +certain churchwarden named Hinkley, having been appointed cashier +thereof, robbed the Penstock Imperial Bank of £1,000,000 in +bonds, and, fleeing to London, actually joined the detective +force at Scotland Yard, and was detailed to find himself, which +of course he never did, nor would he ever have been found had he +not crossed my path.”</p> +<p>Hawkshaw gazed mournfully off into space, and Le Coq muttered +profane words under his breath.</p> +<p>“We’re not in the same class with this fellow, +Hawkshaw,” said Le Coq. “You could tap your +forehead knowingly eight hours a day through all eternity with a +sledge-hammer without loosening an idea like that.”</p> +<p>“Nevertheless I’ll confound him yet,” +growled the jealous detective. “I shall myself go to +London, and, disguised as Captain Kidd, will lead this visionary +on until he comes there to arrest me, and when these club members +discover that it is Hawkshaw and not Kidd he has run to earth, +we’ll have a great laugh on Sherlock Holmes.”</p> +<p>“I am anxious to hear how you solved the bond-robbery +mystery,” said Socrates, wrapping his toga closely about +him and settling back against one of the spiles of the wharf.</p> +<p>“So are we all,” said Sir Walter. “But +meantime the House-boat is getting farther away.”</p> +<p>“Not unless she’s sailing backwards,” +sneered Noah, who was still nursing his resentment against Sir +Christopher Wren for his reflections upon the speed of the +Ark.</p> +<p>“What’s the hurry?” asked Socrates. +“I believe in making haste slowly; and on the admission of +our two eminent naval architects, Sir Christopher and Noah, +neither of their vessels can travel more than a mile a week, and +if we charter the <i>Flying Dutchman</i> to go in pursuit of her +we can catch her before she gets out of the Styx into the +Atlantic.”</p> +<p>“Jonah might lend us his whale, if the beast is in +commission,” suggested Munchausen, dryly. “I +for one would rather take a state-room in Jonah’s whale +than go aboard the <i>Flying Dutchman</i> again. I made one +trip on the <i>Dutchman</i>, and she’s worse than a dory +for comfort; further—I don’t see what good it would +do us to charter a boat that can’t land oftener than once +in seven years, and spends most of her time trying to double the +Cape of Good Hope.”</p> +<p>“My whale is in commission,” said Jonah, with +dignity. “But Baron Munchausen need not consider the +question of taking a state-room aboard of her. She +doesn’t carry second-class passengers. And if I took +any stock in the idea of a trip on the <i>Flying Dutchman</i> +amounting to a seven years’ exile, I would cheerfully pay +the Baron’s expenses for a round trip.”</p> +<p>“We are losing time, gentlemen,” suggested +Sherlock Holmes. “This is a moment, I think, when you +should lay aside personal differences and personal preferences +for immediate action. I have examined the wake of the +House-boat, and I judge from the condition of what, for want of a +better term, I may call the suds, when she left us the House-boat +was making ten knots a day. Almost any craft we can find +suitably manned ought to be able to do better than that; and if +you could summon Charon and ascertain what boats he has at hand, +it would be for the good of all concerned.”</p> +<p>“That’s a good plan,” said Johnson. +“Boswell, see if you can find Charon.”</p> +<p>“I am here already, sir,” returned the ferryman, +rising. “Most of my boats have gone into winter +quarters, your Honor. The <i>Mayflower</i> went into dry +dock last week to be calked up; the <i>Pinta</i> and the <i>Santa +Maria</i> are slow and cranky; the <i>Monitor</i> and the +<i>Merrimac</i> I haven’t really had time to patch up; and +the <i>Valkyrie</i> is two months overdue. I cannot make up +my mind whether she is lost or kept back by excursion +steamers. Hence I really don’t know what I can lend +you. Any of these boat I have named you could have had for +nothing; but my others are actively employed, and I +couldn’t let them go without a serious interference with my +business.”</p> +<p>The old man blinked sorrowfully across the waters at the +opposite shore. It was quite evident that he realized what +a dreadful expense the club was about to be put to, and while of +course there would be profit in it for him, he was sincerely +sorry for them.</p> +<p>“I repeat,” he added, “those boats you could +have had for nothing, but the others I’d have to charge you +for, though of course I’ll give you a discount.”</p> +<p>And he blinked again, as he meditated upon whether that +discount should be an eighth or one-quarter of one per cent.</p> +<p>“The <i>Flying Dutchman</i>,” he pursued, +“ain’t no good for your purposes. She’s +too fast. She’s built to fly by, not to stop. +You’d catch up with the House-boat in a minute with her, +but you’d go right on and disappear like a visionary; and +as for the Ark, she’d never do—with all respect to +Mr. Noah. She’s just about as suitable as any other +waterlogged cattle-steamer’d be, and no +more—first-rate for elephants and kangaroos, but no good +for cruiser-work, and so slow she wouldn’t make a ripple +high enough to drown a gnat going at the top of her speed. +Furthermore, she’s got a great big hole in her bottom, +where she was stove in by running afoul of—Mount +Arrus-root, I believe it was called when Captain Noah went +cruising with that menagerie of his.”</p> +<p>“That’s an unmitigated falsehood!” cried +Noah, angrily. “This man talks like a professional +amateur yachtsman. He has no regard for facts, but simply +goes ahead and makes statements with an utter disregard of the +truth. The Ark was not stove in. We beached her very +successfully. I say this in defence of my seamanship, which +was top-notch for my day.”</p> +<p>“Couldn’t sail six weeks without fouling a +mountain-peak!” sneered Wren, perceiving a chance to get +even.</p> +<p>“The hole’s there, just the same,” said +Charon. “Maybe she was a centreboard, sad +that’s where you kept the board.”</p> +<p>“The hole is there because it was worn there by one of +the elephants,” retorted Noah. “You get a beast +like the elephant shuffling one of his fore-feet up and down, up +and down, a plank for twenty-four hours a day for forty days in +one of your boats, and see where your boat would be.”</p> +<p>“Thanks,” said Charon, calmly. “But +the elephants don’t patronize my line. All the +elephants I’ve ever seen in Hades waded over, except Jumbo, +and he reached his trunk across, fastened on to a tree limb with +it, and swung himself over. However, the Ark isn’t at +all what you want, unless you are going to man her with a lot of +centaurs. If that’s your intention, I’d charter +her; the accommodations are just the thing for a crew of that +kind.”</p> +<p>“Well, what do you suggest?” asked Raleigh, +somewhat impatiently. “You’ve told us what we +can’t do. Now tell us what we can do.”</p> +<p>“I’d stay right here,” said Charon, +“and let the ladies rescue themselves. That’s +what I’d do. I’ve had the honor of bringing +’em over here, and I think I know ’em pretty +well. I’ve watched ’em close, and it’s my +private opinion that before many days you’ll see your +club-house sailing back here, with Queen Elizabeth at the hellum, +and the other ladies on the for’ard deck knittin’ and +crochetin’, and tearin’ each other to pieces in a +conversational way, as happy as if there never had been any +Captain Kidd and his pirate crew.”</p> +<p>“That suggestion is impossible,” said Blackstone, +rising. “Whether the relief expedition amounts to +anything or not, it’s good to be set going. The +ladies would never forgive us if we sat here inactive, even if +they were capable of rescuing themselves. It is an accepted +principle of law that this climate hath no fury like a woman left +to herself, and we’ve got enough professional furies +hereabouts without our aiding in augmenting the ranks. We +must have a boat.”</p> +<p>“It’ll cost you a thousand dollars a week,” +said Charon.</p> +<p>“I’ll subscribe fifty,” cried Hamlet.</p> +<p>“I’ll consult my secretary,” said Solomon, +“and find out how many of my wives have been abducted, and +I’ll pay ten dollars apiece for their recovery.”</p> +<p>“That’s liberal,” said Hawkshaw. +“There are sixty-three of ’em on board, together with +eighty of his fiancées. What’s the quotation +on fiancées, King Solomon?”</p> +<p>“Nothing,” said Solomon. +“They’re not mine yet, and it’s their +father’s business to get ’em back. Not +mine.”</p> +<p>Other subscriptions came pouring in, and it was not long +before everybody save Shylock had put his name down for +something. This some one of the more quick-witted of the +spirits soon observed, and, with reckless disregard of the +feelings of the Merchant of Venice, began to call, +“Shylock! Shylock! How much?”</p> +<p>The Merchant tried to leave the pier, but his path was +blocked.</p> +<p>“Subscribe, subscribe!” was the cry. +“How much?”</p> +<p>“Order, gentlemen, order!” said Sir Walter, rising +and holding a bottle aloft. “A black person by the +name of Friday, a valet of our friend Mr. Crusoe, has just handed +me this bottle, which he picked up ten minutes ago on the bank of +the river a few miles distant. It contains a bit of paper, +and may perhaps give us a clew based upon something more +substantial than even the wonderful theories of our new brother +Holmes.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image54" href="images/p54b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"A black person by the name of Friday finds a bottle" +title= +"A black person by the name of Friday finds a bottle" + src="images/p54s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>A deathly silence followed the chairman’s words, as Sir +Walter drew a corkscrew from his pocket and opened the +bottle. He extracted the paper, and, as he had surmised, it +proved to be a message from the missing vessel. His face +brightening with a smile of relief, Sir Walter read, aloud:</p> +<p>“Have just emerged into the Atlantic Club in hands of +Kidd and forty ruffians. One hundred and eighty-three +ladies on board. Headed for the Azores. Send aid at +once. All well except Xanthippe, who is seasick in the +billiard-room. (Signed) Portia.”</p> +<p>“Aha!” cried Hawkshaw. “That shows how +valuable the Holmes theory is.”</p> +<p>“Precisely,” said Holmes. “No woman +knows anything about seafaring, but Portia is right. The +ship is headed for the Azores, which is the first tack needed in +a windward sail for London under the present +conditions.”</p> +<p>The reply was greeted with cheers, and when they subsided the +cry for Shylock’s subscription began again, but he +declined.</p> +<p>“I had intended to put up a thousand ducats,” he +said, defiantly, “but with that woman Portia on board I +won’t give a red obolus!” and with that he wrapped +his cloak about him and stalked off into the gathering shadows of +the wood.</p> +<p>And so the funds were raised without the aid of Shylock, and +the shapely twin-screw steamer the <i>Gehenna</i> was chartered +of Charon, and put under the command of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who, +after he had thanked the company for their confidence, walked +abstractedly away, observing in strictest confidence to himself +that he had done well to prepare that bottle beforehand and bribe +Crusoe’s man to find it.</p> +<p>“For now,” he said, with a chuckle, “I can +get back to earth again free of cost on my own hook, whether my +eminent inventor wants me there or not. I never approved of +his killing me off as he did at the very height of my +popularity.”</p> +<h2><a name="page58"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 58</span>IV<br +/> +<span class="GutSmall">ON BOARD THE HOUSE-BOAT</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Meanwhile</span> the ladies were not +having such a bad time, after all. Once having gained +possession of the House-boat, they were loath to think of ever +having to give it up again, and it is an open question in my mind +if they would not have made off with it themselves had Captain +Kidd and his men not done it for them.</p> +<p>“I’ll never forgive these men for their +selfishness in monopolizing all this,” said Elizabeth, with +a vicious stroke of a billiard-cue, which missed the cue-ball and +tore a right angle in the cloth. “It is not +right.”</p> +<p>“No,” said Portia. “It is all wrong; +and when we get back home I’m going to give my beloved +Bassanio a piece of my mind; and if he doesn’t give in to +me, <i>I’ll</i> reverse my decision in the famous case of +Shylock <i>versus</i> Antonio.”</p> +<p>“Then I sincerely hope he doesn’t give in,” +retorted Cleopatra, “for I swear by all my auburn locks +that that was the very worst bit of injustice ever +perpetrated. Mr. Shakespeare confided to me one night, at +one of Mrs. Cæsar’s card-parties, that he regarded +that as the biggest joke he ever wrote, and Judge Blackstone +observed to Antony that the decision wouldn’t have held in +any court of equity outside of Venice. If you owe a man a +thousand ducats, and it costs you three thousand to get them, +that’s your affair, not his. If it cost Antonio every +drop of his bluest blood to pay the pound of flesh, it was +Antonio’s affair, not Shylock’s. However, the +world applauds you as a great jurist, when you have nothing more +than a woman’s keen instinct for sentimental +technicalities.”</p> +<p>“It would have made a horrid play, though, if it had +gone on,” shuddered Elizabeth.</p> +<p>“That may be, but, carried out realistically, it would +have done away with a raft of bad actors,” said +Cleopatra. “I’m half sorry it didn’t go +on, and I’m sure it wouldn’t have been any worse than +compelling Brutus to fall on his sword until he resembles a +chicken liver <i>en brochette</i>, as is done in that Julius +Cæsar play.”</p> +<p>“Well, I’m very glad I did it,” snapped +Portia.</p> +<p>“I should think you would be,” said +Cleopatra. “If you hadn’t done it, you’d +never have been known. What was that?”</p> +<p>The boat had given a slight lurch.</p> +<p>“Didn’t you hear a shuffling noise up on deck, +Portia?” asked the Egyptian Queen.</p> +<p>“I thought I did, and it seemed as if the vessel had +moved a bit,” returned Portia, nervously; for, like most +women in an advanced state of development, she had become a +martyr to her nerves.</p> +<p>“It was merely the wash from one of Charon’s new +ferry-boats, I fancy,” said Elizabeth, calmly. +“It’s disgusting, the way that old fellow allows +these modern innovations to be brought in here! As if the +old paddle-boats he used to carry shades in weren’t good +enough for the immigrants of this age! Really this Styx +River is losing a great deal of its charm. Sir Walter and I +were upset, while out rowing one day last summer, by the waves +kicked up by one of Charon’s excursion steamers going up +the river with a party of picnickers from the city—the +Greater Gehenna Chowder Club, I believe it was—on board of +her. One might just as well live in the midst of the +turmoil of a great city as try to get uninterrupted quiet here in +the suburbs in these days. Charon isn’t content to +get rich slowly; he must make money by the barrelful, if he has +to sacrifice all the comfort of everybody living on this +river. Anybody’d think he was an American, the way he +goes on; and everybody else here is the same way. The +Erebeans are getting to be a race of shopkeepers.”</p> +<p>“I think myself,” sighed Cleopatra, “that +Hades is being spoiled by the introduction of American +ideas—it is getting by far too democratic for my tastes; +and if it isn’t stopped, it’s my belief that the best +people will stop coming here. Take Madame +Récamier’s salon as it is now and compare it with +what it used to be! In the early days, after her arrival +here, everybody went because it was the swell thing, and +you’d be sure of meeting the intellectually elect. On +the one hand you’d find Sophocles; on the other, Cicero; +across the room would be Horace chatting gayly with some such +person as myself. Great warriors, from Alexander to +Bonaparte, were there, and glad of the opportunity to be there, +too; statesmen like Macchiavelli; artists like Cellini or +Tintoretto. You couldn’t move without stepping on the +toes of genius. But now all is different. The +money-getting instinct has been aroused within them all, with the +result that when I invited Mozart to meet a few friends at dinner +at my place last autumn, he sent me a card stating his terms for +dinners. Let me see, I think I have it with me; I’ve +kept it by me for fear of losing it, it is such a complete +revelation of the actual condition of affairs in this +locality. Ah! this is it,” she added, taking a small +bit of pasteboard from her card-case. “Read +that.”</p> +<p>The card was passed about, and all the ladies were much +astonished—and naturally so, for it ran this wise:</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">NOTICE TO +HOSTESSES.</p> +<p>Owing to the very great, constantly growing, and at times +vexatious demands upon his time socially,</p> +<p style="text-align: center">HERR WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART</p> +<p>takes this method of announcing to his friends that on and +after January 1, 1897, his terms for functions will be as +follows:</p> +</blockquote> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">Marks</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Dinners with conversation on the Theory of Music</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">500</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Dinners with conversation on the Theory of Music, +illustrated</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">750</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Dinners without any conversation</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">300</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Receptions, public, with music</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">1000</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> ,, ,, +private, ,, ,,,</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">750</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Encores (single)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">100</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Three encores for</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">150</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Autographs</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">10</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<blockquote><p>Positively no Invitations for Five-o’Clock +Teas or Morning Musicales considered.</p> +</blockquote> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>“Well, I declare!” tittered Elizabeth, as she +read. “Isn’t that extraordinary? +He’s got the three-name craze, too!”</p> +<p>“It’s perfectly ridiculous,” said +Cleopatra. “But it’s fairer than Artemus +Ward’s plan. Mozart gives notice of his intentions to +charge you; but with Ward it’s different. He comes, +and afterwards sends a bill for his fun. Why, only last +week I got a ‘quarterly statement’ from him showing a +charge against me of thirty-eight dollars for humorous remarks +made to my guests at a little chafing-dish party I gave in honor +of Balzac, and, worst of all, he had marked it ‘Please +remit.’ Even Antony, when he wrote a sonnet to my +eyebrow, wouldn’t let me have it until he had heard whether +or not Boswell wanted it for publication in the +<i>Gossip</i>. With Rubens giving chalk-talks for pay, +Phidias doing ‘Five-minute Masterpieces in Putty’ for +suburban lyceums, and all the illustrious in other lines turning +their genius to account through the entertainment bureaus, +it’s impossible to have a salon now.”</p> +<p>“You are indeed right,” said Madame +Récamier, sadly. “Those were palmy days when +genius was satisfied with chicken salad and lemonade. I +shall never forget those nights when the wit and wisdom of all +time were—ah—were on tap at my house, if I may so +speak, at a cost to me of lights and supper. Now the only +people who will come for nothing are those we used to think of +paying to stay away. Boswell is always ready, but you +can’t run a salon on Boswell.”</p> +<p>“Well,” said Portia, “I sincerely hope that +you won’t give up the functions altogether, because I have +always found them most delightful. It is still possible to +have lights and supper.”