hootin' wild geese, and I'm blessed if he didn't send
me orders to get him one for a dinner he was goin' to give. Didn't
ask--_ordered_ me to do it, you understand. And him nothin' but a
consignee, with no more control over me than the average female
Sunday-school teacher has over a class of boys. Not so much, because
she's supposed to have official authority, and he wa'n't. _And_ he
didn't invite me to the dinner.

"Well, the next time my friend, the ex-consul, and I went out gunnin',
I told him of the Englishman's 'orders.' He was mad. 'What are you goin'
to do about it?' he asks. 'Don't know yet,' says I, 'we'll see.' By and
by we come in sight of one of them long-legged cranes, big birds you
know, standin' fishin' at the edge of some reeds. I up with my gun and
shot it. The consul chap looked at me as if I was crazy. 'What in the
world did you kill that fish-basket on stilts for?' he says. 'Son,'
says I, 'your eyesight is bad. That's a British-American goose. Chop off
about three feet of neck and a couple of fathom of hind legs and pick
and clean what's left, and I shouldn't wonder if 'twould make a good
dinner for a mutual friend of ours--good _enough_, anyhow.' Well, sir!
that ex-consul set plump down in the mud and laughed and laughed. Ho,
ho! Oh, dear me!"

"Did you send it to the Englishman?" asked Sylvester.

"Oh, yes, I sent it. And, after a good while and in a roundabout way, I
heard that the whole dinner party vowed 'twas the best wild goose
they ever ate. So I ain't sure just who the joke was on. However, I'm
satisfied with my end. Well, there! I guess you must think I'm pretty
talky on short acquaintance, Mr. Sylvester. You'll have to excuse me;
that caviar set me to thinkin' about old times."

His host was shaking all over. "Go ahead, Captain," he cried. "Got any
more as good as that?"

But Captain Elisha merely smiled and shook his head.

"Don't get me started on Mexico," he observed. "I'm liable to yarn
all the rest of the afternoon. Let's see, we was goin' to talk over my
brother's business a little mite, wa'n't we?"

"Why, yes, we should. Now, Captain Warren, just how much do you know
about your late brother's affairs?"

"Except what Mr. Graves told me, nothin' of importance. And, afore we go
any further, let me ask a question. Do _you_ know why 'Bije made me his
executor and guardian and all the rest of it?"

"I do not. Graves drew his will, and so, of course, we knew of your
existence an