I’ve told you, said Brent, that Slane had an old uncle in San Francisco, Pat O’Brien, worth over two million dollars they said he was and I don’t doubt them. Pat had landed in New York somewhere in the ’fifties or ’sixties without a jitney, then he’d come along to ’Frisco; he hadn’t struck gold, he hadn’t struck oil, nor Luck in any special way as far as we could make out, he’d just become a millionaire, and one day when we were on the trip back to ’Frisco with a full cargo, I said to Buck: “Look here, Buck,” I says, “you and me has been trading together the last ten years. We’re up to every game on the Pacific coast, we aren’t simple sailors no more than a mule is all an ass. Well, we’ve got sixty thousand dollars between us put by, but four years ago we had forty thousand. We make our money hard and earn it slow, seems to me. Look at Pat, he’s none of our natural advantages; the chap can’t more than read and write his name, he’s only one brain and we’ve got two, but look at him, rolling in dollars. How’s it done?”

“Search me,” says Buck. “It’s the way they all do it. Seems to me it’s the start. If you’re American-born you start selling newspapers, if you’re only a blistered alien you land without a cent in your pocket, whereas we’d got a few dollars, but there’s no going back.”

We left it at that and got into ’Frisco next day and went to the lodgings we had in Tallis Street. We’d always lived small considering that we could have cut a bigger dash if we’d chosen, but the fact of the matter is, living big for the likes of us would have meant soaking in bars and all the trimmings that go with that. It’s God’s truth that a plain sailor man who isn’t what the damn fools who run the world call a “gentleman” is clean out of it in the big towns—unless he’s a millionaire. So, not being able to sit on the top of the pyramid, we just sat on the sand waiting for some big strike, and stuck to our rooms in Tallis Street in a house kept by a Mrs. Murphy.

Well, as I was saying, we went to our lodgings, and a couple of days after, old Pat O’Brien, hearing we were back, called on us. Pat, though he was near eighty, was an early bird, and though he was worth two millions he always footed it about the town; he was the spit and image of Mr. Jiggs in the comic papers, and as we were sitting at breakfast in he came with a cigar butt stuck in the corner of his mouth.

“Lord love me,” says Pat. “Nine o’clock and you at breakfast. No,” he says, “I won’t have no coffee, a glass of hot water is all I take till one o’clock in the day, and then I have a porterhouse-steak and a pint of claret, and that’s why I have all my teeth though I’m close on eighty—and how’s the old Greyhound been doing this trip?”

I’ve told you before how Buck got the Greyhound out of Pat at our first go off, and he made it a habit always to call on us when we were in from a trip to ask after her. He didn’t care a dump about her, he just wanted to pick up Island news that might be useful to him in his business—but we never pretended we knew that.

“Doing fine,” says Buck.

Then Pat sits down and borrows a match to light his cigar stump, and in half an hour he’d got to know all he wanted; then, when we’d given him a cigar to get rid of him, off he goes stumping down the stairs, and a minute after, the window being open owing to the hot weather, we heard him talking to Micky Murphy, the landlady’s little boy, who was playing in the street. Couldn’t hear what he was saying at first till a bit of a breeze came in and we heard him say to the child: “So Micky is your name,” he says. “Well, come along, and bring your play toy with you and I’ll buy you some candy.”

I stuck my head out of the window, and there was the old chap and the child hand-in-hand going off down the street towards the candy shop at the corner.

“Well,” I says, “Buck, we’ve misjudged him; he’s got a heart somewhere and he’s not as mean as he advertises himself.”

Buck was as much taken aback as myself. You see, we’d had a lot of dealings with the old man and he’d always forgot his purse if a tram fare was to be paid, and I’ve seen him pick up a match in the street to light his cigar, which he was always letting go out to save tobacco—and there he was going off to buy a child candy.

But that was only the beginning of things, for two days later we had a note from him asking us to dinner.

He had only asked us to dinner once before, years ago, and that was when he was shook out of himself by a deal we’d done over pearls, and it was at a restaurant. This time he was asking us to his house.

“What’s he after?” says Buck, turning the letter over. “Day before yesterday he was giving Micky Murphy candy, and now he’s asking us to dinner. He’ll bust himself with generosity if he doesn’t mind out. Will you go?”

“Sure,” said I, and we went.

Pat was married, as perhaps I haven’t told you, and when the darkie let us in, there was Mrs. Pat waiting to receive us in the big room hung with pictures opening from the hall, and a minute after in come Pat’s daughter Sadie with her hair frizzed out, and when Pat toddled in after, if it wasn’t McMorrows Jiggs family to the life, call me a nigger.