</p> +<p>“I have a plan for next winter,” said Madame +Récamier, “but I suppose I shall be accused of going +into the commercial side of it if I adopt it. The plan is, +briefly, to incorporate my salon. That’s an idea +worthy of an American, I admit; but if I don’t do it +I’ll have to give it up entirely, which, as you intimate, +would be too bad. An incorporated salon, however, would be +a grand thing, if only because it would perpetuate the +salon. ‘The <i>Récamier</i> Salon +(Limited)’ would be a most excellent title, and, suitably +capitalized would enable us to pay our lions sufficiently. +Private enterprise is powerless under modern conditions. +It’s as much as I can afford to pay for a dinner, without +running up an expensive account for guests; and unless we get up +a salon-trust, as it were, the whole affair must go to the +wall.”</p> +<p>“How would you make it pay?” asked Portia. +“I can’t see where your dividends would come +from.”</p> +<p>“That is simple enough,” said Madame +Récamier. “We could put up a large +reception-hall with a portion of our capital, and advertise a +series of nights—say one a week throughout the +season. These would be Warriors’ Night, +Story-tellers’ Night, Poets’ Night, Chafing-dish +Night under the charge of Brillat-Savarin, and so on. It +would be understood that on these particular evenings the most +interesting people in certain lines would be present, and would +mix with outsiders, who should be admitted only on payment of a +certain sum of money. The commonplace inhabitants of this +country could thus meet the truly great; and if I know them well, +as I think I do, they’ll pay readily for the +privilege. The obscure love to rub up against the famous +here as well as they do on earth.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image66" href="images/p66b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Madame Récamier has a plan" +title= +"Madame Récamier has a plan" + src="images/p66s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“You’d run a sort of Social Zoo?” suggested +Elizabeth.</p> +<p>“Precisely; and provide entertainment for private +residences too. An advertisement in Boswell’s paper, +which everybody buys—”</p> +<p>“And which nobody reads,” said Portia.</p> +<p>“They read the advertisements,” retorted Madame +Récamier. “As I was saying, an advertisement +could be placed in Boswell’s paper as follows: ‘Are +you giving a Function? Do you want Talent? Get your +Genius at the Récamier Salon (Limited).’ It +would be simply magnificent as a business enterprise. The +common herd would be tickled to death if they could get great +people at their homes, even if they had to pay roundly for +them.”</p> +<p>“It would look well in the society notes, wouldn’t +it, if Mr. John Boggs gave a reception, and at the close of the +account it said, ‘The supper was furnished by Calizetti, +and the genius by the Récamier Salon +(Limited)’?” suggested Elizabeth, scornfully.</p> +<p>“I must admit,” replied the French lady, +“that you call up an unpleasant possibility, but I +don’t really see what else we can do if we want to preserve +the salon idea. Somebody has told these talented people +that they have a commercial value, and they are availing +themselves of the demand.”</p> +<p>“It is a sad age!” sighed Elizabeth.</p> +<p>“Well, all I’ve got to say is just this,” +put in Xanthippe: “You people who get up functions have +brought this condition of affairs on yourselves. You were +not satisfied to go ahead and indulge your passion for lions in a +moderate fashion. Take the case of Demosthenes last winter, +for instance. His wife told me that he dined at home three +times during the winter. The rest of the time he was out, +here, there, and everywhere, making after-dinner speeches. +The saving on his dinner bills didn’t pay his pebble +account, much less remunerate him for his time, and the fearful +expense of nervous energy to which he was subjected. It was +as much as she could do, she said, to keep him from shaving one +side of his head, so that he couldn’t go out, the way he +used to do in Athens when he was afraid he would be invited out +and couldn’t scare up a decent excuse for +refusing.”</p> +<p>“Did he do that?” cried Elizabeth, with a roar of +laughter.</p> +<p>“So the cyclopædias say. It’s a good +plan, too,” said Xanthippe. “Though Socrates +never had to do it. When I got the notion Socrates was +going out too much, I used to hide his dress clothes. Then +there was the case of Rubens. He gave a Carbon Talk at the +Sforza’s Thursday Night Club, merely to oblige Madame +Sforza, and three weeks later discovered that she had sold his +pictures to pay for her gown! You people simply run it into +the ground. You kill the goose that when taken at the flood +leads on to fortune. It advertises you, does the lion no +good, and he is expected to be satisfied with confectionery, +material and theoretical. If they are getting tired of +candy and compliments, it’s because you have forced too +much of it upon them.”</p> +<p>“They like it, just the same,” retorted +Récamier. “A genius likes nothing better than +the sound of his own voice, when he feels that it is falling on +aristocratic ears. The social laurel rests pleasantly on +many a noble brow.”</p> +<p>“True,” said Xanthippe. “But when a +man gets a pile of Christmas wreaths a mile high on his head, he +begins to wonder what they will bring on the market. An +occasional wreath is very nice, but by the ton they are apt to +weigh on his mind. Up to a certain point notoriety is like +a woman, and a man is apt to love it; but when it becomes +exacting, demanding instead of permitting itself to be courted, +it loses its charm.”</p> +<p>“That is Socratic in its wisdom,” smiled +Portia.</p> +<p>“But Xanthippic in its origin,” returned +Xanthippe. “No man ever gave me my ideas.”</p> +<p>As Xanthippe spoke, Lucretia Borgia burst into the room.</p> +<p>“Hurry and save yourselves!” she cried. +“The boat has broken loose from her moorings, and is +floating down the stream. If we don’t hurry up and do +something, we’ll drift out to sea!”</p> +<p>“What!” cried Cleopatra, dropping her cue in +terror, and rushing for the stairs. “I was certain I +felt a slight motion. You said it was the wash from one of +Charon’s barges, Elizabeth.”</p> +<p>“I thought it was,” said Elizabeth, following +closely after.</p> +<p>“Well, it wasn’t,” moaned Lucretia +Borgia. “Calpurnia just looked out of the window and +discovered that we were in mid-stream.”</p> +<p>The ladies crowded anxiously about the stair and attempted to +ascend, Cleopatra in the van; but as the Egyptian Queen reached +the doorway to the upper deck, the door opened, and the hard +features of Captain Kidd were thrust roughly through, and his +strident voice rang out through the gathering gloom. +“Pipe my eye for a sardine if we haven’t captured a +female seminary!” he cried.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image70" href="images/p70b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The hard features of Captain Kidd were thrust through" +title= +"The hard features of Captain Kidd were thrust through" + src="images/p70s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>And one by one the ladies, in terror, shrank back into the +billiard-room, while Kidd, overcome by surprise, slammed the door +to, and retreated into the darkness of the forward deck to +consult with his followers as to “what next.”</p> +<h2><a name="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 73</span>V<br +/> +<span class="GutSmall">A CONFERENCE ON DECK</span></h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Here’s</span> a kettle of +fish!” said Kidd, pulling his chin whisker in perplexity as +he and his fellow-pirates gathered about the captain to discuss +the situation. “I’m blessed if in all my +experience I ever sailed athwart anything like it afore! +Pirating with a lot of low-down ruffians like you gentlemen is +bad enough, but on a craft loaded to the water’s edge with +advanced women—I’ve half a mind to turn +back.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image74" href="images/p74b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"“Here’s a kettle of fish!” said Kidd" +title= +"“Here’s a kettle of fish!” said Kidd" + src="images/p74s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“If you do, you swim—we’ll not turn back +with you,” retorted Abeuchapeta, whom, in honor of his +prowess, Kidd had appointed executive officer of the +House-boat. “I have no desire to be mutinous, Captain +Kidd, but I have not embarked upon this enterprise for a pleasure +sail down the Styx. I am out for business. If you had +thirty thousand women on board, still should I not turn +back.”</p> +<p>“But what shall we do with ’em?” pleaded +Kidd. “Where can we go without attracting +attention? Who’s going to feed ’em? +Who’s going to dress ’em? Who’s going to +keep ’em in bonnets? You don’t know anything +about these creatures, my dear Abeuchapeta; and, by-the-way, +can’t we arbitrate that name of yours? It would be +fearful to remember in the excitement of a fight.”</p> +<p>“Call him Ab,” suggested Sir Henry Morgan, with an +ill-concealed sneer, for he was deeply jealous of +Abeuchapeta’s preferral.</p> +<p>“If you do I’ll call you Morgue, and change your +appearance to fit,” retorted Abeuchapeta, angrily.</p> +<p>“By the beards of all my sainted Buccaneers,” +began Morgan, springing angrily to his feet, “I’ll +have your life!”</p> +<p>“Gentlemen! Gentlemen—my noble +ruffians!” expostulated Kidd. “Come, come; this +will never do! I must have no quarrelling among my +aides. This is no time for divisions in our councils. +An entirely unexpected element has entered into our affairs, and +it behooveth us to act in concert. It is no light +matter—”</p> +<p>“Excuse me, captain,” said Abeuchapeta, “but +that is where you and I do not agree. We’ve got our +ship and we’ve got our crew, and in addition we find that +the Fates have thrown in a hundred or more women to act as +ballast. Now I, for one, do not fear a woman. We can +set them to work. There is plenty for them to do keeping +things tidy; and if we get into a very hard fight, and come out +of the mêlée somewhat the worse for wear, it will be +a blessing to have ’em along to mend our togas, sew buttons +on our uniforms, and darn our hosiery.”</p> +<p>Morgan laughed sarcastically. “When did you +flourish, if ever, colonel?” he asked.</p> +<p>“Do you refer to me?” queried Abeuchapeta, with a +frown.</p> +<p>“You have guessed correctly,” replied Morgan, +icily. “I have quite forgotten your date; were you a +success in the year one, or when?”</p> +<p>“Admiral Abeuchapeta, Sir Henry,” interposed Kidd, +fearing a further outbreak of hostilities—“Admiral +Abeuchapeta was the terror of the seas in the seventh century, +and what he undertook to do he did, and his piratical enterprises +were carried on on a scale of magnificence which is without +parallel off the comic-opera stage. He never went forth +without at least seventy galleys and a hundred other +vessels.”</p> +<p>Abeuchapeta drew himself up proudly. +“Six-ninety-eight was my great year,” he said.</p> +<p>“That’s what I thought,” said Morgan. +“That is to say, you got your ideas of women twelve hundred +years ago, and the ladies have changed somewhat since that +time. I have great respect for you, sir, as a +ruffian. I have no doubt that as a ruffian you are a +complete success, but when it comes to ‘feminology’ +you are sailing in unknown waters. The study of women, my +dear Abeuchadnezzar—”</p> +<p>“Peta,” retorted Abeuchapeta, irritably.</p> +<p>“I stand corrected. The study of women, my dear +Peter,” said Morgan, with a wink at Conrad, which +fortunately the seventh-century pirate did not see, else there +would have been an open break—“the study of women is +more difficult than that of astronomy; there may be two stars +alike, but all women are unique. Because she was this, +that, or the other thing in your day does not prove that she is +any one of those things in our day—in fact, it proves the +contrary. Why, I venture even to say that no individual +woman is alike.”</p> +<p>“That’s rather a hazy thought,” said Kidd, +scratching his head in a puzzled sort of way.</p> +<p>“I mean that she’s different from herself at +different times,” said Morgan. “What is it the +poet called her?—‘an infinite variety show,’ or +something of that sort; a perpetual vaudeville—a continuous +performance, as it were, from twelve to twelve.”</p> +<p>“Morgan is right, admiral!” put in Conrad the +corsair, acting temporarily as bo’sun. “The +times are sadly changed, and woman is no longer what she +was. She is hardly what she is, much less what she +was. The Roman Gynæceum would be an impossibility +to-day. You might as well expect Delilah to open a +barber-shop on board this boat as ask any of these advanced +females below-stairs to sew buttons on a pirate’s uniform +after a fray, or to keep the fringe on his epaulets curled. +They’re no longer sewing-machines—they are Keeley +motors for mystery and perpetual motion. Women have views +now they are no longer content to be looked at merely; they must +see for themselves; and the more they see, the more they wish to +domesticate man and emancipate woman. It’s my private +opinion that if we are to get along with them at all the best +thing to do is to let ’em alone. I have always found +I was better off in the abstract, and if this question is going +to be settled in a purely democratic fashion by submitting it to +a vote, I’ll vote for any measure which involves leaving +them strictly to themselves. They’re nothing but a +lot of ghosts anyhow, like ourselves, and we can pretend we +don’t see them.”</p> +<p>“If that could be, it would be excellent,” said +Morgan; “but it is impossible. For a pirate of the +Byronic order, my dear Conrad, you are strangely unversed in the +ways of the sex which cheers but not inebriates. We can no +more ignore their presence upon this boat than we can expect +whales to spout kerosene. In the first place, it would be +excessively impolite of us to cut them—to decline to speak +to them if they should address us. We may be pirates, +ruffians, cutthroats, but I hope we shall never forget that we +are gentlemen.”</p> +<p>“The whole situation is rather contrary to etiquette, +don’t you think?” suggested Conrad. +“There’s nobody to introduce us, and I can’t +really see how we can do otherwise than ignore them. I +certainly am not going to stand on deck and make eyes at them, to +try and pick up an acquaintance with them, even if I am of a +Byronic strain.”</p> +<p>“You forget,” said Kidd, “two essential +features of the situation. These women are at +present—or shortly will be, when they realize their +situation—in distress, and a true gentleman may always fly +to the rescue of a distressed female; and, the second point, we +shall soon be on the seas, and I understand that on the +fashionable transatlantic lines it is now considered <i>de +rigueur</i> to speak to anybody you choose to. The +introduction business isn’t going to stand in my +way.”</p> +<p>“Well, may I ask,” put in Abeuchapeta, “just +what it is that is worrying you? You said something about +feeding them, and dressing them, and keeping them in +bonnets. I fancy there’s fish enough in the sea to +feed ’em; and as for their gowns and hats, they can make +’em themselves. Every woman is a milliner at +heart.”</p> +<p>“Exactly, and we’ll have to pay the +milliners. That is what bothers me. I was going to +lead this expedition to London, Paris, and New York, +admiral. That is where the money is, and to get it +you’ve got to go ashore, to headquarters. You cannot +nowadays find it on the high seas. Modern +civilization,” said Kidd, “has ruined the +pirate’s business. The latest news from the other +world has really opened my eyes to certain facts that I never +dreamed of. The conditions of the day of which I speak are +interestingly shown in the experience of our friend Hawkins +here. Captain Hawkins, would you have any objection to +stating to these gentlemen the condition of affairs which led you +to give up piracy on the high seas?”</p> +<p>“Not the slightest, Captain Kidd,” returned +Captain Hawkins, who was a recent arrival in Hades. +“It is a sad little story, and it gives me a pain for to +think on it, but none the less I’ll tell it, since you ask +me. When I were a mere boy, fellow-pirates, I had but one +ambition, due to my readin’, which was confined to stories +of a Sunday-school nater—to become somethin’ +different from the little Willies an’ the clever Tommies +what I read about therein. They was all good, an’ +they went to their reward too soon in life for me, who even in +them days regarded death as a stuffy an’ unpleasant +diversion. Learnin’ at an early period that virtue +was its only reward, an’ a-wish-in’ others, I says to +myself: ‘Jim,’ says I, ‘if you wishes to become +a magnet in this village, be sinful. If so be as you are a +good boy, an’ kind to your sister an’ all other +animals, you’ll end up as a prosperous father with fifteen +hundred a year sure, with never no hope for no public preferment +beyond bein’ made the super-intendent of the Sunday-school; +but if so be as how you’re bad, you may become famous, +an’ go to Congress, an’ have your picture in the +Sunday noospapers.’ So I looks around for books +tellin’ how to get ‘Famous in Fifty Ways,’ +an’ after due reflection I settles in my mind that to be a +pirate’s just the thing for me, seein’ as how +it’s both profitable an’ healthy. +Pass-in’ over details, let me tell you that I became a +pirate. I ran away to sea, an’ by dint of +perseverance, as the Sunday-school book useter say, in my badness +I soon became the centre of a evil lot; an’ when I says to +’em, ‘Boys, I wants to be a pirate chief,’ they +hollers back, loud like, ‘Jim, we’re with you,’ +an’ they was. For years I was the terror of the +Venezuelan Gulf, the Spanish Main, an’ the Pacific seas, +but there was precious little money into it. The best pay I +got was from a Sunday noospaper which paid me well to sign an +article on ‘Modern Piracy’ which I didn’t +write. Finally business got so bad the crew began to +murmur, an’ I was at my wits’ ends to please +’em; when one mornin’, havin’ passed a restless +night, I picks up a noospaper and sees in it that ‘Next +Saturday’s steamer is a weritable treasure-ship, +takin’ out twelve million dollars, and the jewels of a +certain prima donna valued at five hundred thousand.’ +‘Here’s my chance,’ says I, an’ I goes to +sea and lies in wait for the steamer. I captures her easy, +my crew bein’ hungry, an’ fightin according +like. We steals the box a-hold-in’ the jewels +an’ the bag containin’ the millions, hustles back to +our own ship, an’ makes for our rondyvoo, me with two +bullets in my leg, four o’ my crew killed, and one +engin’ of my ship disabled by a shot—but happy. +Twelve an’ a half millions at one break is enough to make +anybody happy.”</p> +<p>“I should say so,” said Abeuchapeta, with an +ecstatic shake of his head. “I didn’t get that +in all my career.”</p> +<p>“Nor I,” sighed Kidd. “But go on, +Hawkins.”</p> +<p>“Well, as I says,” continued Captain Hawkins, +“we goes to the rondyvoo to look over our booty. +‘Captain ’Awkins,’ says my valet—for I +was a swell pirate, gents, an’ never travelled nowhere +without a man to keep my clothes brushed and the proper wrinkles +in my trousers—‘this ’ere twelve +millions,’ says he, ‘is werry light,’ says he, +carryin’ the bag ashore. ‘I don’t care +how light it is, so long as it’s twelve millions, +Henderson,’ says I; but my heart sinks inside o’ me +at his words, an’ the minute we lands I sits down to +investigate right there on the beach. I opens the bag, +an’ it’s the one I was after—but the twelve +millions!”</p> +<p>“Weren’t there?” cried Conrad.</p> +<p>“Yes, they was there,” sighed Hawkins, “but +every bloomin’ million was represented by a certified +check, an’ payable in London!”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image84" href="images/p84b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Every bloomin’ million was represented by a certified +check, an’ payable in London" +title= +"Every bloomin’ million was represented by a certified +check, an’ payable in London" + src="images/p84s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“By Jingo!” cried Morgan. “What +fearful luck! But you had the prima donna’s +jewels.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Hawkins, with a moan. “But +they was like all other prima donna’s jewels—for +advertisin’ purposes only, an’ made o’ +gum-arabic!”</p> +<p>“Horrible!” said Abeuchapeta. “And the +crew, what did they say?”