Bronx Park. My telegrams to Professor
Farrago were brief. One merely said "Victory!" Another explained that
I wanted no assistance; and a third read: "Schooner chartered. Arrive
New York July 1st. Send furniture-van to foot of Bluff Street."

My week as a guest of Mr. Halyard proved interesting. I wrangled with
that invalid to his heart's content, I worked all day on my osier
cage, I hunted the thimble in the moonlight with the pretty nurse. We
sometimes found it.

As for the thing they called the harbor-master, I saw it a dozen
times, but always either at night or so far away and so close to the
sea that of course no trace of it remained when I reached the spot,
rifle in hand.

I had quite made up my mind that the so-called harbor-master was a
demented darky--wandered from, Heaven knows where--perhaps shipwrecked
and gone mad from his sufferings. Still, it was far from pleasant to
know that the creature was strongly attracted by the pretty nurse.

She, however, persisted in regarding the harbor-master as a
sea-creature; she earnestly affirmed that it had gills, like a fish's
gills, that it had a soft, fleshy hole for a mouth, and its eyes were
luminous and lidless and fixed.

"Besides," she said, with a shudder, "it's all slate color, like a
porpoise, and it looks as wet as a sheet of india-rubber in a
dissecting-room."

The day before I was to set sail with my auks in a cat-boat bound for
Port-of-Waves, Halyard trundled up to me in his chair and announced
his intention of going with me.

"Going where?" I asked.

"To Port-of-Waves and then to New York," he replied, tranquilly.

I was doubtful, and my lack of cordiality hurt his feelings.

"Oh, of course, if you need the sea-voyage--" I began.

"I don't; I need you," he said, savagely; "I need the stimulus of our
daily quarrel. I never disagreed so pleasantly with anybody in my
life; it agrees with me; I am a hundred per cent. better than I was
last week."

I was inclined to resent this, but something in the deep-lined face of
the invalid softened me. Besides, I had taken a hearty liking to the
old pig.

"I don't want any mawkish sentiment about it," he said, observing me
closely; "I won't permit anybody to feel sorry for me--do you
understand?"

"I'll trouble you to use a different tone in addressing me," I
replied, hotly; "I'll feel sorry for you if I choose to!" And our
usual quarrel proceeded, to his deep satisfaction.

By six o'clock next even