paper.

"First of all we'll try the book," observed the doctor.

The squire and I were both peering over his shoulder as he opened it,
for Doctor Livesey had kindly motioned me to come round from the
side-table, where I had been eating, to enjoy the sport of the search.
On the first page there were only some scraps of writing, such as a man
with a pen in his hand might make for idleness or practice. One was the
same as the tattoo mark, "Billy Bones his fancy"; then there was "Mr. W.
Bones, mate," "No more rum," "Off Palm Key he got itt," and some other
snatches, mostly single words and unintelligible. I could not help
wondering who it was that had "got itt," and what "itt" was that he got.
A knife in his back as like as not.

"Not much instruction there," said Doctor Livesey, as he passed on.

The next ten or twelve pages were filled with a curious series of
entries. There was a date at one end of the line and at the other a sum
of money, as in common account-books; but instead of explanatory
writing, only a varying number of crosses between the two. On the 12th
of June, 1745, for instance, a sum of seventy pounds had plainly become
due to someone, and there was nothing but six crosses to explain the
cause. In a few cases, to be sure, the name of a place would be added,
as "Offe Caraccas"; or a mere entry of latitude and longitude, as "62
deg. 17' 20", 19 deg. 2' 40"."

The record lasted over nearly twenty years, the amount of the separate
entries growing larger as time went on, and at the end a grand total had
been made out, after five or six wrong additions, and these words
appended, "Bones, his pile."

"I can't make head or tail of this," said Doctor Livesey.

"The thing is as clear as noonday," cried the squire. "This is the
black-hearted hound's account-book. These crosses stand for the names of
ships or towns that they sank or plundered. The sums are the scoundrel's
share, and where he feared an ambiguity, you see he added something
clearer. 'Offe Caraccas,' now; you see, here was some unhappy vessel
boarded off that coast. God help the poor souls that manned her--coral
long ago."

"Right!" said the doctor. "See what it is to be a traveler. Right! And
the amounts increase, you see, as he rose in rank."

There was little else in the volume but a few bearings of places noted
in the blank leaves toward the end, and a table for reducing French,
English, and Spanish moneys to a common value.

"Thrifty man