</p> +<p>“They was a crew of a few words,” sighed +Hawkins. “Werry few words, an’ not a civil word +in the lot—mostly adjectives of a profane kind. When +I told ’em what had happened, they got mad at Fortune for +a-jiltin’ of ’em, an’—well, I came +here. I was ’sas’inated that werry +night!”</p> +<p>“They killed you?” cried Morgan.</p> +<p>“A dozen times,” nodded Hawkins. “They +always was a lavish lot. I met death in all its most horrid +forms. First they stabbed me, then they shot me, then they +clubbed me, and so on, endin’ up with a +lynchin’—but I didn’t mind much after the +first, which hurt a bit. But now that I’m here +I’m glad it happened. This life is sort of less +responsible than that other. You can’t hurt a ghost +by shooting him, because there ain’t nothing to hurt, +an’ I must say I like bein’ a mere vision what +everybody can see through.”</p> +<p>“All of which interesting tale proves what?” +queried Abeuchapeta.</p> +<p>“That piracy on the sea is not profitable in these days +of the check banking system,” said Kidd. “If +you can get a chance at real gold it’s all right, but +it’s of no earthly use to steal checks that people can stop +payment on. Therefore it was my plan to visit the cities +and do a little freebooting there, where solid material wealth is +to be found.”</p> +<p>“Well? Can’t we do it now?” asked +Abeuchapeta.</p> +<p>“Not with these women tagging after us,” returned +Kidd. “If we went to London and lifted the whole Bank +of England, these women would have it spent on Regent Street +inside of twenty-four hours.”</p> +<p>“Then leave them on board,” said Abeuchapeta.</p> +<p>“And have them steal the ship!” retorted +Kidd. “No. There are but two things to +do. Take ’em back, or land them in Paris. Tell +them to spend a week on shore while we are provisioning. +Tell ’em to shop to their hearts’ content, and while +they are doing it we can sneak off and leave them +stranded.”</p> +<p>“Splendid!” cried Morgan.</p> +<p>“But will they consent?” asked Abeuchapeta.</p> +<p>“Consent! To shop? In Paris? For a +week?” cried Morgan.</p> +<p>“Ha, ha!” laughed Hawkins. “Will they +consent! Will a duck swim?”</p> +<p>And so it was decided, which was the first incident in the +career of the House-boat upon which the astute Mr. Sherlock +Holmes had failed to count.</p> +<h2><a name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 89</span>VI<br +/> +<span class="GutSmall">A CONFERENCE BELOW-STAIRS</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">When</span>, with a resounding slam, the +door to the upper deck of the House-boat was shut in the faces of +queens Elizabeth and Cleopatra by the unmannerly Kidd, these +ladies turned and gazed at those who thronged the stairs behind +them in blank amazement, and the heart of Xanthippe, had one +chosen to gaze through that diaphanous person’s ribs, could +have been seen to beat angrily.</p> +<p>Queen Elizabeth was so excited at this wholly novel attitude +towards her regal self that, having turned, she sat down plump +upon the floor in the most unroyal fashion.</p> +<p>“Well!” she ejaculated. “If this does +not surpass everything! The idea of it! Oh for one +hour of my olden power, one hour of the axe, one hour of the +block!”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image90" href="images/p90b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Queen Elizabeth desires an axe and one hour of her olden power" +title= +"Queen Elizabeth desires an axe and one hour of her olden power" + src="images/p90s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“Get up,” retorted Cleopatra, “and let us +all return to the billiard-room and discuss this matter +calmly. It is quite evident that something has happened of +which we wotted little when we came aboard this craft.”</p> +<p>“That is a good idea,” said Calpurnia, retreating +below. “I can see through the window that we are in +motion. The vessel has left her moorings, and is making +considerable headway down the stream, and the distinctly +masculine voices we have heard are indications to my mind that +the ship is manned, and that this is the result of design rather +than of accident. Let us below.”</p> +<p>Elizabeth rose up and readjusted her ruff, which in the +excitement of the moment had been forced to assume a position +about her forehead which gave one the impression that its royal +wearer had suddenly donned a sombrero.</p> +<p>“Very well,” she said. “Let us below; +but oh, for the axe!”</p> +<p>“Bring the lady an axe,” cried Xanthippe, +sarcastically. “She wants to cut somebody.”</p> +<p>The sally was not greeted with applause. The situation +was regarded as being too serious to admit of humor, and in +silence they filed back into the billiard-room, and, arranging +themselves in groups, stood about anxiously discussing the +situation.</p> +<p>“It’s getting rougher every minute,” sobbed +Ophelia. “Look at those pool-balls!” +These were in very truth chasing each other about the table in an +extraordinary fashion. “And I wish I’d never +followed you horrid new creatures on board!” the poor girl +added, in an agony of despair.</p> +<p>“I believe we’ve crossed the bar already!” +said Cleopatra, gazing out of the window at a nasty choppy sea +that was adding somewhat to the disquietude of the fair +gathering. “If this is merely a joke on the part of +the Associated Shades, it is a mighty poor one, and I think it is +time it should cease.”</p> +<p>“Oh, for an axe!” moaned Elizabeth, again.</p> +<p>“Excuse me, your Majesty,” put in Xanthippe. +“You said that before, and I must say it is getting +tiresome. You couldn’t do anything with an axe. +Suppose you had one. What earthly good would it do you, who +were accustomed to doing all your killing by proxy? I +don’t believe, if you had the unmannerly person who slammed +the door in your face lying prostrate upon the billiard-table +here, you could hit him a square blow in the neck if you had a +hundred axes. Delilah might as well cry for her scissors, +for all the good it would do us in our predicament. If +Cleopatra had her asp with her it might be more to the +purpose. One deadly little snake like that let loose on the +upper deck would doubtless drive these boors into the sea, and +even then our condition would not be bettered, for there +isn’t any of us that can sail a boat. There +isn’t an old salt among us.”</p> +<p>“Too bad Mrs. Lot isn’t along,” giggled +Marguerite de Valois, whose Gallic spirits were by no means +overshadowed by the unhappy predicament in which she found +herself.</p> +<p>“I’m here,” piped up Mrs. Lot. +“But I’m not that kind of a salt.”</p> +<p>“I am present,” said Mrs. Noah. +“Though why I ever came I don’t know, for I vowed the +minute I set my foot on Ararat that dry land was good enough for +me, and that I’d never step aboard another boat as long as +I lived. If, however, now that I am here, I can give you +the benefit of my nautical experience, you are all perfectly +welcome to it.”</p> +<p>“I’m sure we’re very much obliged for the +offer,” said Portia, “but in the emergency which has +arisen we cannot say how much obliged we are until we know what +your experience amounted to. Before relying upon you we +ought to know how far that reliance can go—not that I lack +confidence in you, my dear madam, but that in an hour of peril +one must take care, to rely upon the oak, not upon the +reed.”</p> +<p>“The point is properly taken,” said Elizabeth, +“and I wish to say here that I am easier in my mind when I +realize that we have with us so level-headed a person as the lady +who has just spoken. She has spoken truly and to the +point. If I were to become queen again, I should make her +my attorney-general. We must not go ahead impulsively, but +look at all things in a calm, judicial manner.”</p> +<p>“Which is pretty hard work with a sea like this +on,” remarked Ophelia, faintly, for she was getting a +trifle sallow, as indeed she might, for the House-boat was +beginning to roll tremendously with no alleviation save an +occasional pitch, which was an alleviation only in the sense that +it gave variety to their discomfort. “I don’t +believe a chief-justice could look at things calmly and in a +judicial manner if he felt as I do.”</p> +<p>“Poor dear!” said the matronly Mrs. Noah, +sympathetically. “I know exactly how you feel. +I have been there myself. The fourth day out I and my whole +family were in the same condition, except that Noah, my husband, +was so very far gone that I could not afford to yield. I +nursed him for six days before he got his sea-legs on, and then +succumbed myself.”</p> +<p>“But,” gasped Ophelia, “that doesn’t +help me—</p> +<p>“It did my husband,” said Mrs. Noah.</p> +<p>“When he heard that the boys were seasick too, he +actually laughed and began to get better right away. There +is really only one cure for the <i>mal de mer</i>, and that is +the fun of knowing that somebody else is suffering too. If +some of you ladies would kindly yield to the seductions of the +sea, I think we could get this poor girl on her feet in an +instant.”</p> +<p>Unfortunately for poor Ophelia, there was no immediate +response to this appeal, and the unhappy young woman was forced +to suffer in solitude.</p> +<p>“We have no time for untimely diversions of this +sort,” snapped Xanthippe, with a scornful glance at the +suffering Ophelia, who, having retired to a comfortable lounge at +an end of the room, was evidently improving. “I have +no sympathy with this habit some of my sex seem to have acquired +of succumbing to an immediate sensation of this +nature.”</p> +<p>“I hope to be pardoned for interrupting,” said +Mrs. Noah, with a great deal of firmness, “but I wish Mrs. +Socrates to understand that it is rather early in the voyage for +her to lay down any such broad principle as that, and for her own +sake to-morrow, I think it would be well if she withdrew the +sentiment. There are certain things about a sea-voyage that +are more or less beyond the control of man or woman, and any one +who chides that poor suffering child on yonder sofa ought to be +more confident than Mrs. Socrates can possibly be that within an +hour she will not be as badly off. People who live in glass +houses should not throw dice.”</p> +<p>“I shall never yield to anything so undignified as +seasickness, let me tell you that,” retorted +Xanthippe. “Furthermore, the proverb is not as the +lady has quoted it. ‘People who live in glass houses +should not throw stones’ is the proper version.”</p> +<p>“I was not quoting,” returned Mrs. Noah, +calmly. “When I said that people who live in glass +houses should not throw dice, I meant precisely what I +said. People who live in glass houses should not take +chances. In assuming with such vainglorious positiveness +that she will not be seasick, the lady who has just spoken is +giving tremendous odds, as the boys used to say on the Ark when +we gathered about the table at night and began to make small +wagers on the day’s run.”</p> +<p>“I think we had better suspend this discussion,” +suggested Cleopatra. “It is of no immediate interest +to any one but Ophelia, and I fancy she does not care to dwell +upon it at any great length. It is more important that we +should decide upon our future course of action. In the +first place, the question is who these people up on deck +are. If they are the members of the club, we are all +right. They will give us our scare, and land us safely +again at the pier. In that event it is our womanly duty to +manifest no concern, and to seem to be aware of nothing unusual +in the proceeding. It would never do to let them think that +their joke has been a good one. If, on the other hand, as I +fear, we are the victims of some horde of ruffians, who have +pounced upon us unawares, and are going into the business of +abduction on a wholesale basis, we must meet treachery with +treachery, strategy with strategy. I, for one, am perfectly +willing to make every man on board walk the plank; having +confidence in the seawomanship of Mrs. Noah and her ability to +steer us into port.”</p> +<p>“I am quite in accord with these views,” put in +Madame Récamier, “and I move you, Mrs. President, +that we organize a series of sub-committees—one on +treachery, with Lucretia Borgia and Delilah as members; one on +strategy, consisting of Portia and Queen Elizabeth; one on +navigation, headed by Mrs. Noah; with a final sub-committee on +reconnoitre, with Cassandra to look forward, and Mrs. Lot to look +aft—all of these subordinated to a central committee of +safety headed by Cleopatra and Calpurnia. The rest of us +can then commit ourselves and our interests unreservedly to these +ladies, and proceed to enjoy ourselves without thought of the +morrow.”</p> +<p>“I second the motion,” said Ophelia, “with +the amendment that Madame Récamier be appointed chair-lady +of another sub-committee, on entertainment.”</p> +<p>The amendment was accepted, and the motion put. It was +carried with an enthusiastic aye, and the organization was +complete.</p> +<p>The various committees retired to the several corners of the +room to discuss their individual lines of action, when a shadow +was observed to obscure the moonlight which had been streaming in +through the window. The faces of Calpurnia and Cleopatra +blanched for an instant, as, immediately following upon this +apparition, a large bundle was hurled through the open port into +the middle of the room, and the shadow vanished.</p> +<p>“Is it a bomb?” cried several of the ladies at +once.</p> +<p>“Nonsense!” said Madame Récamier, jumping +lightly forward. “A man doesn’t mind blowing a +woman up, but he’ll never blow himself up. +We’re safe enough in that respect. The thing looks to +me like a bundle of illustrated papers.”</p> +<p>“That’s what it is,” said Cleopatra who had +been investigating. “It’s rather a discourteous +bit of courtesy, tossing them in through the window that way, I +think, but I presume they mean well. Dear me,” she +added, as, having untied the bundle, she held one of the open +papers up before her, “how interesting! All the +latest Paris fashions. Humph! Look at those sleeves, +Elizabeth. What an impregnable fortress you would have been +with those sleeves added to your ruffs!”</p> +<p>“I should think they’d be very becoming,” +put in Cassandra, standing on her tip-toes and looking over +Cleopatra’s shoulder. “That Watteau isn’t +bad, either, is it, now?”</p> +<p>“No,” remarked Calpurnia. “I wonder +how a Watteau back like that would go on my blue +alpaca?”</p> +<p>“Very nicely,” said Elizabeth. “How +many gores has it?”</p> +<p>“Five,” observed Calpurnia. “One more +than Cæsar’s toga. We had to have our costumes +distinct in some way.”</p> +<p>“A remarkable hat, that,” nodded Mrs. Lot, her eye +catching sight of a Virot creation at the top of the page.</p> +<p>“Reminds me of Eve’s description of an autumn +scene in the garden,” smiled Mrs. Noah. +“Gorgeous in its foliage, beautiful thing; though I +shouldn’t have dared wear one in the Ark, with all those +hungry animals browsing about the upper and lower +decks.”</p> +<p>“I wonder,” remarked Cleopatra, as she cocked her +head to one side to take in the full effect of an attractive +summer gown—“I wonder how that waist would make up in +blue crépon, with a yoke of lace and a stylishly +contrasting stock of satin ribbon?”</p> +<p>“It would depend upon how you finished the +sleeves,” remarked Madame Récamier. “If +you had a few puffs of rich brocaded satin set in with deeply +folded pleats it wouldn’t be bad.”</p> +<p>“I think it would be very effective,” observed +Mrs. Noah, “but a trifle too light for general wear. +I should want some kind of a wrap with it.”</p> +<p>“It does need that,” assented Elizabeth. +“A wrap made of passementerie and jet, with a mousseline de +soie ruche about the neck held by a <i>chou</i>, would make it +fascinating.”</p> +<p>“The committee on treachery is ready to report,” +said Delilah, rising from her corner, where she and Lucretia +Borgia had been having so animated a discussion that they had +failed to observe the others crowding about Cleopatra and the +papers.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image102" href="images/p102b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The committee on treachery is ready to report" +title= +"The committee on treachery is ready to report" + src="images/p102s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“A little sombre,” said Cleopatra. +“The corsage is effective, but I don’t like those +basque terminations. I’ve never approved of those +full godets—”</p> +<p>“The committee on treachery,” remarked Delilah +again, raising her voice, “has a suggestion to +make.”</p> +<p>“I can’t get over those sleeves, though,” +laughed Helen of Troy. “What is the use of +them?”</p> +<p>“They might be used to get Greeks into Troy,” +suggested Madame Récamier.</p> +<p>“The committee on treachery,” roared Delilah, +thoroughly angered by the absorption of the chairman and others, +“has a suggestion to make. This is the third and last +call.”</p> +<p>“Oh, I beg pardon,” cried Cleopatra, rapping for +order. “I had forgotten all about our +committees. Excuse me, Delilah. I—ah—was +absorbed in other matters. Will you kindly lay your +pattern—I should say your plan—before us?”</p> +<p>“It is briefly this,” said Delilah. +“It has been suggested that we invite the crew of this +vessel to a chafing-dish party, under the supervision of Lucretia +Borgia, and that she—”</p> +<p>The balance of the plan was not outlined, for at this point +the speaker was interrupted by a loud knocking at the door, its +instant opening, and the appearance in the doorway of that +ill-visaged ruffian Captain Kidd.</p> +<p>“Ladies,” he began, “I have come here to +explain to you the situation in which you find yourselves. +Have I your permission to speak?”</p> +<p>The ladies started back, but the chairman was equal to the +occasion.</p> +<p>“Go on,” said Cleopatra, with queenly dignity, +turning to the interloper; and the pirate proceeded to take the +second step in the nefarious plan upon which he and his brother +ruffians had agreed, of which the tossing in through the window +of the bundle of fashion papers was the first.</p> +<h2><a name="page105"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +105</span>VII<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">THE “GEHENNA” IS +CHARTERED</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was about twenty-four hours +after the events narrated in the preceding chapters that Mr. +Sherlock Holmes assumed command of the <i>Gehenna</i>, which was +nothing more nor less than the shadow of the ill-starred ocean +steamship <i>City of Chicago</i>, which tried some years ago to +reach Liverpool by taking the overland route through Ireland, +fortunately without detriment to her passengers and crew, who had +the pleasure of the experience of shipwreck without any of the +discomforts of drowning. As will be remembered, the +obstructionist nature of the Irish soil prevented the <i>City of +Chicago</i> from proceeding farther inland than was necessary to +keep her well balanced amidships upon a convenient and not too +stony bed; and that after a brief sojourn on the rocks she was +finally disposed of to the Styx Navigation Company, under which +title Charon had had himself incorporated, is a matter of +nautical history. The change of name to the <i>Gehenna</i> +was the act of Charon himself, and was prompted, no doubt, by a +desire to soften the jealous prejudices of the residents of the +Stygian capital against the flourishing and ever-growing +metropolis of Illinois.</p> +<p>The Associated Shades had had some trouble in getting this +craft. Charon, through his constant association with life +on both sides of the dark river, had gained a knowledge, more or +less intimate, of modern business methods, and while as janitor +of the club he was subject to the will of the House-boat +Committee, and sympathized deeply with the members of the +association in their trouble, as president of the Styx Navigation +Company he was bound up in certain newly attained commercial +ideas which were embarrassing to those members of the association +to whose hands the chartering of a vessel had been committed.</p> +<p>“See here, Charon,” Sir Walter Raleigh had said, +after Charon had expressed himself as deeply sympathetic, but +unable to shave the terms upon which the vessel could be had, +“you are an infernal old hypocrite. You go about +wringing your hands over our misfortunes until they’ve got +as dry and flabby as a pair of kid gloves, and yet when we ask +you for a ship of suitable size and speed to go out after those +pirates, you become a sort of twin brother to Shylock, without +his excuse. His instincts are accidents of birth. +Yours are cultivated, and you know it.”