ear of a purist."

"This is no time to discuss style, Murray," interposed Sir Walter.
"Socrates may speak and spell like Chaucer if he pleases; he may even part
his infinitives in the middle, for all I care. We have affairs of greater
moment in hand."

"We must ransack the earth," cried Socrates, "until we find that boat. I'm
dry as a fish."

"There he goes again!" growled Murray. "Dry as a fish! What fish I'd like
to know is dry?"

"Red herrings," retorted Socrates; and there was a great laugh at the
expense of the purist, in which even Hamlet, who had grown more and more
melancholy and morbid since the abduction of Ophelia, joined.

"Then it is settled," said Raleigh; "something must be done. And now the
point is, what?"

"Relief expeditions have a way of finding things," suggested Dr.
Livingstone. "Or rather of being found by the things they go out to
relieve. I propose that we send out a number of them. I will take Africa;
Bonaparte can lead an expedition into Europe; General Washington may have
North America; and--"

"I beg pardon," put in Dr. Johnson, "but have you any idea, Dr.
Livingstone, that Captain Kidd has put wheels on this House-boat of ours
and is having it dragged across the Sahara by mules or camels?"

"No such absurd idea ever entered my head," retorted the Doctor.

"Do you then believe that he has put runners on it, and is engaged in the
pleasurable pastime of taking the ladies tobogganing down the Alps?"
persisted the philosopher.

"Not at all. Why do you ask?" queried the African explorer, irritably.

"Because I wish to know," said Johnson. "That is always my motive in
asking questions. You propose to go looking for a house-boat in Central
Africa; you suggest that Bonaparte lead an expedition in search of it
through Europe--all of which strikes me as nonsense. This search is the
work of sea-dogs, not of landlubbers. You might as well ask Confucius to
look for it in the heart of China. What earthly use there is in ransacking
the earth I fail to see. What we need is a naval expedition to scour the
sea, unless it is pretty well understood in advance that we believe Kidd
has hauled the boat out of the water, and is now using it for a
roller-skating rink or a bicycle academy in Ohio, or for some other
purpose for which neither he nor it was designed."

"Dr. Johnson's point is well taken," said a stranger who had been sitting
upon the string-piece of the pier, quietly, but with very eviden