ut the furniture of this
little sitting-room was unique, and could not have been duplicated for
a very large sum of money. It required a close degree of observation
to discover that several articles in common use were really specimens
of rare _virtu_, and everything indicated that the owner had been a
traveler, fond of collecting mementos of the distant lands which he
had visited; but whether his travels had been those of a mercantile
sea-captain or of a wandering gentleman of leisure would have been
hard to determine. There was a neat walnut bookcase with well-filled
shelves, on the top of which stood a large glass case containing a
huge stuffed albatross, and just opposite was a small but
exquisitely-carved Venetian cabinet adorned with grotesque heads of
men and animals, and surmounted by a small square case in which was a
beautifully-mounted specimen of the little spotted brown owl of
Greece, the species so common among the ruins of the Acropolis. On the
mantelpiece were a small bronze clock, a quaint Chinese teapot and a
pair of delicately-flowered Sevres vases. On the table the engraved
tooth of a sperm whale did duty as a paper-weight, a miniature gondola
held an inkstand and pens, and a sprig of red coral with a
sabre-shaped ivory blade formed the most beautiful paper-knife I ever
saw. A single oil-painting hung on the wall--a finely-executed marine
representing two stately ships becalmed near each other on a glassy
sea under the glare of a tropical sun--and in a corner, resting upon a
light stand, the top of which was a charming Florentine mosaic, was a
polished brass box containing a ship's compass. I had been from
boyhood familiar with all these things, but I never tired of looking
at them, especially at the albatross and the owl--the former so
suggestive of Coleridge and the unfathomable depths of the far-away
Indian Ocean, and the latter always leading my thoughts away back to
the fierce-eyed Athene and her Homeric compeers.

Uncle Joseph got up and unlocked the Venetian cabinet to put away the
decanter, his invariable habit as soon as the second glass was filled.
As he did so there was a clink as of glass against glass, and the old
gentleman hastily took out a small, dusty black bottle, examined it
with great care and returned it with evident relief: "I was afraid I
had carelessly broken the last bottle of that precious Constantia
which I brought with me from the Cape of Good Hope. It is strange that
no s