</p> +<p>“You are very much mistaken, Sir Walter,” Charon +had answered to this. “You don’t understand my +position. It is a very hard one. As janitor of your +club I am really prostrated over the events of the past +twenty-four hours. My occupation is gone, and my despair +over your loss is correspondingly greater, for I have time on my +hands to brood over it. I was hysterical as a woman +yesterday afternoon—so hysterical that I came near +upsetting one of the Furies who engaged me to row her down to +Madame Medusa’s villa last evening; and right at the sluice +of the vitriol reservoir at that.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image108" href="images/p108b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"You are very much mistaken, Sir Walter" +title= +"You are very much mistaken, Sir Walter" + src="images/p108s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“Then why the deuce don’t you do something to help +us?” pleaded Hamlet.</p> +<p>“How can I do any more than I have done? +I’ve offered you the <i>Gehenna</i>,” retorted +Charon.</p> +<p>“But on what terms?” expostulated Raleigh. +“If we had all the wealth of the Indies we’d have +difficulty in paying you the sums you demand.”</p> +<p>“But I am only president of the company,” +explained Charon. “I’d like, as president, to +show you some courtesy, and I’m perfectly willing to do so; +but when it comes down to giving you a vessel like that, +I’m bound by my official oath to consider the interest of +the stockholders. It isn’t as it used to be when I +had boats to hire in my own behalf alone. In those days I +had nobody’s interest but my own to look after. Now +the ships all belong to the Styx Navigation Company. +Can’t you see the difference?”</p> +<p>“You own all the stock, don’t you?” insisted +Raleigh.</p> +<p>“I don’t know,” Charon answered, +blandly. “I haven’t seen the transfer-books +lately.”</p> +<p>“But you know that you did own every share of it, and +that you haven’t sold any, don’t you?” put in +Hamlet.</p> +<p>Charon was puzzled for a moment, but shortly his face cleared, +and Sir Walter’s heart sank, for it was evident that the +old fellow could not be cornered.</p> +<p>“Well, it’s this way, Sir Walter, and your +Highness,” he said, “I—I can’t say +whether any of that stock has been transferred or not. The +fact is, I’ve been speculating a little on margin, and +I’ve put up that stock as security, and, for all I know, I +may have been sold out by my brokers. I’ve been so +upset by this unfortunate occurrence that I haven’t seen +the market reports for two days. Really you’ll have +to be content with my offer or go without the +<i>Gehenna</i>. There’s too much suspicion attached +to high corporate officials lately for me to yield a jot in the +position I have taken. It would never do to get you all +ready to start, and then have an injunction clapped on you by +some unforeseen stockholder who was not satisfied with the terms +offered you; nor can I ever let it be said of me that to retain +my position as janitor of your organization I sacrificed a trust +committed to my charge. I’ll gladly lend you my +private launch, though I don’t think it will aid you much, +because the naphtha-tank has exploded, and the screw slipped off +and went to the bottom two weeks ago. Still, it is at your +service, and I’ve no doubt that either Phidias or Benvenuto +Cellini will carve out a paddle for you if you ask him +to.”</p> +<p>“Bah!” retorted Raleigh. “You might as +well offer us a pair of skates.”</p> +<p>“I would, if I thought the river’d freeze,” +retorted Charon, blandly.</p> +<p>Raleigh and Hamlet turned away impatiently and left Charon to +his own devices, which for the time being consisted largely of +winking his other eye quietly and outwardly making a great show +of grief.</p> +<p>“He’s too canny for us, I am afraid,” said +Sir Walter. “We’ll have to pay him his +money.”</p> +<p>“Let us first consult Sherlock Holmes,” suggested +Hamlet, and this they proceeded at once to do.</p> +<p>“There is but one thing to be done,” observed the +astute detective after he had heard Sir Walter’s statement +of the case. “It is an old saying that one should +fight fire with fire. We must meet modern business methods +with modern commercial ideas. Charter his vessel at his own +price.”</p> +<p>“But we’d never be able to pay,” said +Hamlet.</p> +<p>“Ha-ha!” laughed Holmes. “It is +evident that you know nothing of the laws of trade +nowadays. Don’t pay!”</p> +<p>“But how can we?” asked Raleigh.</p> +<p>“The method is simple. You haven’t anything +to pay with,” returned Holmes. “Let him +sue. Suppose he gets a verdict. You haven’t +anything he can attach—if you have, make it over to your +wives or your fiancées.”</p> +<p>“Is that honest?” asked Hamlet, shaking his head +doubtfully.</p> +<p>“It’s business,” said Holmes.</p> +<p>“But suppose he wants an advance payment?” queried +Hamlet.</p> +<p>“Give him a check drawn to his own order. +He’ll have to endorse it when he deposits it, and that will +make him responsible,” laughed Holmes.</p> +<p>“What a simple thing when you understand it!” +commented Raleigh.</p> +<p>“Very,” said Holmes. “Business is +getting by slow degrees to be an exact science. It reminds +me of the Brighton mystery, in which I played a modest part some +ten years ago, when I first took up ferreting as a +profession. I was sitting one night in my room at one of +the Brighton hotels, which shall be nameless. I never give +the name of any of the hotels at which I stop, because it might +give offence to the proprietors of other hotels, with the result +that my books would be excluded from sale therein. Suffice +it to say that I was spending an early summer Sunday at Brighton +with my friend Watson. We had dined well, and were enjoying +our evening smoke together upon a small balcony overlooking the +water, when there came a timid knock on the door of my room.</p> +<p>“‘Watson,’ said I, ‘here comes some +one for advice. Do you wish to wager a small bottle upon +it?’</p> +<p>“‘Yes,’ he answered, with a smile. +‘I am thirsty and I’d like a small bottle; and while +I do not expect to win, I’ll take the bet. I should +like to know, though, how you know.’</p> +<p>“‘It is quite simple,’ said I. +‘The timidity of the knock shows that my visitor is one of +two classes of persons—an autograph-hunter or a client, one +of the two. You see I give you a chance to win. It +may be an autograph-hunter, but I think it is a client. If +it were a creditor, he would knock boldly, even ostentatiously; +if it were the maid, she would not knock at all; if it were the +hall-boy, he would not come until I had rung five times for +him. None of these things has occurred; the knock is the +half-hearted knock which betokens either that the person who +knocked is in trouble, or is uncertain as to his reception. +I am willing, however, considering the heat and my desire to +quench my thirst, to wager that it is a client.’</p> +<p>“‘Done,’ said Watson; and I immediately +remarked, ‘Come in.’</p> +<p>“The door opened, and a man of about thirty-five years +of age, in a bathing-suit, entered the room, and I saw at a +glance what had happened.</p> +<p>“‘Your name is Burgess,’ I said. +‘You came here from London this morning, expecting to +return to-night. You brought no luggage with you. +After luncheon you went bathing. You had machine No. 35, +and when you came out of the water you found that No. 35 had +disappeared, with your clothes and the silver watch your uncle +gave you on the day you succeeded to his business.’</p> +<p>“Of course, gentlemen,” observed the detective, +with a smile at Sir Walter and Hamlet—“of course the +man fairly gasped, and I continued: ‘You have been lying +face downward in the sand ever since, waiting for nightfall, so +that you could come to me for assistance, not considering it good +form to make an afternoon call upon a stranger at his hotel, clad +in a bathing-suit. Am I correct?’</p> +<p>“‘Sir,’ he replied, with a look of wonder, +‘you have narrated my story exactly as it happened, and I +find I have made no mistake in coming to you. Would you +mind telling me what is your course of reasoning?’</p> +<p>“‘It is plain as day,’ said I. +‘I am the person with the red beard with whom you came down +third class from London this morning, and you told me your name +was Burgess and that you were a butcher. When you looked to +see the time, I remarked upon the oddness of your watch, which +led to your telling me that it was the gift of your +uncle.’</p> +<p>“‘True,’ said Burgess, ‘but I did not +tell you I had no luggage.’</p> +<p>“‘No,’ said I, ‘but that you +hadn’t is plain; for if you had brought any other clothing +besides that you had on with you, you would have put it on to +come here. That you have been robbed I deduce also from +your costume.’</p> +<p>“‘But the number of the machine?’ asked +Watson.</p> +<p>“‘Is on the tag on the key hanging about his +neck,’ said I.</p> +<p>“‘One more question,’ queried Burgess. +‘How do you know I have been lying face downward on the +beach ever since?’</p> +<p>“‘By the sand in your eyebrows,’ I replied; +and Watson ordered up the small bottle.”</p> +<p>“I fail to see what it was in our conversation, +however,” observed Hamlet, somewhat impatient over the +delay caused by the narration of this tale, “that suggested +this train of thought to you.”</p> +<p>“The sequel will show,” returned Holmes.</p> +<p>“Oh, Lord!” put in Raleigh. +“Can’t we put off the sequel until a later +issue? Remember, Mr. Holmes, that we are constantly losing +time.”</p> +<p>“The sequel is brief, and I can narrate it on our way to +the office of the Navigation Company,” observed the +detective. “When the bottle came I invited Mr. +Burgess to join us, which he did, and as the hour was late when +we came to separate, I offered him the use of my parlor +overnight. This he accepted, and we retired.</p> +<p>“The next morning when I arose to dress, the mystery was +cleared.”</p> +<p>“You had dreamed its solution?” asked Raleigh.</p> +<p>“No,” replied Holmes. “Burgess had +disappeared with all my clothing, my false-beard, my suit-case, +and my watch. The only thing he had left me was the +bathing-suit and a few empty small bottles.”</p> +<p>“And why, may I ask,” put in Hamlet, as they drew +near to Charon’s office—“why does that case +remind you of business as it is conducted to-day?”</p> +<p>“In this, that it is a good thing to stay out of unless +you know it all,” explained Holmes. “I omitted +in the case of Burgess to observe one thing about him. Had +I observed that his nose was rectilinear, incurved, and with a +lifted base, and that his auricular temporal angle was between 96 +and 97 degrees, I should have known at once that he was an +impostor <i>Vide</i> Ottolenghui on ‘Ears and Noses I Have +Met,’ pp. 631–640.”</p> +<p>“Do you mean to say that you can tell a criminal by his +ears?” demanded Hamlet.</p> +<p>“If he has any—yes; but I did not know that at the +time of the Brighton mystery. Therefore I should have +stayed out of the case. But here we are. +Good-morning, Charon.”</p> +<p>By this time the trio had entered the private office of the +president of the Styx Navigation Company, and in a few moments +the vessel was chartered at a fabulous price.</p> +<p>On the return to the wharf, Sir Walter somewhat nervously +asked Holmes if he thought the plan they had settled upon would +work.</p> +<p>“Charon is a very shrewd old fellow,” said +he. “He may outwit us yet.”</p> +<p>“The chances are just two and one-eighth degrees in your +favor,” observed Holmes, quietly, with a glance at +Raleigh’s ears. “The temporal angle of your +ears is 93.125 degrees, whereas Charon’s stand out at 91, +by my otometer. To that extent your criminal instincts are +superior to his. If criminology is an exact science, +reasoning by your respective ears, you ought to beat him out by a +perceptible though possibly narrow margin.”</p> +<p>With which assurance Raleigh went ahead with his preparations, +and within twelve hours the <i>Gehenna</i> was under way, +carrying a full complement of crew and officers, with every +state-room on board occupied by some spirit of the more +illustrious kind.</p> +<p>Even Shylock was on board, though no one knew it, for in the +dead of night he had stolen quietly up the gang-plank and had +hidden himself in an empty water-cask in the forecastle.</p> +<p>“’Tisn’t Venice,” he said, as he sat +down and breathed heavily through the bung of the barrel, +“but it’s musty and damp enough, and, considering the +cost, I can’t complain. You can’t get something +for nothing, even in Hades.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image118" href="images/p118b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"In the dead of night he had stolen quietly up the gang-plank" +title= +"In the dead of night he had stolen quietly up the gang-plank" + src="images/p118s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2><a name="page121"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +121</span>VIII<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">ON BOARD THE +“GEHENNA”</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">When</span> the <i>Gehenna</i> had passed +down the Styx and out through the beautiful Cimmerian Harbor into +the broad waters of the ocean, and everything was comparatively +safe for a while at least, Sherlock Holmes came down from the +bridge, where he had taken his place as the commander of the +expedition at the moment of departure. His brow was +furrowed with anxiety, and through his massive forehead his brain +could be seen to be throbbing violently, and the corrugations of +his gray matter were not pleasant to witness as he tried vainly +to squeeze an idea out of them.</p> +<p>“What is the matter?” asked Demosthenes, +anxiously. “We are not in any danger, are +we?”</p> +<p>“No,” replied Holmes. “But I am +somewhat puzzled at the bubbles on the surface of the ocean, and +the ripples which we passed over an hour or two ago, barely +perceptible through the most powerful microscope, indicate to my +mind that for some reason at present unknown to me the House-boat +has changed her course. Take that bubble floating by. +It is the last expiring bit of aerial agitation of the +House-boat’s wake. Observe whence it comes. Not +from the Azores quarter, but as if instead of steering a straight +course thither the House-boat had taken a sharp turn to the +north-east, and was making for Havre; or, in other words, Paris +instead of London seems to have become their +destination.”</p> +<p>Demosthenes looked at Holmes with blank amazement, and, to +keep from stammering out the exclamation of wonder that rose to +his lips, he opened his <i>bonbonnière</i> and swallowed a +pebble.</p> +<p>“You don’t happen to have a cocaine tablet in your +box, do you?” queried Holmes.</p> +<p>“No,” returned the Greek. “Cocaine +makes me flighty and nervous, but these pebbles sort of ballast +me and hold me down. How on earth do you know that that +bubble comes from the wake of the House-boat?”</p> +<p>“By my chemical knowledge, merely,” replied +Holmes. “A merely worldly vessel leaves a +phosphorescent bubble in its wake. That one we have just +discovered is not so, but sulphurescent, if I may coin a word +which it seems to me the English language is very much in need +of. It proves, then, that the bubble is a portion of the +wake of a Stygian craft, and the only Stygian craft that has +cleared the Cimmerian Harbor for years is the House-boat—Q. +E. D.”</p> +<p>“We can go back until we find the ripple again, and +follow that, I presume,” sneered Le Coq, who did not take +much stock in the theories of his great rival, largely because he +was a detective by intuition rather than by study of the +science.</p> +<p>“You can if you want to, but it is better not to,” +rejoined Holmes, simply, as though not observing the sneer, +“because the ripple represents the outer lines of the angle +of disturbance in the water; and as any one of the sides to an +angle is greater than the perpendicular from the hypothenuse to +the apex, you’d merely be going the long way. This is +especially important when you consider the formation of the bow +of the House-boat, which is rounded like the stern of most +vessels, and comes near to making a pair of ripples at an angle +of ninety degrees.”</p> +<p>“Then,” observed Sir Walter, with a sigh of +disappointment, “we must change our course and sail for +Paris?”</p> +<p>“I am afraid so,” said Holmes; “but of +course it’s by no means certain as yet. I think if +Columbus would go up into the mizzentop and look about him, he +might discover something either in confirmation or refutation of +the theory.”</p> +<p>“He couldn’t discover anything,” put in +Pinzon. “He never did.”</p> +<p>“Well, I like that!” retorted Columbus. +“I’d like to know who discovered America.”</p> +<p>“So should I,” observed Leif Ericson, with a wink +at Vespucci.</p> +<p>“Tut!” retorted Columbus. “I did it, +and the world knows it, whether you claim it or not.”</p> +<p>“Yes, just as Noah discovered Ararat,” replied +Pinzon. “You sat upon the deck until we ran plumb +into an island, after floating about for three months, and then +you couldn’t tell it from a continent, even when you had it +right before your eyes. Noah might just as well have told +his family that he discovered a roof garden as for you to go back +to Spain telling ’em all that San Salvador was the United +States.”</p> +<p>“Well, I don’t care,” said Columbus, with a +short laugh. “I’m the one they celebrate, so +what’s the odds? I’d rather stay down here in +the smoking-room enjoying a small game, anyhow, than climb up +that mast and strain my eyes for ten or a dozen hours looking for +evidence to prove or disprove the correctness of another +man’s theory. I wouldn’t know evidence when I +saw it, anyhow. Send Judge Blackstone.”</p> +<p>“I draw the line at the mizzentop,” observed +Blackstone. “The dignity of the bench must and shall +be preserved, and I’ll never consent to climb up that +rigging, getting pitch and paint on my ermine, no matter who asks +me to go.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image126" href="images/p126b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Judge Blackstone refuses to climb to the mizzentop" +title= +"Judge Blackstone refuses to climb to the mizzentop" + src="images/p126s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“Whomsoever I tell to go, shall go,” put in +Holmes, firmly. “I am commander of this ship. +It will pay you to remember that, Judge Blackstone.”</p> +<p>“And I am the Court of Appeals,” retorted +Blackstone, hotly. “Bear that in mind, captain, when +you try to send me up. I’ll issue a writ of <i>habeas +corpus</i> on my own body, and commit you for +contempt.”</p> +<p>“There’s no use of sending the Judge, +anyhow,” said Raleigh, fearing by the glitter that came +into the eye of the commander that trouble might ensue unless +pacificatory measures were resorted to. “He’s +accustomed to weighing everything carefully, and cannot be rushed +into a decision. If he saw any evidence, he’d have to +sit on it a week before reaching a conclusion. What we need +here more than anything else is an expert seaman, a lookout, and +I nominate Shem. He has sailed under his father, and I have +it on good authority that he is a nautical expert.”</p> +<p>Holmes hesitated for an instant. He was considering the +necessity of disciplining the recalcitrant Blackstone, but he +finally yielded.</p> +<p>“Very well,” he said. “Shem be +it. Bo’sun, pipe Shem on deck, and tell him that +general order number one requires him to report at the mizzentop +right away, and that immediately he sees anything he shall come +below and make it known to me. As for the rest of us, +having a very considerable appetite, I do now decree that it is +dinner-time. Shall we go below?”</p> +<p>“I don’t think I care for any, thank you,” +said Raleigh. “Fact is—ah—I dined last +week, and am not hungry.”</p> +<p>Noah laughed. “Oh, come below and watch us eat, +then,” he said. “It’ll do you +good.”</p> +<p>But there was no reply. Raleigh had plunged head first +into his state-room, which fortunately happened to be on the +upper deck. The rest of the spirits repaired below to the +saloon, where they were soon engaged in an animated discussion of +such viands as the larder provided.</p> +<p>“This,” said Dr. Johnson, from the head of the +table, “is what I call comfort. I don’t know +that I am so anxious to recover the House-boat, after +all.”