r grinned assent.

"After the old man had turned him down for good, Slade fished down in his
warbag and hauled out an old tattered document from an oilskin case.
'Hold on a minute,' said he, 'you old shellback. I've proved to you that
I can write; and I've proved to you that I have fought, and now here I'll
prove to you that I can sail. If writing, fighting, and sailing don't fit
me adequately to report any little disturbances your antiquated
washboiler may blunder into, I'll go to raising cabbages.' With that he
presented a master's certificate! Where did you get it, anyway? I never
found out."

"Passed as 'fresh-water' on the Great Lakes," replied Slade briefly.

"Well, the spunk and the certificate finished the captain. He was an old
square rigger himself in the Civil War."

"So much for myself," Slade continued. "As for the _Laughing
Lass_----"

PART TWO

THE BRASS BOUND CHEST

_Being the story told by Ralph Slade, Free Lance, to the officers of
the United States cruiser Wolverine_.

I

THE BARBARY COAST

A coincidence got me aboard her. I'll tell you how it was. One evening
late I was just coming out of a dark alley on the Barbary Coast, San
Francisco. You know--the water front, where you can hear more tongues
than at Port Said, see stranger sights, and meet adventure with the
joyous certainty of mediaeval times. I'd been down there hunting up a man
reported, by a wharf-rat of my acquaintance, to have just returned from a
two years' whaling voyage. He'd been "shanghaied" aboard, and as a matter
of fact, was worth nearly a million dollars. Landed in the city without a
cent, could get nobody to believe him, nor trust him to the extent of a
telegram East. Wharf-rat laughed at his yarn; but I believe it was true.
Good copy anyway----

Just at the turn of the alley I nearly bumped into two men. On the
Barbary Coast you don't pass men in narrow places until you have
reconnoitered a little. I pulled up, thanking fortune that they had not
seen me. The first words were uttered in a voice I knew well.

You've all heard of Dr. Karl Augustus Schermerhorn. He did some big
things, and had in mind still bigger. I'd met him some time before in
connection with his telepathy and wireless waves theory. It was
picturesque stuff for my purpose, but wasn't in it with what the old
fellow had really done. He showed me--well, that doesn't matter. The
point is, that good, staid, self-centred, or rather