talk; he had never before realized the extent and splendor of the world.
Sitting in the cabin of the _Southern Belle_, often far into the night,
he would give a rapt attention to this extraordinary being who had done
everything and seen everything. Paris, London, Constantinople, New York,
all were as familiar to Satterlee as the palm of his hand, and he had
the story-telling gift that can throw a glamour over the humblest
incident. Not that his incidents were often humble. On the contrary, in
his mysterious suggestive fashion he let it be inferred that his bygone
part had been a great one. He would offer dazzling little peeps, and
then shut the slide; a chance reference that would make his hearer gasp;
the adroit use of a mighty name, checked by a sudden, "Oh, hold on--I'm
saying more than I ought to!" You felt, somehow, that to have roused the
interest of this powerful personage was to insure your own career. With
a turn of his hand he was capable of gratifying your wildest ambition.
He had remarked your unusual capacity, and had quietly determined it
should be given proper scope. When and where and how were to be settled
later. These questions you left confidently to Satterlee. It was enough
that you were informed, in those fine shades of which he was a master,
that your day would surely come. On leaving Satterlee you walked on air
without knowing exactly why; or rather Skiddy did, for by "you" I mean
the little consul.

It is a sad commentary on human nature that it is so easily deceived. A
glib tongue, an attractive manner, a few hundred dollars thrown
carelessly about, and presto! you have the counterfeit of a Cecil
Rhodes. We are not only willing to take people at their own valuation,
but are ever ready to multiply that valuation by ten. Obtrude
romance--rich, stirring romance--into the lives of commonplace people,
and they instantly lose their heads. Romance, more than cupidity, is
what attracts the gold-brick investor.

Of course, Satterlee was a poser, a fraud, a liar; the highest type of
liar; the day-dreaming, well-read, genuinely inventive, highly
imaginative, loving-it-for-its-own-sake liar. But to Skiddy every word
he said was Gospel-true. He never doubted the captain for an instant.
Life grew richer to him, stranger and more wonderful. It was like a
personal distinction--a medal, or the thanks of Congress--that Satterlee
should thus have singled him out. His gratitude was unbounded. He felt
both humble a