</p> +<p>“Nor I,” said Socrates, “with a ship like +this to go off cruising on, and with such a larder. Look at +the thickness of that puree, Doctor—”</p> +<p>“Excuse me,” said Boswell, faintly, “but +I—I’ve left my note—bub—book upstairs, +Doctor, and I’d like to go up and get it.”</p> +<p>“Certainly,” said Dr. Johnson. “I +judge from your color, which is highly suggestive of a modern +magazine poster, that it might be well too if you stayed on deck +for a little while and made a few entries in your commonplace +book.”</p> +<p>“Thank you,” said Boswell, gratefully. +“Shall you say anything clever during dinner, sir? If +so, I might be putting it down while I’m +up—”</p> +<p>“Get out!” roared the Doctor. “Get up +as high as you can—get up with Shem on the +mizzentop—”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image128" href="images/p128b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Shem in the look-out" +title= +"Shem in the look-out" + src="images/p128s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“Very good, sir,” replied Boswell, and he was +off.</p> +<p>“You ought to be more lenient with him, Doctor,” +said Bonaparte; “he means well.”</p> +<p>“I know it,” observed Johnson; “but +he’s so very previous. Last winter, at +Chaucer’s dinner to Burns, I made a speech, which Boswell +printed a week before it was delivered, with the words +‘laughter’ and ‘uproarious applause’ +interspersed through it. It placed me in a false +position.”</p> +<p>“How did he know what you were going to say?” +queried Demosthenes.</p> +<p>“Don’t know,” replied Johnson. +“Kind of mind-reader, I fancy,” he added, blushing a +trifle. “But, Captain Holmes, what do you deduce from +your observation of the wake of the House-boat? If +she’s going to Paris, why the change?”</p> +<p>“I have two theories,” replied the detective.</p> +<p>“Which is always safe,” said Le Coq.</p> +<p>“Always; it doubles your chances of success,” +acquiesced Holmes. “Anyhow, it gives you a choice, +which makes it more interesting. The change of her course +from Londonward to Parisward proves to me either that Kidd is not +satisfied with the extent of the revenge he has already taken, +and wishes to ruin you gentlemen financially by turning your +wives, daughters, and sisters loose on the Parisian shops, or +that the pirates have themselves been overthrown by the ladies, +who have decided to prolong their cruise and get some fun out of +their misfortune.”</p> +<p>“And where else than to Paris would any one in search of +pleasure go?” asked Bonaparte.</p> +<p>“I had more fun a few miles outside of Brussels,” +said Wellington, with a sly wink at Washington.</p> +<p>“Oh, let up on that!” retorted Bonaparte. +“It wasn’t you beat me at Waterloo. You +couldn’t have beaten me at a plain ordinary game of +old-maid with a stacked pack of cards, much less in the game of +war, if you hadn’t had the elements with you.”</p> +<p>“Tut!” snapped Wellington. “It was +clear science laid you out, Boney.”</p> +<p>“Taisey-voo!” shouted the irate Corsican. +“Clear science be hanged! Wet science was what did +it. If it hadn’t been for the rain, my little Duke, I +should have been in London within a week, my grenadiers would +have been camping in your Rue Peekadeely, and the Old Guard all +over everywhere else.”</p> +<p>“You must have had a gay army, then,” laughed +Cæsar. “What are French soldiers made of, that +they can’t stand the wet—unshrunk linen or +flannel?”</p> +<p>“Bah!” observed Napoleon, shrugging his shoulders +and walking a few paces away. “You do not understand +the French. The Frenchman is not a pell-mell soldier like +you Romans; he is the poet of arms; he does not go in for glory +at the expense of his dignity; style, form, is dearer to him than +honor, and he has no use for fighting in the wet and coming out +of the fight conspicuous as a victor with the curl out of his +feathers and his epaulets rusted with the damp. There is no +glory in water. But if we had had umbrellas and +mackintoshes, as every Englishman who comes to the Continent +always has, and a bath-tub for everybody, then would your +Waterloo have been different again, and the great democracy of +Europe with a Bonaparte for emperor would have been founded for +what the Americans call the keeps; and as for your little Great +Britain, ha! she would have become the Blackwell’s Island +of the Greater France.”</p> +<p>“You’re almost as funny as Punch +isn’t,” drawled Wellington, with an angry gesture at +Bonaparte. “You weren’t within telephoning +distance of victory all day. We simply played with you, my +boy. It was a regular game of golf for us. We let you +keep up pretty close and win a few holes, but on the home drive +we had you beaten in one stroke. Go to, my dear Bonaparte, +and stop talking about the flood.”</p> +<p>“It’s a lucky thing for us that Noah wasn’t +a Frenchman, eh?” said Frederick the Great. +“How that rain would have fazed him if he had been! +The human race would have been wiped out.”</p> +<p>“Oh, pshaw!” ejaculated Noah, deprecating the +unseemliness of the quarrel, and putting his arm affectionately +about Bonaparte’s shoulder. “When you come down +to that, I was French—as French as one could be in those +days—and these Gallic subjects of my friend here were, +every one of ’em, my lineal descendants, and their hatred +of rain was inherited directly from me, their +ancestor.”</p> +<p>“Are not we English as much your descendants?” +queried Wellington, arching his eyebrows.</p> +<p>“You are,” said Noah, “but you take after +Mrs. Noah more than after me. Water never fazes a woman, +and your delight in tubs is an essentially feminine trait. +The first thing Mrs. Noah carried aboard was a laundry outfit, +and then she went back for rugs and coats and all sorts of +hand-baggage. Gad, it makes me laugh to this day when I +think of it! She looked for all the world like an +Englishman travelling on the Continent as she walked up the +gang-plank behind the elephants, each elephant with a Gladstone +bag in his trunk and a hat-box tied to his tail.” +Here the venerable old weather-prophet winked at Munchausen, and +the little quarrel which had been imminent passed off in a +general laugh.</p> +<p>“Where’s Boswell? He ought to get that +anecdote,” said Johnson.</p> +<p>“I’ve locked him up in the library,” said +Holmes. “He’s in charge of the log, and as I +have a pretty good general idea as to what is about to happen, I +have mapped out a skeleton of the plot and set him to work +writing it up.” Here the detective gave a sudden +start, placed his hand to his ear, listened intently for an +instant, and, taking out his watch and glancing at it, added, +quietly, “In three minutes Shem will be in here to announce +a discovery, and one of great importance, I judge, from the +squeak.”</p> +<p>The assemblage gazed earnestly at Holmes for a moment.</p> +<p>“The squeak?” queried Raleigh.</p> +<p>“Precisely,” said Holmes. “The squeak +is what I said, and as I always say what I mean, it follows +logically that I meant what I said.”</p> +<p>“I heard no squeak,” observed Dr. Johnson; +“and, furthermore, I fail to see how a squeak, if I had +heard it, would have portended a discovery of +importance.”</p> +<p>“It would not—to you,” said Holmes; +“but with me it is different. My hearing is unusually +acute. I can hear the dropping of a pin through a stone +wall ten feet thick; any sound within a mile of my eardrum +vibrates thereon with an intensity which would surprise you, and +it is by the use of cocaine that I have acquired this wonderfully +acute sense. A property which dulls the senses of most +people renders mine doubly apprehensive; therefore, gentlemen, +while to you there was no auricular disturbance, to me there +was. I heard Shem sliding down the mast a minute +since. The fact that he slid down the mast instead of +climbing down the rigging showed that he was in great haste, +therefore he must have something to communicate of great +importance.”</p> +<p>“Why isn’t he here already, then? It +wouldn’t take him two minutes to get from the deck +here,” asked the ever-auspicious Le Coq.</p> +<p>“It is simple,” returned Holmes, calmly. +“If you will go yourself and slide down that mast you will +see. Shem has stopped for a little witch-hazel to soothe +his burns. It is no cool matter sliding down a mast two +hundred feet in height.”</p> +<p>As Sherlock Holmes spoke the door burst open and Shem rushed +in.</p> +<p>“A signal of distress, captain!” he cried.</p> +<p>“From what quarter—to larboard?” asked +Holmes.</p> +<p>“No,” returned Shem, breathless.</p> +<p>“Then it must be dead ahead,” said Holmes.</p> +<p>“Why not to starboard?” asked Le Coq, dryly.</p> +<p>“Because,” answered Holmes, confidently, “it +never happens so. If you had ever read a truly exciting +sea-tale, my dear Le Coq, you would have known that interesting +things, and particularly signals of distress, are never seen +except to larboard or dead ahead.”</p> +<p>A murmur of applause greeted this retort, and Le Coq +subsided.</p> +<p>“The nature of the signal?” demanded Holmes.</p> +<p>“A black flag, skull and cross-bones down, at +half-mast!” cried Shem, “and on a rock-bound +coast!”</p> +<p>“They’re marooned, by heavens!” shouted +Holmes, springing to his feet and rushing to the deck, where he +was joined immediately by Sir Walter, Dr. Johnson, Bonaparte, and +the others.</p> +<p>“Isn’t he a daisy?” whispered Demosthenes to +Diogenes as they climbed the stairs.</p> +<p>“He is more than that; he’s a blooming +orchid,” said Diogenes, with intense enthusiasm. +“I think I’ll get my X-ray lantern and see if +he’s honest.”</p> +<h2><a name="page139"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +139</span>IX<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">CAPTAIN KIDD MEETS WITH AN +OBSTACLE</span></h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Excuse</span> me, your +Majesty,” remarked Helen of Troy as Cleopatra accorded +permission to Captain Kidd to speak, “I have not been +introduced to this gentleman nor has he been presented to me, and +I really cannot consent to any proceeding so irregular as +this. I do not speak to gentlemen I have not met, nor do I +permit them to address me.”</p> +<p>“Hear, hear!” cried Xanthippe. “I +quite agree with the principle of my young friend from +Troy. It may be that when we claimed for ourselves all the +rights of men that the right to speak and be spoken to by other +men without an introduction will included in the list, but I for +one have no desire to avail myself of the privilege, especially +when it’s a horrid-looking man like this.”</p> +<p>Kidd bowed politely, and smiled so terribly that several of +the ladies fainted.</p> +<p>“I will withdraw,” he said, turning to Cleopatra; +and it must be said that his suggestion was prompted by his +heartfelt wish, for now that he found himself thus conspicuously +brought before so many women, with falsehood on his lips, his +courage began to ooze.</p> +<p>“Not yet, please,” answered the chairlady. +“I imagine we can get about this difficulty without much +trouble.”</p> +<p>“I think it a perfectly proper objection too,” +observed Delilah, rising. “If we ever needed +etiquette we need it now. But I have a plan which will +obviate any further difficulty. If there is no one among us +who is sufficiently well acquainted with the gentleman to present +him formally to us, I will for the time being take upon myself +the office of ship’s barber and cut his hair. I +understand that it is quite the proper thing for barbers to talk, +while cutting their hair, to persons to whom they have not been +introduced. And, besides, he really needs a hair-cut +badly. Thus I shall establish an acquaintance with the +captain, after which I can with propriety introduce him to the +rest of you.”</p> +<p>“Perhaps the gentleman himself might object to +that,” put in Queen Elizabeth. “If I remember +rightly, your last customer was very much dissatisfied with the +trim you gave him.”</p> +<p>“It will be unnecessary to do what Delilah +proposes,” said Mrs. Noah, with a kindly smile, as she rose +up from the corner in which she had been sitting, an interested +listener. “I can introduce the gentleman to you all +with perfect propriety. He’s a member of my +family. His grandfather was the great-grandson a thousand +and eight times removed of my son Shem’s great-grandnephew +on his father’s side. His relationship to me is +therefore obvious, though from what I know of his reputation I +think he takes more after my husband’s ancestors than my +own. Willie, dear, these ladies are friends of mine. +Ladies, this young man is one of my most famous +descendants. He has been a man of many adventures, and he +has been hanged once, which, far from making him undesirable as +an acquaintance, has served merely to render him harmless, and +therefore a safe person to know. Now, my son, go ahead and +speak your piece.”</p> +<p>The good old spirit sat down, and the scruples of the +objectors having thus been satisfied, Captain Kidd began.</p> +<p>“Now that I know you all,” he remarked, as +pleasantly as he could under the circumstances, “I feel +that I can speak more freely, and certainly with a great deal +less embarrassment than if I were addressing a gathering of +entire strangers. I am not much of a hand at speaking, and +have always felt somewhat nonplussed at finding myself in a +position of this nature. In my whole career I never +experienced but one irresistible impulse to make a public address +of any length, and that was upon that unhappy occasion to which +the greatest and grandest of my great-grandmothers has alluded, +and that only as the chain by which I was suspended in mid-air +tightened about my vocal chords. At that moment I could +have talked impromptu for a year, so fast and numerously did +thoughts of the uttermost import surge upward into my brain; but +circumstances over which I had no control prevented the utterance +of those thoughts, and that speech is therefore lost to the +world.”</p> +<p>“He has the gift of continuity,” observed Madame +Récamier.</p> +<p>“Ought to be in the United States Senate,” smiled +Elizabeth.</p> +<p>“I wish I could make up my mind as to whether he is +outrageously handsome or desperately ugly,” remarked Helen +of Troy. “He fascinates me, but whether it is the +fascination of liking or of horror I can’t tell, and +it’s quite important.”</p> +<p>“Ladies,” resumed the captain, his uneasiness +increasing as he came to the point, “I am but the agent of +your respective husbands, <i>fiancés</i>, and other +masculine guardians. The gentlemen who were previously the +tenants of this club-house have delegated to me the important, +and I may add highly agreeable, task of showing you the +world. They have noted of late years the growth of that +feeling of unrest which is becoming every day more and more +conspicuous in feminine circles in all parts of the +universe—on the earth, where women are clamoring to vote, +and to be allowed to go out late at night without an escort, in +Hades, where, as you are no doubt aware, the management of the +government has fallen almost wholly into the hands of the Furies; +and even in the halls of Jupiter himself, where, I am credibly +informed, Juno has been taking private lessons in the art of +hurling thunderbolts—information which the extraordinary +quality of recent electrical storms on the earth would seem to +confirm. Thunderbolts of late years have been cast hither +and yon in a most erratic fashion, striking where they were least +expected, as those of you who keep in touch with the outer world +must be fully aware. Now, actuated by their usual broad and +liberal motives, the men of Hades wish to meet the views of you +ladies to just that extent that your views are based upon a wise +selection, in turn based upon experience, and they have come to +me and in so many words have said, ‘Mr. Kidd, we wish the +women of Hades to see the world. We want them to be +satisfied. We do not like this constantly increasing spirit +of unrest. We, who have seen all the life that we care to +see, do not ourselves feel equal to the task of showing them +about. We will pay you liberally if you will take our +House-boat, which they have always been anxious to enter, and +personally conduct our beloved ones to Paris, London, and +elsewhere. Let them see as much of life as they can +stand. Accord them every privilege. Spare no expense; +only bring them back again to us safe and sound.’ +These were their words, ladies. I asked them why they +didn’t come along themselves, saying that even if they were +tired of it all, they should make some personal sacrifice to your +comfort; and they answered, reasonably and well, that they would +be only too glad to do so, but that they feared they might +unconsciously seem to exert a repressing influence upon +you. ‘We want them to feel absolutely free, Captain +Kidd,’ said they, ‘and if we are along they may not +feel so.’ The answer was convincing, ladies, and I +accepted the commission.”</p> +<p>“But we knew nothing of all this,” interposed +Elizabeth. “The subject was not broached to us by our +husbands, brothers, <i>fiancés</i>, or fathers. My +brother, Sir Walter Raleigh—”</p> +<p>Cleopatra chuckled. “Brother! +Brother’s good,” she said.</p> +<p>“Well, that’s what he is,” retorted +Elizabeth, quickly. “I promised to be a sister to +him, and I’m going to keep my word. That’s the +kind of a queen I am. I was about to remark,” +Elizabeth added, turning to the captain, “that my brother, +Sir Walter Raleigh, never even hinted at any such plan, and +usually he asked my advice in matters of so great +importance.”</p> +<p>“That is easily accounted for, madame,” retorted +Kidd. “Sir Walter intended this as a little surprise +for you, that is all. The arrangements were all placed in +his hands, and it was he who bound us all to secrecy. None +of the ladies were to be informed of it.”</p> +<p>“It does not sound altogether plausible,” +interposed Portia. “If you ladies do not object, I +should like to cross-examine +this—ah—gentleman.”</p> +<p>Kidd paled visibly. He was not prepared for any such +trial; however, he put as good a face on the matter as he could, +and announced his willingness to answer any questions that he +might be asked.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image148" href="images/p148b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Captain Kidd consents to be cross-examined by Portia" +title= +"Captain Kidd consents to be cross-examined by Portia" + src="images/p148s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“Shall we put him under oath?” asked +Cleopatra.</p> +<p>“As you please, ladies,” said the pirate. +“A pirate’s word is as good as his bond; but +I’ll take an oath if you choose—a half-dozen of +’em, if need be.”</p> +<p>“I fancy we can get along without that,” said +Portia. “Now, Captain Kidd, who first proposed this +plan?”</p> +<p>“Socrates,” said Kidd, unblushingly with a sly +glance at Xanthippe.</p> +<p>“What?” cried Xanthippe. “My husband +propose anything that would contribute to my pleasure or +intellectual advancement? Bah! Your story is +transparently false at the outset.”</p> +<p>“Nevertheless,” said Kidd, “the scheme was +proposed by Socrates. He said a trip of that kind for +Xanthippe would be very restful and health-giving.”</p> +<p>“For me?” cried Xanthippe, sceptically.</p> +<p>“No, madame, for him,” retorted Kidd.</p> +<p>“Ah—ho-ho! That’s the way of it, +eh?” said Xanthippe, flushing to the roots of her +hair. “Very likely. You—ah—you will +excuse my doubting your word, Captain Kidd, a moment since. +I withdraw my remark, and in order to make fullest reparation, I +beg to assure these ladies that I am now perfectly convinced that +you are telling the truth. That last observation is just +like my husband, and when I get back home again, if I ever do, +well—ha, ha!—we’ll have a merry time, +that’s all.”</p> +<p>“And what was—ah—Bassanio’s connection +with this affair?” added Portia, hesitatingly.</p> +<p>“He was not informed of it,” said Kidd, +archly. “I am not acquainted with Bassanio, my lady, +but I overheard Sir Walter enjoining upon the others the absolute +necessity of keeping the whole affair from Bassanio, because he +was afraid he would not consent to it. ‘Bassanio has +a most beautiful wife, gentlemen,’ said Sir Walter, +‘and he wouldn’t think of parting with her under any +circumstances; therefore let us keep our intentions a secret from +him.’ I did not hear whom the gentleman married, +madame; but the others, Prince Hamlet, the Duke of Buckingham, +and Louis the Fourteenth, all agreed that Mrs. Bassanio was too +beautiful a person to be separated from, and that it was better, +therefore, to keep Bassanio in the dark as to their little +enterprise until it was too late for him to interfere.”