is the way it was. I had just got on my shoes and pants and shirt,
and had started to get out of the bunk. There I was, sitting on the edge
of the bunk, my legs dangling down, when the locomotives came together.
The berths, upper and lower, on the opposite side had already been made
up by the porter.

"And there I was, sitting, legs dangling, not knowing where I was, on a
trestle or a flat, when the thing happened. I just naturally left that
upper berth, soared like a bird across the aisle, went through the glass
of the window on the opposite side clean head-first, turned over and over
through the ninety feet of fall more times than I like to remember, and
by some sort of miracle was mostly flat-out in the air when I bull's-eyed
that pool of water. It was only eighteen inches deep. But I hit it
flat, and I hit it so hard that it must have cushioned me. I was the
only survivor of my car. It struck forty feet away from me, off to the
side. And they took only the dead out of it. When they took me out of
the pool I wasn't dead by any means. And when the surgeons got done with
me, there were the fingers gone from my hand, that scar down the side of
my face . . . and, though you'd never guess it, I've been three ribs
short of the regular complement ever since.

"Oh, I had no complaint coming. Think of the others in that car--all
dead. Unfortunately, I was riding on a pass, and so could not sue the
railroad company. But here I am, the only man who ever dived ninety feet
into eighteen inches of water and lived to tell the tale.--Steward, if
you don't mind replenishing my glass . . . "

Dag Daughtry complied and in his excitement of interest pulled off the
top of another quart of beer for himself.

"Go on, go on, sir," he murmured huskily, wiping his lips, "and the
treasure-hunting graft. I'm straight dying to hear. Sir, I salute you."

"I may say, steward," the Ancient Mariner resumed, "that I was born with
a silver spoon that melted in my mouth and left me a proper prodigal son.
Also, that I was born with a backbone of pride that would not melt. Not
for a paltry railroad accident, but for things long before as well as
after, my family let me die, and I . . . I let it live. That is the
story. I let my family live. Furthermore, it was not my family's fault.
I never whimpered. I never let on. I melted the last of my silver
spoon--South Sea cotton, an' it please you, cacao in Tonga, rubber and
mahogany in