berty, and the
poor wretch maintained himself for many a day as a wandering minstrel.
At last he managed to get on board of a Spanish vessel, and was never
more heard of, but he left his guitar behind him. It was picked up on
the shore, where he left it, probably, in his haste to get away.

"The truth of this story, of course, I cannot vouch for," concluded Mr
Donnithorne, with a smile, "but I have told it to you as nearly as
possible in the words in which I have often heard my grandfather give
it--and as for the guitar, why, here it is, having been sold to me by a
descendant of the man who found it on the seashore."

"A wonderful story indeed," said Oliver--"_if true_."

"The guitar you must admit is at least a fact," said the old gentleman.

Oliver not only admitted this, but said it was a sweet-sounding fact,
and was proceeding to comment further on the subject when Mr
Donnithorne interrupted him--

"By the way, talking of sweet sounds, have you heard what that
gruff-voiced scoundrel Maggot--that roaring bull of Bashan--has been
about lately?"

"No, I have not," said Oliver, who saw that the old gentleman's ire was
rising.

"Ha! lad, that man ought to be hanged. He is an arrant knave, a
smuggler--a--an ungrateful rascal. Why, sir, you'll scarcely believe
it: he has come to me and demanded more money for the jewels which he
and his comrade sold me in fair and open bargain, and because I refused,
and called him a few well-merited names, he has actually gone and given
information against me as possessor of treasure, which of right, so they
say, belongs to Government, and last night I had a letter which tells me
that the treasure, as they call it, must be delivered up without delay,
on pain of I don't know what penalties. Penalties, forsooth! as if I
hadn't been punished enough already by the harassing curtain-lectures of
my over-scrupulous wife, ever since the unlucky day when the baubles
were found, not to mention the uneasy probings of my own conscience,
which, to say truth, I had feared was dead altogether owing to the
villainous moral atmosphere of this smuggling place, but which I find
quite lively and strong yet--a matter of some consolation too, for
although I do have a weakness for cheap 'baccy and brandy, being of an
economical turn of mind, I don't like the notion of getting rid of my
conscience altogether. But, man, 'tis hard to bear!"

Poor Mr Donnithorne stopped here, partly owing to shortness