We didn’t feel comfortable by no means, not being used to female society done up in diamonds, but they were anxious to please, though I could see plain enough that behind everything those two women looked on us as plated goods, but Pat kept the ball rolling, chatting away, and at dinner, after the champagne had gone round, the girl suddenly turns to Buck, and, “Tell us about your last voyage, Mr. Slane?” says she.

“Oh,” says Buck, “there’s nothing much to tell; we went to Levua. We’ve been there three trips; there’s several German traders we’re in with and they give us a lot of business. We’re off there again in a month.”

“Is it a long way?” she questions.

“Yes, it’s a good bit of a way,” he answers, “and it would be longer only the Greyhound is no tortoise.”

“How interesting,” she says, “and I suppose you see plenty of other islands on the way there and back. Are they as pretty as people say?”

“Well,” says Buck, “as a matter of fact we stop nowhere but a place we call Palm Island. We put in there for water and fruit; it’s not on the charts and there’s no trade to be done there, but it’s pretty enough.”

He describes the place, and then she tackles him on Levua again, and the manners of the natives, and then Mrs. Pat cuts in and talks of the opera and the theatres and such.

Dinner over, we go to the drawing-room, where the women squall at the piano for a bit, and then we go to Pat’s den for cigars.

I remember Buck, who was livened up a bit with the champagne, asking Pat how to become a millionaire.

“Why,” says Pat, cocking his eye at the other, “you just pick a million up and stick to it. It’s not the picking it up that’s the bother, it’s the sticking to it,” he says. Then we went home thinking that Pat had been joking with us. But he hadn’t.

Levenstein was the name of the chief German trader at Levua. We had big dealings with him amounting to a share in his business, and we were going out this time with a cargo of trade goods and with some agricultural stuff for a man by name of Marks who had started a plantation on the north of the island. Our hands were pretty full, for we were our own stevedores, not trusting the longshore Johnnies over much, and one day, as we were on deck, the both of us, who should come along the wharf but Pat. Pat looked down in the mouth and as if something was troubling him. He gave us good-day and asked us how we were doing, and then he told us his bother. Sadie wasn’t well, the doctors thought she was going into a consumption.

“There’s nothing but trouble in this world,” said Pat. “First I lost my partner six months ago, then I lost a cargo which wasn’t full insured by a mistake of a damn clerk, and now Sadie is took bad. Well, good-day to you, boys, and better luck than is attending me.”

“Now I wonder why he came along the wharf to tell us that,” says Buck. “Blessed if I can make the old man out. His compasses are wrong, he ain’t sailing true; he’s doing things he’s never done before. Maybe he’s breaking up with old age and that’s what’s the matter with him.”

“He seems to have taken a fancy to us anyhow,” I says, “and if he’s breaking up let’s hope he won’t forget you in his will.”

Then we went on with our work, thinking no more about him till two days later up he turns again, comes down to the cabin of the Greyhound, pulls out a big handkerchief, blows his nose and wipes his eyes and starts his batteries.

“Me child’s going to die,” says he. “Oh, it’s the cruel disease as has caught hold of her; it’s only trotting now, but once it begins to gallop Dr. Hennassy says he won’t give her a fortnight. Nothing will save her, he says, but a long sea voyage away from excitement with the good God’s ozone round her. Steamships is no good, and there’s nothing in ’Frisco but Cape Horners and timber ships. Buck, you’re me nephew, and by the same token you had the old Greyhound out of me for next to nothing, though I’m not worryin’ about that. Take her for a trip and I’ll pay the expenses; she can take the old Kanaka mammy with her, that brought her up, to look after her. If it’s ten thousand dollars you can have it, but get her out into God’s good ozone, away off to Honolulu and away round that way for a six months’ trip; fling your cargo in the harbour,” he says, “and I’ll pay, for it’s me house is on fire and me child is burnin’, and what do I care for money where her life is concerned.”

“Sure,” said Buck, “I’d take her jumping, but well you know I’m under contract, and as for throwing the cargo in the harbour, barring what the Port Authorities would say, it’s not mine to throw.”

“Well,” says the old man, “take her along with you, cargo and all; you’ve got an after cabin you don’t use with two bunks in it, that will do for them. You two bunk here in the main cabin, don’t you? Well, there you are, and I’ll pay you a thousand dollars for the trip.”

“Not a cent,” says Buck. “I don’t eat my relations when they’re in trouble. If I take her she goes free—and, sure, how am I to refuse to take her seeing what you say?”

“That’s me brave boy,” says Pat, “the true son of me sister Mary, God rest her soul.”

Then when we’d done some more talk he goes off.

“Well,” I says to Buck, “here’s a nice cargo.”

I’ve told you Buck was married to a woman who had run away from him. He’d never bothered to get divorced from her, fearing if he got amongst lawyers, he’d be sure to be robbed, and feeling that, as he didn’t ever want to get married again, buying a divorce would be like a chap with no heart for music buying a concertina.

