o go into the matter any further, and I was left
on tenter-hooks of curiosity.

"However, the very next day I got Raggerton alone in the smoking-room,
and had a little talk with him. He had just dropped a hundred pounds on
a double event that hadn't come off, and I expected to find him pliable.
Nor was I disappointed, for, when we had negotiated a little loan, he
was entirely at my service, and willing to tell me everything, on my
promising not to give him away to Alfred.

"'Now, you understand,' he said, 'that this yarn about your pearl is
nothing but a damn silly fable that's been going the round in
Marseilles. I don't know where it came from, or what sort of demented
rotter invented it; I had it from a Johnnie in the Mediterranean
Squadron, and you can have a copy of his letter if you want it.'

"I said that I did want it. Accordingly, that same evening he handed me
a copy of the narrative extracted from his friend's letter, the
substance of which was this:

"About four months ago there was lying in Canton Harbour a large English
barque. Her name is not mentioned, but that is not material to the
story. She had got her cargo stowed and her crew signed on, and was only
waiting for certain official formalities to be completed before putting
to sea on her homeward voyage. Just ahead of her, at the same quay, was
a Danish ship that had been in collision outside, and was now laid up
pending the decision of the Admiralty Court. She had been unloaded, and
her crew paid off, with the exception of one elderly man, who remained
on board as ship-keeper. Now, a considerable part of the cargo of the
English barque was the property of a certain wealthy mandarin, and this
person had been about the vessel a good deal while she was taking in her
lading.

"One day, when the mandarin was on board the barque, it happened that
three of the seamen were sitting in the galley smoking and chatting with
the cook--an elderly Chinaman named Wo-li--and the latter, pointing out
the mandarin to the sailors, expatiated on his enormous wealth, assuring
them that he was commonly believed to carry on his person articles of
sufficient value to buy up the entire lading of a ship.

"Now, unfortunately for the mandarin, it chanced that these three
sailors were about the greatest rascals on board; which is saying a good
deal when one considers the ordinary moral standard that prevails in the
forecastle of a sailing-ship. Nor was Wo-li himself an angel