</p> +<p>A pink glow of pleasure suffused the lovely countenance of the +cross-examiner, and it did not require a very sharp eye to see +that the wily Kidd had completely won her over to his side. +On the other hand, Elizabeth’s brow became as corrugated as +her ruff, and the spirit of the pirate shivered to the core as he +turned and gazed upon that glowering face.</p> +<p>“Sir Walter agreed to that, did he?” snapped +Elizabeth. “And yet he was willing to part +with—ah—his sister.”</p> +<p>“Well, your Majesty,” began Kidd, hesitatingly, +“you see it was this way: Sir Walter—er—did say +that, but—ah—he—ah—but he added that he +of course merely judged—er—this man Bassanio’s +feelings by his own in parting from his sister—”</p> +<p>“Did he say sister?” cried Elizabeth.</p> +<p>“Well—no—not in those words,” shuffled +Kidd, perceiving quickly wherein his error lay, +“but—ah—I jumped at the conclusion, seeing his +intense enthusiasm for the lady’s beauty +and—er—intellectual qualities, that he referred to +you, and it is from yourself that I have gained my knowledge as +to the fraternal, not to say sororal, relationship that exists +between you.”</p> +<p>“That man’s a diplomat from Diplomaville!” +muttered Sir Henry Morgan, who, with Abeuchapeta and Conrad, was +listening at the port without.</p> +<p>“He is that,” said Abeuchapeta, “but he +can’t last much longer. He’s perspiring like a +pitcher of ice-water on a hot day, and a spirit of his size and +volatile nature can’t stand much of that without +evaporating. If you will observe him closely you will see +that his left arm already has vanished into thin air.”</p> +<p>“By Jove!” whispered Conrad, “that’s a +fact! If they don’t let up on him he’ll +vanish. He’s getting excessively tenuous about the +top of his head.”</p> +<p>All of which was only too true. Subjected to a scrutiny +which he had little expected, the deceitful ambassador of the +thieving band was rapidly dissipating, and, as those without had +so fearsomely noted, was in imminent danger of complete +sublimation, which, in the case of one possessed of so little +elementary purity, meant nothing short of annihilation. +Fortunately for Kidd, however, his wonderful tact had stemmed the +tide of suspicion. Elizabeth was satisfied with his +explanation, and in the minds of at least three of the most +influential ladies on board, Portia, Xanthippe, and Elizabeth, he +had become a creature worthy of credence, which meant that he had +nothing more to fear.</p> +<p>“I am prepared, your Majesty,” said Elizabeth, +addressing Cleopatra, “to accept from this time on the +gentleman’s word. The little that he has already told +us is hall-marked with truth. I should like to ask, +however, one more question, and that is how our gentleman friends +expected to embark us upon this voyage without letting us into +the secret?”</p> +<p>“Oh, as for that,” replied Kidd, with a deep-drawn +sigh of relief, for he too had noticed the gradual evaporation of +his arm and the incipient etherization of his +cranium—“as for that, it was simple enough. +There was to have been a day set apart for ladies’ day at +the club, and when you were all on board we were quietly to weigh +anchor and start. The fact that you had anticipated the +day, of your own volition, was telephoned by my scouts to me at +my headquarters, and that news was by me transmitted by messenger +to Sir Walter at Charon’s Glen Island, where the +long-talked-of fight between Samson and Goliath was taking +place. Raleigh immediately replied, +‘<i>Good</i>! <i>Start at once</i>. <i>Paris +first</i>. <i>Unlimited credit</i>. <i>Love to +Elizabeth</i>.’ Wherefore, ladies,” he added, +rising from his chair and walking to the +door—“wherefore you are here and in my care. +Make yourselves comfortable, and with the aid of the fashion +papers which you have already received prepare yourselves for the +joys that await you. With the aid of Madame Récamier +and Baedeker’s <i>Paris</i>, which you will find in the +library, it will be your own fault if when you arrive there you +resemble a great many less fortunate women who don’t know +what they want.”</p> +<p>With these words Kidd disappeared through the door, and +fainted in the arms of Sir Henry Morgan. The strain upon +him had been too great.</p> +<p>“A charming fellow,” said Portia, as the pirate +disappeared.</p> +<p>“Most attractive,” said Elizabeth.</p> +<p>“Handsome, too, don’t you think?” asked +Helen of Troy.</p> +<p>“And truthful beyond peradventure,” observed +Xanthippe, as she reflected upon the words the captain had +attributed to Socrates. “I didn’t believe him +at first, but when he told me what my sweet-tempered philosopher +had said, I was convinced.”</p> +<p>“He’s a sweet child,” interposed Mrs. Noah, +fondly. “One of my favorite grandchildren.”</p> +<p>“Which makes it embarrassing for me to say,” cried +Cassandra, starting up angrily, “that he is a base +caitiff!”</p> +<p>Had a bomb been dropped in the middle of the room, it could +not have created a greater sensation than the words of +Cassandra.</p> +<p>“What?” cried several voices at once. +“A caitiff?”</p> +<p>“A caitiff with a capital K,” retorted +Cassandra. “I know that, because while he was telling +his story I was listening to it with one ear and looking forward +into the middle of next week with the other—I mean the +other eye—and I saw—”</p> +<p>“Yes, you saw?” cried Cleopatra.</p> +<p>“I saw that he was deceiving us. Mark my words, +ladies, he is a base caitiff,” replied +Cassandra—“a base caitiff.”</p> +<p>“What did you see?” cried Elizabeth, +excitedly.</p> +<p>“This,” said Cassandra, and she began a narration +of future events which I must defer to the next chapter. +Meanwhile his associates were endeavoring to restore the +evaporated portions of the prostrated Kidd’s spirit anatomy +by the use of a steam-atomizer, but with indifferent +success. Kidd’s training had not fitted him for an +intellectual combat with superior women, and he suffered +accordingly.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image154" href="images/p154b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Kidd’s companions endeavouring to restore evaporating +portions of his anatomy with a steam-atomizer" +title= +"Kidd’s companions endeavouring to restore evaporating +portions of his anatomy with a steam-atomizer" + src="images/p154s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2><a name="page157"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 157</span>X<br +/> +<span class="GutSmall">A WARNING ACCEPTED</span></h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">It</span> is with no desire to +interrupt my friend Cassandra unnecessarily,” said Mrs. +Noah, as the prophetess was about to narrate her story, +“that I rise to beg her to remember that, as an ancestress +of Captain Kidd, I hope she will spare a grandmother’s +feelings, if anything in the story she is about to tell is +improper to be placed before the young. I have been so +shocked by the stories of perfidy and baseness generally that +have been published of late years, that I would interpose a +protest while there is yet time if there is a line in +Cassandra’s story which ought to be withheld from the +public; a protest based upon my affection for posterity, and in +the interests of morality everywhere.”</p> +<p>“You may rest easy upon that score, my dear Mrs. +Noah,” said the prophetess. “What I have to say +would commend itself, I am sure, even to the ears of a British +matron; and while it is as complete a demonstration of +man’s perfidy as ever was, it is none the less as harmless +a little tale as the Dottie Dimple books or any other more recent +study of New England character.”</p> +<p>“Thank you for the load your words have lifted from my +mind,” said Mrs. Noah, settling back in her chair, a +satisfied expression upon her gentle countenance. “I +hope you will understand why I spoke, and withal why modern +literature generally has been so distressful to me. When +you reflect that the world is satisfied that most of man’s +criminal instincts are the result of heredity, and that Mr. Noah +and I are unable to shift the responsibility for posterity to +other shoulders than our own, you will understand my +position. We were about the most domestic old couple that +ever lived, and when we see the long and varied assortment of +crimes that are cropping out everywhere in our descendants it is +painful to us to realize what a pair of unconsciously wicked old +fogies we must have been.”</p> +<p>“We all understand that,” said Cleopatra, kindly; +“and we are all prepared to acquit you of any +responsibility for the advanced condition of wickedness +to-day. Man has progressed since your time, my dear +grandma, and the modern improvements in the science of crime are +no more attributable to you than the invention of the telephone +or the oyster cocktail is attributable to your +husband.”</p> +<p>“Thank you kindly,” murmured the old lady, and she +resumed her knitting upon a phantom tam-o’-shanter, which +she was making as a Christmas surprise for her husband.</p> +<p>“When Captain Kidd began his story,” said +Cassandra, “he made one very bad mistake, and yet one which +was prompted by that courtesy which all men instinctively adopt +when addressing women. When he entered the room he removed +his hat, and therein lay his fatal error, if he wished to +convince me of the truth of his story, for with his hat removed I +could see the workings of his mind. While you ladies were +watching his lips or his eyes, some of you taking in the gorgeous +details of his dress, all of you hanging upon his every word, I +kept my eye fixed firmly upon his imagination, and I saw, what +you did not, <i>that he was drawing wholly upon +that</i>!”</p> +<p>“How extraordinary!” cried Elizabeth.</p> +<p>“Yes—and fortunate,” said Cassandra. +“Had I not done so, a week hence we should, every one of +us, have been lost in the surging wickedness of the city of +Paris.”</p> +<p>“But, Cassandra,” said Trilby, who was anxious to +return once more to the beautiful city by the Seine, “he +told us we were going to Paris.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image160" href="images/p160b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"He told us we were going to Paris" +title= +"He told us we were going to Paris" + src="images/p160s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“Of course he did,” said Madame Récamier, +“and in so many words. Certainly he was not drawing +upon his imagination there.”</p> +<p>“And one might be lost in a very much worse +place,” put in Marguerite de Valois, “if, indeed, it +were possible to lose us in Paris at all. I fancy that I +know enough about Paris to find my way about.”</p> +<p>“Humph!” ejaculated Cassandra. “What a +foolish little thing you are! You don’t imagine that +the Paris of to-day is the Paris of your time, or even the Paris +of that sweet child Trilby’s time, do you? If you do +you are very much mistaken. I almost wish I had not warned +you of your danger and had let you go, just to see those eyes of +yours open with amazement at the change. You’d find +your Louvre a very different sort of a place from what it used to +be, my dear lady. Those pleasing little windows through +which your relations were wont in olden times to indulge in +target practice at people who didn’t go to their church are +now kept closed; the galleries which used to swarm with people, +many of whom ought to have been hanged, now swarm with pictures, +many of which ought not to have been hung; the romance which +clung about its walls is as much a part of the dead past as +yourselves, and were you to materialize suddenly therein you +would find yourselves jostled and hustled and trodden upon by the +curious from other lands, with Argus eyes taking in five hundred +pictures a minute, and traversing those halls at a rate of speed +at which Mercury himself would stand aghast.”</p> +<p>“But my beloved Tuileries?” cried Marie +Antoinette.</p> +<p>“Has been swallowed up by a play-ground for the people, +my dear,” said Cassandra, gently. “Paris is no +place for us, and it is the intention of these men, in whose +hands we are, to take us there and then desert us. Can you +imagine anything worse than ourselves, the phantoms of a glorious +romantic past, basely deserted in the streets of a wholly +strange, superficial, material city of to-day? What do you +think, Elizabeth, would be your fate if, faint and famished, you +begged for sustenance at an English door to-day, and when asked +your name and profession were to reply, ‘Elizabeth, Queen +of England’?”</p> +<p>“Insane asylum,” said Elizabeth, shortly.</p> +<p>“Precisely. So in Paris with the rest of +us,” said Cassandra.</p> +<p>“How do you know all this?” asked Trilby, still +unconvinced.</p> +<p>“I know it just as you knew how to become a prima +donna,” said Cassandra. “I am, however, my own +Svengali, which is rather preferable to the patent detachable +hypnotizer you had. I hypnotize myself, and direct my mind +into the future. I was a professional forecaster in the +days of ancient Troy, and if my revelations had been heeded the +Priam family would, I doubt not, still be doing business at the +old stand, and Mr. Æneas would not have grown +round-shouldered giving his poor father a picky-back ride on the +opening night of the horse-show, so graphically depicted by +Virgil.”</p> +<p>“I never heard about that,” said Trilby. +“It sounds like a very funny story, though.”</p> +<p>“Well, it wasn’t so humorous for some as it was +for others,” said Cassandra, with a sly glance at +Helen. “The fact is, until you mentioned it yourself, +it never occurred to me that there was much fun in any portion of +the Trojan incident, excepting perhaps the delirium tremens of +old Laocoon, who got no more than he deserved for stealing my +thunder. I had warned Troy against the Greeks, and they all +laughed at me, and said my eye to the future was strabismatic; +that the Greeks couldn’t get into Troy at all, even if they +wanted to. And then the Greeks made a great wooden horse as +a gift for the Trojans, and when I turned my X-ray gaze upon it I +saw that it contained about six brigades of infantry, three +artillery regiments, and sharp-shooters by the score. It +was a sort of military Noah’s Ark; but I knew that the +prejudice against me was so strong that nobody would believe what +I told them. So I said nothing. My prophecies never +came true, they said, failing to observe that my warning as to +what would be was in itself the cause of their +non-fulfilment. But desiring to save Troy, I sent for +Laocoon and told him all about it, and he went out and announced +it as his own private prophecy; and then, having tried to drown +his conscience in strong waters, he fell a victim to the usual +serpentine hallucination, and everybody said he wasn’t +sober, and therefore unworthy of belief. The horse was +accepted, hauled into the city, and that night orders came from +hindquarters to the regiments concealed inside to march. +They marched, and next morning Troy had been removed from the +map; ninety per cent of the Trojans died suddenly, and +Æneas, grabbing up his family in one hand and his gods in +the other, went yachting for several seasons, ultimately settling +down in Italy. All of this could have been avoided if the +Trojans would have taken the hint from my prophecies. They +preferred, however, not to do it, with the result that to-day no +one but Helen and myself knows even where Troy was, and +we’ll never tell.”</p> +<p>“It is all true,” said Helen, proudly. +“I was the woman who was at the bottom of it all, and I can +testify that Cassandra always told the truth, which is why she +was always so unpopular. When anything that was unpleasant +happened, after it was all over she would turn and say, sweetly, +‘I told you so.’ She was the original ‘I +told you so’ nuisance, and of course she had the +newspapyruses down on her, because she never left them any +sensation to spring upon the public. If she had only told a +fib once in a while, the public would have had more confidence in +her.”</p> +<p>“Thank you for your endorsement,” said Cassandra, +with a nod at Helen. “With such testimony I cannot +see how you can refrain from taking my advice in this matter; and +I tell you, ladies, that this man Kidd has made his story up out +of whole cloth; the men of Hades had no more to do with our being +here than we had; they were as much surprised as we are to find +us gone. Kidd himself was not aware of our presence, and +his object in taking us to Paris is to leave us stranded there, +disembodied spirits, vagrant souls with no familiar haunts to +haunt, no place to rest, and nothing before us save perpetual +exile in a world that would have no sympathy for us in our +misfortune, and no belief in our continued existence.”</p> +<p>“But what, then, shall we do?” cried Ophelia, +wringing her hands in despair.</p> +<p>“It is a terrible problem,” said Cleopatra, +anxiously; “and yet it does seem as if our woman’s +instinct ought to show us some way out of our trouble.”</p> +<p>“The Committee on Treachery,” said Delilah, +“has already suggested a chafing-dish party, with Lucretia +Borgia in charge of the lobster Newberg.”</p> +<p>“That is true,” said Lucretia; “but I find, +in going through my reticule, that my maid, for some reason +unknown to me, has failed to renew my supply of poisons. I +shall discharge her on my return home, for she knows that I never +go anywhere without them; but that does not help matters at this +juncture. The sad fact remains that I could prepare a +thousand delicacies for these pirates without fatal +results.”</p> +<p>“You mean immediately fatal, do you not?” +suggested Xanthippe. “I could myself prepare a cake +which would in time reduce our captors to a state of absolute +dependence, but of course the effect is not immediate.”</p> +<p>“We might give a musicale, and let Trilby sing +‘Ben Bolt’ to them,” suggested Marguerite de +Valois, with a giggle.</p> +<p>“Don’t be flippant, please,” said +Portia. “We haven’t time to waste on flippant +suggestions. Perhaps a court-martial of these pirates, +supplemented by a yard-arm, wouldn’t be a bad thing. +I’ll prosecute the case.”</p> +<p>“You forget that you are dealing with immortal +spirits,” observed Cleopatra. “If these +creatures were mortals, hanging them would be all right, and +comparatively easy, considering that we outnumber them ten to +one, and have many resources for getting them, more or less, in +our power, but they are not. They have gone through the +refining process of dissolution once, and there’s an end to +that. Our only resource is in the line of deception, and if +we cannot deceive them, then we have ceased to be +women.”</p> +<p>“That is truly said,” observed Elizabeth. +“And inasmuch as we have already provided ourselves with a +suitable committee for the preparation of our plans of a +deceptive nature, I move, as the easiest possible solution of the +difficulty for the rest of us, that the Committee on Treachery be +requested to go at once into executive session, with orders not +to come out of it until they have suggested a plausible plan of +campaign against our abductors. We must be rid of +them. Let the Committee on Treachery say how.”</p> +<p>“Second the motion,” said Mrs. Noah. +“You are a very clear-headed young woman, Lizzie, and your +grandmother is proud of you.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image170" href="images/p170b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"“You are a very clear-headed young woman, Lizzie,” +said Mrs. Noah" +title= +"“You are a very clear-headed young woman, Lizzie,” +said Mrs. Noah" + src="images/p170s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The Committee on Treachery were about to protest, but the +chair refused to entertain any debate upon the question, which +was put and carried with a storm of approval.</p> +<p>Five minutes later a note was handed through the port, +addressed to Cleopatra, which read as follows:</p> +<blockquote><p>“<span class="smcap">Dear +Madame</span>,—Six bells has just struck, and the officers +and crew are hungry. Will you and your fair companions +co-operate with us in our enterprise by having a hearty dinner +ready within two hours? A speck has appeared on the horizon +which betokens a coming storm, else we would prepare our supper +ourselves. As it is, we feel that your safety depends on +our remaining on deck. If there is any beer on the ice, we +prefer it to tea. Two cases will suffice.