“Well,” I says, rubbing it into him, “here’s a nice cargo. I’m no marrying man, and you’re hitched, so what’s the good of her; a thousand dollars won’t pay us for freightage, and if there’s a scratch on her when we get back, there’ll be hell to pay with Pat. S’pose she dies on us?” I says.

“And what would she die of?” asks he.

“Why, what but consumption?” says I.

Buck laughed.

“Consumption of victuals is all that’s wrong with her,” he says, and then he says no more, but goes on deck leaving me harpooned.

I’d taken in this consumption business as honest coin, and now, by Buck’s manner and words, I saw that Pat had been lying to us.

The skylight was open, and seeing Buck’s shadow across it, I called him down and, “For the love of God,” I says, “don’t tell me that the old man has been stuffing us. What’s his meaning?”

“It’s a family affair,” says Buck, “and I’d sooner leave it at that till we get to the end of it, but if you ask his meaning, why I’ll tell you straight that Pat has only one meaning in everything he does, and that’s robbery. He’s making to best me. I can’t see his game yet or what he is playing for, I can only say the stake’s big or he wouldn’t be pulling the girl into it.”

“But where’s the meaning of it?” I says, “unless he’s sending the girl to queer our pitch with Levenstein, and that wouldn’t be worth his trouble; there’s not enough business doing at Levua to make it worth his while, considering the big deals he’s always after.”

“Well,” says Buck, “I don’t know what’s his game, but I’m going to find out.”

Day before we sailed, down came two trunks and a hat box, and the next day down came the girl herself with the old Kanaka mammy and Pat.

He stood on the wharfside and waved to us as we were tugged out, and Sadie stood and waved back to him. She had a lot of good points that girl, though straight dealing wasn’t one of them, and she didn’t seem to mind, no more than if she was going on a picnic. She took the tumble at the bar as if she was used to it, and she settled to the life of the ship same as a man might have done.

She was always wanting to know things—names of the ropes and all such, and she hadn’t been a week on board before she began to poke her nose into the navigating and charts. She used to cough sometimes at first, but after a while she dropped all that, saying the sea air had taken her cough away.

Now you wouldn’t believe unless you’d been there, the down we took on that piece before a week had gone.

It wasn’t anything she said or anything she did, it was just the way she carried on. She was civil and she gave no more trouble than another might have done, but we weren’t her style, and she made us feel it. Only a woman can make a strong and straight man feel like a worm. It wasn’t even that she despised us for being below her class, she didn’t; she never thought of us, and she made us feel we weren’t men but just things—get me?

“Buck,” I says to him one day, “if you could hollow that piece out, stick her on a pivot and put a lid on her, she’d make an A 1 freezing machine.”

“She would,” said Buck, “and if you were to plate her with gold and set her with diamonds, you couldn’t make a lady out of her.”

“That’s so,” said I, “but all the same she’ll be an A 1 navigator before she’s done with us.”

One evening, somewhere north of Palmyra—we’d been blown a bit south of our course—I was on deck. Buck was below and a Kanaka was at the wheel, and a moon like a frying pan was rising up and lighting the deck so’s you could count the dowels. I’d turned to have a look over the after rail, and when I turned again there was Buck just come on deck and an hour before his time.

He came up and took me by the arm and walked me forward a bit.

“I’ve found it out,” he says.

“What?” I asks.

“Why Pat O’Brien took Mrs. Murphy’s child off to buy it candy,” he says.

I thought he’d gone off his head for the moment.

“I’ve been thinking and thinking ever since we left ’Frisco,” he goes on, “thinking and thinking, and there it was under my nose all the time.”

“What?” I questions.

“The reason of the whole of this business,” says he, “why Pat O’Brien, the brother of my mother Mary—God rest her soul—parted with five cents to buy a kid candy, why he asked us to dinner, why he pretended that freezing mixture down below had consumption, why he shipped her on board the Greyhound, and what it is she’s after. It’s all as plain as day, and there’s more to it than that. Brent, we’re millionaires.”

“Look here,” I says, “like a good chap, will you take your mind off the business and pull yourself together—you’ve been thinking too much over this business; forget it.”

Buck was a queer devil. You never knew how he’d take things. Seeing I thought his head had gone wrong, instead of explaining like a sensible chap, he cut the thing off short.

“Maybe you’re right,” he says. “Maybe I’m crazy, maybe I’m not. I’ll say nothing more. We’ll see.”

I left it at that, not wanting to stir up trouble in his head, and we didn’t talk of the thing again—not for a long time, anyhow.

