nthusiasm. "Who, I would ask you, sees life with such philosophy?
Who views the wiles, the snares, the petty conflicts of the world with
such a reflective calm as his? Caring little for personal indulgence,
not solicitous for self-gratification, he has both the spirit and the
leisure for observation. Diogenes was the type of the vagabond, and see
how successive ages have acknowledged his wisdom."

"If I had lived in _his_ day, I'd have set him picking oakum, for all
that!" he replied.

"And probably, too, would have sent the 'blind old bard to the crank,'"
said I.

"I'm not quite sure of whom you are talking," said he; "but if he was a
good ballad-singer, I'd not be hard on him."

"O! Menin aeide Thea Peleiadeo Achilleos!" spouted I out, in rapture.

"That ain't high Dutch," asked he, "is it?"

"No," said I, proudly. "It is ancient Greek,--the godlike tongue of an
immortal race."

"Immortal rascals!" he broke in. "I was in the fruit trade up in the
Levant there, and such scoundrels as these Greek fellows I never met in
my life."

"By what and whom made so?" I exclaimed eagerly. "Can you point to a
people in the world who have so long resisted the barbarizing influence
of a base oppression? Was there ever a nation so imbued with high
civilization as to be enabled for centuries of slavery to preserve the
traditions of its greatness? Have we the record of any race but this,
who could rise from the slough of degradation to the dignity of a
people?"

"You 've been a play-actor, I take it?" asked he, dryly.

"No, sir, never!" replied I, with some indignation.

"Well, then, in the Methody line? You've done a stroke of preaching, I
'll be sworn."

"You would be perjured in that case, sir," I rejoined, as haughtily.

"At all events, an auctioneer," said he, fairly puzzled in his
speculations.

"Equally mistaken there," said I, calmly; "bred in the midst of
abundance, nurtured in affluence, and educated with all the solicitous
care that a fond parent could bestow--"

"Gammon!" said he, bluntly. "You are one of the swell mob in distress!"

"Is this like distress?" said I, drawing forth my purse in which were
seventy-five sovereigns, and handing it to him. "Count over that, and
say how just and how generous are your suspicions."

He gravely took the purse from me, and, stooping down to the binnacle
light, counted over the money, scrutinizing carefully the pieces as he
went.

"And who is to say this isn't 'sw