lish your superiority over his skill and wisdom?

The ship that brought me home was captained by an erratic Swede, who
changed his course and deposited me, with genuine compassion, in
a small town on the Pacific coast of one of the Central American
republics, a few hundred miles south of the port to which he had
engaged to convey me. But I was wearied of movement and exotic
fancies; so I leaped contentedly upon the firm sands of the village of
Mojada, telling myself I should be sure to find there the rest that I
craved. After all, far better to linger there (I thought), lulled by
the sedative plash of the waves and the rustling of palm-fronds, than
to sit upon the horsehair sofa of my parental home in the East, and
there, cast down by currant wine and cake, and scourged by fatuous
relatives, drivel into the ears of gaping neighbors sad stories of the
death of colonial governors.

When I first saw Chloe Greene she was standing, all in white, in the
doorway of her father's tile-roofed 'dobe house. She was polishing
a silver cup with a cloth, and she looked like a pearl laid against
black velvet. She turned on me a flatteringly protracted but a
wiltingly disapproving gaze, and then went inside, humming a light
song to indicate the value she placed upon my existence.

Small wonder: for Dr. Stamford (the most disreputable professional
man between Juneau and Valparaiso) and I were zigzagging along the
turfy street, tunelessly singing the words of "Auld Lang Syne" to the
air of "Muzzer's Little Coal-Black Coon." We had come from the ice
factory, which was Mojada's palace of wickedness, where we had been
playing billiards and opening black bottles, white with frost, that
we dragged with strings out of old Sandoval's ice-cold vats.

I turned in sudden rage to Dr. Stamford, as sober as the verger of a
cathedral. In a moment I had become aware that we were swine cast
before a pearl.

"You beast," I said, "this is half your doing. And the other half
is the fault of this cursed country. I'd better have gone back to
Sleepy-town and died in a wild orgy of currant wine and buns than to
have had this happen."

Stamford filled the empty street with his roaring laughter.

"You too!" he cried. "And all as quick as the popping of a cork.
Well, she does seem to strike agreeably upon the retina. But don't
burn your fingers. All Mojada will tell you that Louis Devoe is the
man.

"We will see about that," said I. "And, perhaps, wh