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“Yours respectfully,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“<span class="smcap">Henry +Morgan</span>, Bart.; First Mate.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“Hurrah!” cried Cleopatra, as she read this +communication. “I have an idea. Tell the +Committee on Treachery to appear before the full meeting at +once.”</p> +<p>The committee was summoned, and Cleopatra announced her plan +of operation, and it was unanimously adopted; but what it was we +shall have to wait for another chapter to learn.</p> +<h2><a name="page172"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +172</span>XI<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">MAROONED</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">When</span> Captain Holmes arrived upon +deck he seized his glass, and, gazing intently through it for a +moment, perceived that the faithful Shem had not deceived +him. Flying at half-mast from a rude, roughly hewn pole set +upon a rocky height was the black flag, emblem of piracy, and, as +Artemus Ward put it, “with the second joints +reversed.” It was in very truth a signal of +distress.</p> +<p>“I make it a point never to be surprised,” +observed Holmes, as he peered through the glass, “but this +beats me. I didn’t know there was an island of this +nature in these latitudes. Blackstone, go below and pipe +Captain Cook on deck. Perhaps he knows what island that +is.”</p> +<p>“You’ll have to excuse me, Captain Holmes,” +replied the Judge. “I didn’t ship on this +voyage as a cabin-boy or a messenger-boy. Therefore +I—”</p> +<p>“Bonaparte, put the Judge in irons,” interrupted +Holmes, sternly. “I expect to be obeyed, Judge +Blackstone, whether you shipped as a Lord Chief-Justice or a +state-room steward. When I issue an order it must be +obeyed. Step lively there, Bonaparte. Get his honor +ironed and summon your marines. We may have work to do +before night. Hamlet, pipe Captain Cook on deck.”</p> +<p>“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Hamlet, with alacrity, as +he made off.</p> +<p>“That’s the way to obey orders,” said +Holmes, with a scornful glance at Blackstone.</p> +<p>“I was only jesting, Captain,” said the latter, +paling somewhat.</p> +<p>“That’s all right,” said Holmes, taking up +his glass again. “So was I when I ordered you in +irons, and in order that you may appreciate the full force of the +joke I repeat it. Bonaparte, do your duty.”</p> +<p>In an instant the order was obeyed, and the unhappy Judge +shortly found himself manacled and alone in the forecastle. +Meanwhile Captain Cook, in response to the commander’s +order, repaired to the deck and scanned the distant coast.</p> +<p>“I can’t place it,” he said. “It +can’t be Monte Cristo, can it?”</p> +<p>“No, it can’t,” said the Count, who stood +hard by. “My island was in the Mediterranean, and +even if it dragged anchor it couldn’t have got out through +the Strait of Gibraltar.”</p> +<p>“Perhaps it’s Robinson Crusoe’s +island,” suggested Doctor Johnson.</p> +<p>“Not it,” observed De Foe. “If it is, +the rest of you will please keep off. It’s mine, and +I may want to use it again. I’ve been having a number +of interviews with Crusoe latterly, and he’s given me a lot +of new points, which I intend incorporating in a sequel for the +Cimmerian Magazine.”</p> +<p>“Well, in the name of Atlas, what island is it, +then?” roared Holmes, angrily. “What is the +matter with all you learned lubbers that I have brought along on +this trip? Do you suppose I’ve brought you to whistle +up favorable winds? Not by the beard of the Prophet! +I brought you to give me information, and now when I ask for the +name of a simple little island like that in plain sight +there’s not one of you able so much as to guess at it +reasonably. The next man I ask for information goes into +irons with Judge Blackstone if he doesn’t answer me +instantly with the information I want. Munchausen, what +island is that?”</p> +<p>“Ahem! that?” replied Munchausen, trembling, as he +reflected upon the Captain’s threat. +“What? Nobody knows what island that is? Why, +you surprise me—</p> +<p>“See here, Baron,” retorted Holmes, menacingly, +“I ask you a plain question, and I want a plain answer, +with no evasions to gain time. Now it’s irons or an +answer. What island is that?”</p> +<p>“It’s an island that doesn’t appear on any +chart, Captain,” Munchausen responded instantly, pulling +himself together for a mighty effort, “and it has never +been given a name; but as you insist upon having one, we’ll +call it Holmes Island, in your honor. It is not +stationary. It is a floating island of lava formation, and +is a menace to every craft that goes to sea. I spent a year +of my life upon it once, and it is more barren than the desert of +Sahara, because you cannot raise even sand upon it, and it is +devoid of water of any sort, salt or fresh.”</p> +<p>“What did you live on during that year?” asked +Holmes, eying him narrowly.</p> +<p>“Canned food from wrecks,” replied the Baron, +feeling much easier now that he had got a fair +start—“canned food from wrecks, commander. +There is a magnetic property in the upper stratum of this piece +of derelict real estate, sir, which attracts to it every bit of +canned substance that is lost overboard in all parts of the +world. A ship is wrecked, say, in the Pacific Ocean, and +ultimately all the loose metal upon her will succumb to the +irresistible attraction of this magnetic upper stratum, and will +find its way to its shores. So in any other part of the +earth. Everything metallic turns up here sooner or later; +and when you consider that thousands of vessels go down every +year, vessels which are provisioned with tinned foods only, you +will begin to comprehend how many millions of pounds of preserved +salmon, sardines, <i>pâté de foie gras</i>, peaches, +and so on, can be found strewn along its coast.”</p> +<p>“Munchausen,” said Holmes, smiling, “by the +blush upon your cheek, coupled with an occasional uneasy glance +of the eye, I know that for once you are standing upon the, to +you, unfamiliar ground of truth, and I admire you for it. +There is nothing to be ashamed of in telling the truth +occasionally. You are a man after my own heart. Come +below and have a cocktail. Captain Cook, take command of +the <i>Gehenna</i> during my absence; head her straight for +Holmes Island, and when you discover anything new let me +know. Bonaparte, in honor of Munchausen’s remarkable +genius, I proclaim general amnesty to our prisoners, and you may +release Blackstone from his dilemma; and if you have any tin +soldiers among your marines, see that they are lashed to the +rigging. I don’t want this electric island of the +Baron’s to get a grip upon my military force at this +juncture.”</p> +<p>With this Holmes, followed by Munchausen, went below, and the +two worthies were soon deep in the mysteries of a phantom +cocktail, while Doctor Johnson and De Foe gazed mournfully out +over the ocean at the floating island.</p> +<p>“De Foe,” said Johnson “that ought to be a +lesson to you. This realism that you tie up to is all right +when you are alone with your conscience; but when there are great +things afoot, an imagination and a broad view as to the +limitations of truth aren’t at all bad. You or I +might now be drinking that cocktail with Holmes if we’d +only risen to the opportunity the way Munchausen did.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image178" href="images/p178b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"That ought to be a lesson to you" +title= +"That ought to be a lesson to you" + src="images/p178s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“That is true,” said De Foe, sadly. +“But I didn’t suppose he wanted that kind of +information. I could have spun a better yarn than that of +Munchausen’s with my eyes shut. I supposed he wanted +truth, and I gave it.”</p> +<p>“I’d like to know what has become of the +House-boat,” said Raleigh, anxiously gazing through the +glass at the island. “I can see old Henry Morgan +sitting down there on the rocks with his elbows on his knees and +his chin in his hands, and Kidd and Abeuchapeta are standing back +of him, yelling like mad, but there isn’t a boat in +sight.”</p> +<p>“Who is that man, off to the right, dancing a +fandango?” asked Johnson.</p> +<p>“It looks like Conrad, but I can’t tell. He +appears to have gone crazy. He’s got that wild look +on his face which betokens insanity. We’ll have to be +careful in our parleyings with these people,” said +Raleigh.</p> +<p>“Anything new?” asked Holmes, returning to the +deck, smacking his lips in enjoyment of the cocktail.</p> +<p>“No—except that we are almost within hailing +distance,” said Cook.</p> +<p>“Then give orders to cast anchor,” observed +Holmes. “Bonaparte, take a crew of picked men ashore +and bring those pirates aboard. Take the three musketeers +with you, and don’t let Kidd or Morgan give you any back +talk. If they try any funny business, exorcise +them.”</p> +<p>“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Bonaparte, and in a +moment a boat had been lowered and a sturdy crew of sailors were +pulling for the shore. As they came within ten feet of it +the pirates made a mad dash down the rough, rocky hillside and +clamored to be saved.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image180" href="images/p180b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The pirates made a mad dash down the rough, rocky hill-side" +title= +"The pirates made a mad dash down the rough, rocky hill-side" + src="images/p180s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“What’s happened to you?” cried Bonaparte, +ordering the sailors to back water lest the pirates should too +hastily board the boat and swamp her.</p> +<p>“We are marooned,” replied Kidd, “and on an +island of a volcanic nature. There isn’t a square +inch of it that isn’t heated up to 125 degrees, and +seventeen of us have already evaporated. Conrad has lost +his reason; Abeuchapeta has become so tenuous that a child can +see through him. As for myself, I am growing iridescent +with anxiety, and unless I get off this infernal furnace +I’ll disappear like a soap-bubble. For Heaven’s +sake, then, General, take us off, on your own terms. +We’ll accept anything.”</p> +<p>As if in confirmation of Kidd’s words, six of the pirate +crew collapsed and disappeared into thin air, and a glance at +Abeuchapeta was proof enough of his condition. He had +become as clear as crystal, and had it not been for his rugged +outlines he would hardly have been visible even to his +fellow-spirits. As for Kidd, he had taken on the aspect of +a rainbow, and it was patent that his fears for himself were all +too well founded.</p> +<p>Bonaparte embarked the leaders of the band first, returning +subsequently for the others, and repaired with them at once to +the <i>Gehenna</i>, where they were ushered into the presence of +Sherlock Holmes. The first question he asked was as to the +whereabouts of the House-boat.</p> +<p>“That we do not know,” replied Kidd, mournfully, +gazing downward at the wreck of his former self. “We +came ashore, sir, early yesterday morning, in search of +food. It appears that when—acting in a wholly +inexcusable fashion, and influenced, I confess it, by motives of +revenge—I made off with your club-house, I neglected to +ascertain if it were well stocked with provisions, a fatal error; +for when we endeavored to get supper we discovered that the +larder contained but half a bottle of farcie olives, two salted +almonds, and a soda cracker—not a luxurious feast for +sixty-nine pirates and a hundred and eighty-three women to sit +down to.”</p> +<p>“That’s all nonsense,” said +Demosthenes. “The House Committee had provided enough +supper for six hundred people, in anticipation of the appetite of +the members on their return from the fight.”</p> +<p>“Of course they did,” said Confucius; “and +it was a good one, too—salads, salmon glacé, +lobsters—every blessed thing a man can’t get at home +we had; and what is more, they’d been delivered on +board. I saw to that before I went up the river.”</p> +<p>“Then,” moaned Kidd, “it is as I +suspected. We were the victims of base treachery on the +part of those women.”</p> +<p>“Treachery? Well, I like that. Call it +reciprocity,” said Hamlet, dryly.</p> +<p>“We were informed by the ladies that there was nothing +for supper save the items I have already referred to,” said +Kidd. “I see it all now. We had tried to make +them comfortable, and I put myself to some considerable personal +inconvenience to make them easy in their minds, but they were +ungrateful.”</p> +<p>“Whatever induced you to take ’em along with +you?” asked Socrates.</p> +<p>“We didn’t want them,” said Kidd.</p> +<p>“We didn’t know they were on board until it was +too late to turn back. They’d broken in, and were +having the club all to themselves in your absence.”</p> +<p>“It served you good and right,” said Socrates, +with a laugh. “Next time you try to take things that +don’t belong to you, maybe you’ll be a trifle more +careful as to whose property you confiscate.”</p> +<p>“But the House-boat—you haven’t told us how +you lost her,” put in Raleigh, impatiently.</p> +<p>“Well, it was this way,” said Kidd. +“When, in response to our polite request for supper, the +ladies said there was nothing to eat on board, something had to +be done, for we were all as hungry as bears, and we decided to go +ashore at the first port and provision. Unfortunately the +crew got restive, and when this floating frying-pan loomed into +view, to keep them good-natured we decided to land and see if we +could beg, borrow, or steal some supplies. We had to. +Observations taken with the sextant showed that there was no port +within five hundred miles; the island looked as if it might be +inhabited at least by goats, and ashore we went, every man of us, +leaving the House-boat safely anchored in the harbor. At +first we didn’t mind the heat, and we hunted and hunted and +hunted; but after three or four hours I began to notice that +three of my sailors were shrivelling up, and Conrad began to act +as if he were daft. Hawkins burst right before my +eyes. Then Abeuchapeta got prismatic around the eyes and +began to fade, and I noticed a slight iridescence about myself; +and as for Morgan, he had the misfortune to lie down to take a +nap in the sun, and when he waked up, his whole right side had +evaporated. Then we saw what the trouble was. +We’d struck this lava island, and were gradually succumbing +to its intense heat. We rushed madly back to the harbor to +embark; and our ship, gentlemen, and your House-boat, was slowly +but surely disappearing over the horizon, and flying from the +flag-staff at the fore were signals of farewell, with an +unfeeling P.S. below to this effect: ‘<i>Don’t wait +up for us</i>. <i>We may not be back until +late</i>.’”</p> +<p>There was a pause, during which Socrates laughed quietly to +himself, while Abeuchapeta and the one-sided Morgan wept +silently.</p> +<p>“That, gentlemen of the Associated Shades, is all I know +of the whereabouts of the House-boat,” continued Captain +Kidd. “I have no doubt that the ladies practised a +deception, to our discomfiture, and I must say that I think it +was exceedingly clever—granting that it was desirable to be +rid of us, which I don’t, for we meant well by them, and +they would have enjoyed themselves.”</p> +<p>“But,” cried Hamlet, “may they not now be in +peril? They cannot navigate that ship.”</p> +<p>“They got her out of the harbor all right,” said +Kidd. “And I judged from the figure at the helm that +Mrs. Noah had taken charge. What kind of a seaman she is I +don’t know.”</p> +<p>“Almighty bad,” ejaculated Shem, turning +pale. “It was she who ran us ashore on +Ararat.”</p> +<p>“Well, wasn’t that what you wanted?” queried +Munchausen.</p> +<p>“What we wanted!” cried Shem. “Well, I +guess not. You don’t want your yacht stranded on a +mountain-top, do you? She was a dead loss there, whereas if +mother hadn’t been in such a hurry to get ashore, we could +have waited a month and landed on the seaboard.”</p> +<p>“You might have turned her into a summer hotel,” +suggested Munchausen.</p> +<p>“Well, we must up anchor and away,” said +Holmes. “Our pursuit has merely begun, +apparently. We must overtake this vessel, and the question +to be answered is—where?”</p> +<p>“That’s easy,” said Artemus Ward. +“From what Shem says, I think we’d better look for +her in the Himalayas.”</p> +<p>“And, meanwhile, what shall be done with Kidd?” +asked Holmes.</p> +<p>“He ought to be expelled from the club,” said +Johnson.</p> +<p>“We can’t expel him, because he’s not a +member,” replied Raleigh.</p> +<p>“Then elect him,” suggested Ward.</p> +<p>“What on earth for?” growled Johnson.</p> +<p>“So that we can expel him,” said Ward. And +while Boswell’s hero was trying to get the value of this +notion through his head, the others repaired to the deck, and the +<i>Gehenna</i> was soon under way once more. Meanwhile +Captain Kidd and his fellows were put in irons and stowed away in +the forecastle, alongside of the water-cask in which Shylock lay +in hiding.</p> +<h2><a name="page189"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +189</span>XII<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">THE ESCAPE AND THE END</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">If</span> there was anxiety on board of +the <i>Gehenna</i> as to the condition and whereabouts of the +House-boat, there was by no means less uneasiness upon that +vessel itself. Cleopatra’s scheme for ridding herself +and her abducted sisters of the pirates had worked to a charm, +but, having worked thus, a new and hitherto undreamed-of problem, +full of perplexities bearing upon their immediate safety, now +confronted them. The sole representative of a seafaring +family on board was Mrs. Noah, and it did not require much time +to see that her knowledge as to navigation was of an extremely +primitive order, limited indeed to the science of floating.</p> +<p>When the last pirate had disappeared behind the rocks of +Holmes Island, and all was in readiness for action, the good old +lady, who had hitherto been as calm and unruffled as a child, +began to get red in the face and to bustle about in a manner +which betrayed considerable perturbation of spirit.</p> +<p>“Now, Mrs. Noah,” said Cleopatra, as, peeping out +from the billiard-room window, she saw Morgan disappearing in the +distance, “the coast is clear, and I resign my position of +chairman to you. We place the vessel in your hands, and +ourselves subject to your orders. You are in command. +What do you wish us to do?”</p> +<p>“Very well,” replied Mrs. Noah, putting down her +knitting and starting for the deck. “I’m not +certain, but I think the first thing to do is to get her +moving. Do you know, I’ve never discovered whether +this boat was a steamboat or a sailing-vessel? Does anybody +know?”</p> +<p>“I think it has a naphtha tank and a propeller,” +said Elizabeth, “although I don’t know. It +seems to me my brother Raleigh told me they’d had a naphtha +engine put in last winter after the freshet, when the House-boat +was carried ten miles down the river, and had to be towed back at +enormous expense. They put it in so that if she were +carried away again she could get back of her own +power.”</p> +<p>“That’s unfortunate,” said Mrs. Noah, +“because I don’t know anything about these new +fangled notions. If there’s any one here who knows +anything about naphtha engines, I wish they’d +speak.”</p> +<p>“I’m of the opinion,” said Portia, +“that I can study out the theory of it in a short +while.”</p> +<p>“Very well, then,” said Mrs. Noah, “you can +do it. I’ll appoint you engineer, and give you all +your orders now, right away, in advance. Set her going and +keep her going, and don’t stop without a written order +signed by me. We might as well be very careful, and have +everything done properly, and it might happen that in the +excitement of our trip you would misunderstand my spoken orders +and make a fatal error. Therefore, pay no attention to +unwritten orders. That will do for you for the +present. Xanthippe, you may take Ophelia and Madame +Récamier, and ten other ladies, and, every morning before +breakfast, swab the larboard deck. Cassandra, Tuesdays you +will devote to polishing the brasses in the dining-room, and the +balance of your time I wish you to expend in dusting the +bric-a-brac. Dido, you always were strong at building +fires. I’ll make you chief stoker. You will +also assist Lucretia Borgia in the kitchen. Inasmuch as the +latter’s maid has neglected to supply her with the usual +line of poisons, I think we can safely entrust to +Lucretia’s hands the responsibilities of the culinary +department.”