182 MYSTIC ISLES 



his memories. I heard him sit down and get up more 

 than once; while opposite me in an easy-chair, with his 

 glass of Schiedam schnapps beside him, was the virile 

 Dutchman, hammering in his breast-swelling story of 

 danger and courage, of starvation and storm. I sighed 

 for a dictaphone in which the original Dutch-English 

 might be recorded for the delight of others. 



Alex Simoneau came back after a night of the hos- 

 pitality of M. Lontane, and soon was joyous again, tell- 

 ing his wondrous epic of the main to the beach-combers 

 in the pare de Bougainville or in the Paris saloon, where 

 the brown and white toilers of land and sea make merry. 



"A man that goes to sea is a fool," he said, with a 

 bang of his fist on the table that made the schnapps 

 dance in its heavy bottle. "iSIy people in JMassachu- 

 setts are all right, and like a crazy man I will go to sea 

 when I could work in a mill or on a farm. They must 

 think I 'm dead by now." 



Alex was con-oborative of all that Steve said, but I 

 could not pin him down to hours or days. He was too 

 exalted by his present happy fate — penniless, jobless, 

 family in mourning, but healthy, safe, and full- 

 stomached, not to omit an ebullience of spirits incited 

 by the continuing wonder of each new listener and the 

 praise for his deeds and by the conviviality of his ad- 

 mirers. 



Alex was sure of one point, and that was that the 

 El Dorado was overloaded. 



"Dose shkvarehet shkippers vould dake a cheese-box 

 to sea mit a cargo of le't," commented Steve. "All dey 

 care for is de havin' de yob. De owner he don't care if 

 de vessel sink mit de insurance." 



