f saleratus."

Hearing a strange voice, the cook, who was the captain's trusted
confidant, came out. He was recognized by the ubiquitous Byle.

"Abe Sheldrake! as sure as ham is hog's flesh! Abe, if there's an
onrier man than you on earth, the bottomless pit is shaller."

The cook stood speechless, and the tall man sauntered leisurely
through the several apartments of the boat, calculating their
dimensions and inspecting the furniture, and pausing occasionally to
handle such articles as appealed to his curiosity. He passed through
the kitchen into the dining-room, and thence through both the
sleeping-chambers, finally emerging from a door at the bow of the
boat, after which he ascended to the roof, where he accosted Burr and
Arlington.

"How d'ye do? My name is Byle; Plutarch Byle--B-y-l-e. I can't call
your names, gents, but no matter. We all belong to the same human
race. I thought you might be a little bored-like with your own
talk--so long together you know--and I hopped on to cheer you up.
George Washington used to say to his nephew, 'Be courteous to all, but
intimate with few,' and George was half right. I admire a mannerly
man. How goes it?"

The familiarity of this overture puzzled, but did not offend the
travellers, who conceived that chance had thrown into their presence
an original whose company might afford them an hour's entertainment.
Arlington politely offered the visitor a chair.

"No, thank you, stranger. I've been setting in the skiff all day,
fishing, and I'd rather stand up and stretch my bones."

The gentlemen thought, when they saw Mr. Byle throw back his arms, and
gradually straighten up his towering body, that the length and
thickness of bone he had to stretch were extraordinary.

"I've got a lot of mussel shells in my boat for Mr. Blennerhatchet.
Would you like to see 'em? '_Union-idea_,' he says they are. He's a
queer customer, that Blennerhatchet."

"You know him then?" asked Burr.

"Know him! I know him like a book. I know him better than I do you. He
is not so good-looking as either of us, by ginger. I can't make out
why the Rose of Sharon ever took to a near-sighted United Irishman."

"The Rose of Sharon?"

"I mean his old woman--Mrs. B. She's a perfect lady. Pretty! Pretty
as a sassafras tree in October! I didn't just catch your names,
gentlemen. I like to call a man by his Christian name. It seems more
sociable. That's one thing I like about the French--sociability. They
g