r not more particularly indicating--had
sent him in charge of a rosewood saw mill on the Ganges, and, after many
ups and downs, of how the floods had come and swept the plant away; and
Rudolph Fink, who was of the party, immediately said, "I can attest
the truth of The Major's story, because my brother Albert and I were
in charge of some fishing camps at the mouth of the Ganges at the exact
date of the floods, and we caught many of those rosewood logs in our
nets as they floated out to sea."

Augustine's Terrapin came to be for a while the rage in Philadelphia,
and even got as far as New York and Washington, and straightway, The
Major declared he could and would make Augustine and his terrapin look
"like a monkey." He proposed to give a dinner.

There were great preparations and expectancy. None of us ate much at
luncheon that day. At the appointed hour, we assembled at The Brunswick.
I will dismiss the decorations and the preludes except to say that they
were Parisian. After a while in full regalia The Major appeared, a train
of servants following with a silver tureen. The lid was lifted.

"_Voila!_" says he.

The vision disclosed to our startled eyes was an ocean that looked like
bean soup flecked by a few strands of black crape!

The explosion duly arrived from the assembled gourmets, I, myself, I am
sorry to say, leading the rebellion.

"I put seeks terrapin in zat soup!" exclaimed The Frenchman, quite
losing his usual good English in his excitement.

We reproached him. We denounced him. He was driven from the field. But
he bore us no malice. Ten days later he invited us again, and this time
Sam Ward himself could have found no fault with the terrapin.

Next afternoon, when I knew The Major was asleep, I slipped back into
the kitchen and said to Louis Garnier, the chef: "Is there any of that
terrapin left over from last night?"

All unconscious of his treason Louis took me into the pantry and
triumphantly showed me three jars bearing the Augustine label and the
Philadelphia express tags!

On another occasion a friend of The Major's, passing The Brunswick and
observing some diamond-back shells in the window said, "Major, have you
any real live terrapins?"

[Illustration: Henry Woodfin Grady One of Mr. Watterson's "Boys".]

"Live!" cried The Frenchman. "Only this morning I open the ice box and
they were all dancing the cancan."

"Major," persisted the friend, "I'll go you a bottle of Veuve Cliquot,
you