better blowed
than stale, which they're bound to be if they're kept.'

"'But what's your idea about 'em?' said Abner.

"'That's what I'm goin' to tell you,' replied Pearson. 'There's a
general notion that there ain't no more great auks, specially hen great
auks, and that's why their eggs are so scerce. But I don't see the p'int
of that. It don't stand to reason; for now and then somebody gets a
great auk egg. If you find 'em they've got to be laid; and if they're
laid there's got to be hen great auks somewhere. Now the p'int is to
find out where them great auks lay. It may be a awful job to do it, but
if I can do it, and get just two eggs, my fortune's made, and yourn
too.'

[Illustration: "Abner, did you ever hear about the eggs of the great
auk?"]

"'Would you divide the thirty-six hundred dollars even?'--now very much
interested.

"'Divide!' sneered Pearson. 'Do you suppose I'd sell 'em? No, sir; I'd
set 'em under a turkey, or perhaps a big hen. Then, sir, I'd go into the
great auk business. I'd sell auk eggs, and make my fortune, and yourn
too.'

"'And young ones, if we get a lot?'

"'No, sir!' exclaimed Pearson. 'Nobody'd own no auks but me. You can't
catch 'em alive. And I wouldn't sell no eggs at all till they'd first
been blowed. I'd keep the business all in my own hands. Abner, I've been
thinkin' a great deal about this thing. You've heard about the lively
sixpence and the slow dollar? Well, sir, I'm goin' to sell them auk eggs
for sixteen hundred dollars, two for three thousand.'"

"John Gayther," said the Master of the House, "you will not make me
believe that you ever knew two such fools."

"In the course of my life," said the Old Professor, "I have known
several of them."

"Not looking for auks' eggs?" inquired the Next Neighbor.

"Something just as impracticable," he said.

"The North Pole, for instance," suggested the Mistress of the House.

"I think," said John, "they are more likely to find that than my friends
were to find what they sought. But we shall see. Abner looked at his
companion. 'That would be better than 'most any other kind of business,'
said he. 'Where do you go to get them eggs?'

"''Way up north,' said Pearson; 'and the furder north you go the more
likely you are to find 'em.'

"'I don't know about goin' north,' said Abner, reflectively; 'there's
Mrs. B. to consider.'

"'But I don't want you to go,' said Pearson. 'I'm goin' north. And when
I've found a couple o' au