</p> +<p>“I’m perfectly willing to do anything I +can,” said Lucretia, “but I must confess that I +don’t approve of your methods of commanding a ship. A +ship’s captain isn’t a domestic martinet, as you are +setting out to be. We didn’t appoint you +housekeeper.”</p> +<p>“Now, my child,” said Mrs. Noah, firmly, “I +do not wish any words. If I hear any more impudence from +you, I’ll put you ashore without a reference; and the rest +of you I would warn in all kindness that I will not tolerate +insubordination. You may, all of you, have one night of the +week and alternate Sundays off, but your work must be done. +The regimen I am adopting is precisely that in vogue on the Ark, +only I didn’t have the help I have now, and things got into +very bad shape. We were out forty days, and, while the food +was poor and the service execrable, we never lost a +life.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image192" href="images/p192b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"“Now, my child,” said Mrs. Noah, firmly, “I do +not wish any words”" +title= +"“Now, my child,” said Mrs. Noah, firmly, “I do +not wish any words”" + src="images/p192s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The boat gave a slight tremor.</p> +<p>“Hurrah!” cried Elizabeth, clapping her hands with +glee, “we are off!”</p> +<p>“I will repair to the deck and get our bearings,” +said Mrs. Noah, putting her shawl over her shoulders. +“Meantime, Cleopatra, I appoint you first mate. See +that things are tidied up a bit here before I return. Have +the windows washed, and to-morrow I want all the rugs and carpets +taken up and shaken.”</p> +<p>Portia meanwhile had discovered the naphtha engine, and, after +experimenting several times with the various levers and +stop-cocks, had finally managed to move one of them in such a way +as to set the engine going, and the wheel began to revolve.</p> +<p>“Are we going all right?” she cried, from +below.</p> +<p>“I am afraid not,” said the gallant +commander. “The wheel is roiling up the water at a +great rate, but we don’t seem to be going ahead very +fast—in fact, we’re simply moving round and round as +though we were on a pivot.”</p> +<p>“I’m afraid we’re aground amidships,” +said Xanthippe, gazing over the side of the House-boat +anxiously. “She certainly acts that way—like a +merry-go-round.”</p> +<p>“Well, there’s something wrong,” said Mrs. +Noah; “and we’ve got to hurry and find out what it +is, or those men will be back and we shall be as badly off as +ever.”</p> +<p>“Maybe this has something to do with it,” observed +Mrs. Lot, pointing to the anchor rope. “It looks to +me as if those horrid men had tied us fast.”</p> +<p>“That’s just what it is,” snapped Mrs. +Noah. “They guessed our plan, and have fastened us to +a pole or something, but I imagine we can untie it.”</p> +<p>Portia, who had come on deck, gave a short little laugh.</p> +<p>“Why, of course we don’t move,” she +said—“we are anchored!”</p> +<p>“What’s that?” queried Mrs. Noah. +“We never had an experience like that on the +Ark.”</p> +<p>Portia explained the science of the anchor.</p> +<p>“What nonsense!” ejaculated Mrs. Noah. +“How can we get away from it?”</p> +<p>“We’ve got to pull it up,” said +Portia. “Order all hands on deck and have it pulled +up.”</p> +<p>“It can’t be done, and, if it could, I +wouldn’t have it!” said Mrs. Noah, indignantly. +“The idea! Lifting heavy pieces of iron, my dear +Portia, is not a woman’s work. Send for Delilah, and +let her cut the rope with her scissors.”</p> +<p>“It would take her a week to cut a hawser like +that,” said Elizabeth, who had been investigating. +“It would be more to the purpose, I think, to chop it in +two with an axe.”</p> +<p>“Very well,” replied Mrs. Noah, satisfied. +“I don’t care how it is done as long as it is done +quickly. It would never do for us to be recaptured +now.”</p> +<p>The suggestion of Elizabeth was carried out, and the queen +herself cut the hawser with six well-directed strokes of the +axe.</p> +<p>“You <i>are</i> an expert with it, aren’t +you?” smiled Cleopatra.</p> +<p>“I am, indeed,” replied Elizabeth, grimly. +“I had it suspended over my head for so long a time before +I got to the throne that I couldn’t help familiarizing +myself with some of its possibilities.”</p> +<p>“Ah!” cried Mrs. Noah, as the vessel began to +move. “I begin to feel easier. It looks now as +if we were really off.”</p> +<p>“It seems to me, though,” said Cleopatra, gazing +forward, “that we are going backward.”</p> +<p>“Oh, well, what if we are!” said Mrs. Noah. +“We did that on the Ark half the time. It +doesn’t make any difference which way we are going as long +as we go, does it?”</p> +<p>“Why, of course it does!” cried Elizabeth. +“What can you be thinking of? People who walk +backward are in great danger of running into other people. +Why not the same with ships? It seems to me, it’s a +very dangerous piece of business, sailing backward.”</p> +<p>“Oh, nonsense,” snapped Mrs. Noah. +“You are as timid as a zebra. During the Flood, we +sailed days and days and days, going backward. It +didn’t make a particle of difference how we went—it +was as safe one way as another, and we got just as far away in +the end. Our main object now is to get away from the +pirates, and that’s what we are doing. Don’t +get emotional, Lizzie, and remember, too, that I am in +charge. If I think the boat ought to go sideways, sideways +she shall go. If you don’t like it, it is still not +too late to put you ashore.”</p> +<p>The threat calmed Elizabeth somewhat, and she was satisfied, +and all went well with them, even if Portia had started the +propeller revolving reverse fashion; so that the House-boat was, +as Elizabeth had said, backing her way through the ocean.</p> +<p>The day passed, and by slow degrees the island and the +marooned pirates faded from view, and the night came on, and with +it a dense fog.</p> +<p>“We’re going to have a nasty night, I am +afraid,” said Xanthippe, looking anxiously out of the +port.</p> +<p>“No doubt,” said Mrs. Noah, pleasantly. +“I’m sorry for those who have to be out in +it.”</p> +<p>“That’s what I was thinking about,” observed +Xanthippe. “It’s going to be very hard on us +keeping watch.”</p> +<p>“Watch for what?” demanded Mrs. Noah, looking over +the tops of her glasses at Xanthippe.</p> +<p>“Why, surely you are going to have lookouts stationed on +deck?” said Elizabeth.</p> +<p>“Not at all,” said Mrs. Noah. +“Perfectly absurd. We never did it on the Ark, and it +isn’t necessary now. I want you all to go to bed at +ten o’clock. I don’t think the night air is +good for you. Besides, it isn’t proper for a woman to +be out after dark, whether she’s new or not.”</p> +<p>“But, my dear Mrs. Noah,” expostulated Cleopatra, +“what will become of the ship?”</p> +<p>“I guess she’ll float through the night whether we +are on deck or not,” said the commander. “The +Ark did, why not this? Now, girls, these new-fangled +yachting notions are all nonsense. It’s night, and +there’s a fog as thick as a stone-wall all about us. +If there were a hundred of you upon deck with ten eyes apiece, +you couldn’t see anything. You might much better be +in bed. As your captain, chaperon, and grandmother, I +command you to stay below.”</p> +<p>“But—who is to steer?” queried +Xanthippe.</p> +<p>“What’s the use of steering until we can see where +to steer to?” demanded Mrs. Noah. “I certainly +don’t intend to bother with that tiller until some reason +for doing it arises. We haven’t any place to steer to +yet; we don’t know where we are going. Now, my dear +children, be reasonable, and don’t worry me. +I’ve had a very hard day of it, and I feel my +responsibilities keenly. Just let me manage, and +we’ll come out all right. I’ve had more +experience than any of you, and if—”</p> +<p>A terrible crash interrupted the old lady’s +remarks. The House-boat shivered and shook, careened way to +one side, and as quickly righted and stood still. A mad +rush up the gangway followed, and in a moment a hundred and +eighty-three pale-faced, trembling women stood upon the deck, +gazing with horror at a great helpless hulk ten feet to the rear, +fastened by broken ropes and odd pieces of rigging to the +stern-posts of the House-boat, sinking slowly but surely into the +sea.</p> +<p>It was the <i>Gehenna</i>!</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image200" href="images/p200b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"A great helpless hulk ten feet to the rear" +title= +"A great helpless hulk ten feet to the rear" + src="images/p200s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The House-boat had run her down and her last hour had come, +but, thanks to the stanchness of her build and wonderful beam, +the floating club-house had withstood the shock of the impact and +now rode the waters as gracefully as ever.</p> +<p>Portia was the first to realize the extent of the catastrophe, +and in a short while chairs and life-preservers and +tables—everything that could float—had been tossed +into the sea to the struggling immortals therein. On board +the <i>Gehenna</i>, those who had not cast themselves into the +waters, under the cool direction of Holmes and Bonaparte, calmly +lowered the boats, and in a short while were not only able to +felicitate themselves upon their safety, but had likewise the +good fortune to rescue their more impetuous brethren who had +preferred to swim for it. Ultimately, all were brought +aboard the House-boat in safety, and the men in Hades were once +more reunited to their wives, daughters, sisters, and +<i>fiancées</i>, and Elizabeth had the satisfaction of +once more saving the life of Raleigh by throwing him her ruff as +she had done a year or so previously, when she and her brother +had been upset in the swift current of the river Styx.</p> +<p>Order and happiness being restored, Holmes took command of the +House-boat and soon navigated her safely back into her old-time +berth. The <i>Gehenna</i> went to the bottom and was never +seen again, and when the roll was called it was found that all +who had set out upon her had returned in safety save Shylock, +Kidd, Sir Henry Morgan, and Abeuchapeta; but even they were not +lost, for, five weeks later, these four worthies were found early +one morning drifting slowly up the river Styx, gazing anxiously +out from the top of a water-cask and yelling lustily for +help.</p> +<p>And here endeth the chronicle of the pursuit of the good old +House-boat. Back to her moorings, the even tenor of her +ways was once more resumed, but with one slight difference.</p> +<p>The ladies became eligible for membership, and, availing +themselves of the privilege, began to think less and less of the +advantages of being men and to rejoice that, after all, they were +women; and even Xanthippe and Socrates, after that night of +peril, reconciled their differences, and no longer quarrel as to +which is the more entitled to wear the toga of authority. +It has become for them a divided skirt.</p> +<p>As for Kidd and his fellows, they have never recovered from +the effects of their fearful, though short, exile upon Holmes +Island, and are but shadows of their former shades; whereas Mr. +Sherlock Holmes has so endeared himself to his new-found friends +that he is quite as popular with them as he is with us, who have +yet to cross the dark river and be subjected to the scrutiny of +the Committee on Membership at the House-boat on the Styx.</p> +<p>Even Hawkshaw has been able to detect his genius.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">THE END</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> + +<div class="gapmediumline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">PRINTED BY +WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">LONDON AND BECCLES, ENGLAND</span></p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PURSUIT OF THE HOUSE-BOAT***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 3169-h.htm or 3169-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/1/6/3169 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive +specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this +eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook +for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, +performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given +away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks +not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the +trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. + +START: FULL LICENSE + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full +Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at +www.gutenberg.org/license. + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or +destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your +possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a +Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound +by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the +person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph +1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this +agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the +Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection +of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual +works in the collection are in the public domain in the United +States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the +United States and you are located in the United States, we do not +claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, +displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as +all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope +that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting +free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm +works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the +Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily +comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the +same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when +you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are +in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, +check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this +agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, +distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any +other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no +representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any +country outside the United States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other +immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear +prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work +on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, +performed, viewed, copied or distributed: + + This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and + most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no + restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it + under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this + eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the + United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you + are located before using this ebook. + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is +derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not +contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the +copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in +the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are +redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply +either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or +obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm +trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any +additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms +will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works +posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the +beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including +any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access +to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format +other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official +version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site +(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense +to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means +of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain +Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the +full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +provided that + +* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed + to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has + agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid + within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are + legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty + payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in + Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg + Literary Archive Foundation." + +* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all + copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue + all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm + works. + +* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of + any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of + receipt of the work. + +* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than +are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing +from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The +Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm +trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project +Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may +contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate +or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or +other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or +cannot be read by your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium +with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you +with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in +lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person +or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second +opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If +the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing +without further opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO +OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of +damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement +violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the +agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or +limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or +unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the +remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in +accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the +production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, +including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of +the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this +or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or +additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any +Defect you cause. + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of +computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It +exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations +from people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future +generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see +Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at +www.gutenberg.org + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by +U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the +mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its +volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous +locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt +Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to +date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and +official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +For additional contact information: + + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND +DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular +state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To +donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search +facility: www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +</pre></body> +</html> |