But a change had come over Buck. He’d got to be as cheerful as a cricket, and I’d see him sometimes at table sitting staring in front of himself as if he was looking at the New Jerusalem, instead of the bird’s-eye panelling of the after bulkhead; then, by his talk I could tell his head was travelling on the same old track; when a man talks of the building price of steam yachts you can tell how his mind is running, same as when he talks of rents on Pacific Avenue and such places. But I said nothing, just kept my head shut and let him talk, and glad I was the morning we raised Levua.

It’s a big island—if you’ve never been down that way—mountainous and with no proper reef only to the west, for east the sea comes smack up to the cliffs—but it’s pretty, what with the trees and all, and there’s a big waterfall comes down on the south from the hills that’s reckoned one of the sights of the island.

Levenstein’s house was on the beach to the west; a run of reef, broken here and there, kept the sea pretty smooth on the beach, and there was ten fathoms close up to the sand. A lot of scouring goes on there with the tides, and the fishings the best I’ve seen anywhere, just in that bit of water.

Old Pat O’Brien hadn’t asked to see a photograph of Levenstein, else maybe he wouldn’t have been so keen on shipping Sadie off on her travels; I’d forgot the fellow’s good looks, but when he boarded us after we’d dropped the hook, I remembered the fact and I saw he’d taken Sadie’s eye.

Levenstein wasn’t unlike Kaiser Bill, only younger and better-looking; he was the sort women like, and he could coo like a damn turtle dove when he was in the mind, but he had the reputation of having whipped a Kanaka to death. I’d just as soon have given a girl’s happiness to that chap as I’d have given a rump steak to a tiger cat trustin’ in it to honour it. No, sir, that build don’t make for happiness, not much, and if Sadie had been my girl when I saw her setting her eyes on him like that, I’d have put the Greyhound to sea again, even if I’d had to shove her over the reef to get out.

But I wasn’t bothering about Sadie’s happiness; I reckoned a little unhappiness mightn’t help to do her much harm by unsticking her glue a bit, and I reckon Buck felt the same, so, having business in the trade room and ashore enough to last us for days, we let things rip and didn’t bother.

Sadie and the old Mammy were given the overseer’s house on shore, and the girl settled down to enjoy herself. She was awfully keen on exploring the island and seeing the natives, and she and the old Kanaka woman would make excursions, taking their grub with them, and having picnics all over the place, and Levenstein would go with her sometimes, and Marks, from the north of the island, would come over sometimes, and it made my blood fair boil to see her carrying on with those two Germans because she thought them gentlemen, and at the same time cold-shouldering us as if we weren’t more than the dirt she walked on.

I said the same to Buck, and Buck he only says: “Leave her to me,” he says, “she’s come out to get what she won’t get, but she’ll get what she little expects if she marries uncle Lev,” says Buck. “Leave her to me,” he says, “I’ll l’arn her before I’ve done with her,” he says. “Damn her!” says he—which wasn’t the language to use about a girl, but then Sadie wasn’t so much a girl as a china figure all prickles, no use to hold or carry and not the ornament you’d care to stick on your chimney-piece if you wanted to be happy in your home.

One day Buck says to me: “Come on over to the north of the island,” he says, “I want to have a talk to Marks.”

“What about?” I asks.

“The beauty of the scenery,” he replies.

Off we started. Germans are some good, they can make roads—if I haven’t told you Levua was a German island, I’ll tell you now. I’m saying Germans can make roads, and if you doubt me, go and see the twelve-mile coral road they’ve made round Nauru or what they’ve done in German New Guinea, and the road to Marks’ plantation was as good as those.

Coming along for late afternoon we hit the place, and found Marks in. Marks was like one of those Dutchmen you see in the comic papers, long china pipe and all, but he was the most level-headed man in the Islands, and I soon found that Buck had come to him for information and not to talk about the beauty of the scenery.

We had drinks and cigars, and presently Buck says to Marks, “Look here,” he says, “you’re a man that knows everything about the West Pacific, s’pose I found an island that wasn’t on the charts and didn’t belong to anybody, which of the blessed nations would make a claim to it; would it be the one whose territory was closest to it?”

Marks leans back in his chair and lights his pipe again, then he says: “If you find an unknown island, it would belong to England or Germany, all depends on where it lies in the West Pacific.”

“How’s that?” says Buck. “Why wouldn’t the French or Dutch have a look in?”

“It’s this way,” says Marks, “Germany in old days wasn’t a sea-going nation much, and so the English and French and Dutch took up nearly all the islands of the Pacific, leaving Germany in the cold till 1865, when she began to want things and show that she could get them. She took a big bite of New Guinea, then she came to an arrangement with England that she and England would take all the lands and islands in the West Pacific no one else had seized and divide them between them. Get me?”

“Yes,” says Buck.

“The line starts from New Guinea,” says Marks, “then goes east, then north to fifteen degrees north latitude, and 173 degrees, 30 seconds east longitude; anything new found west of that would be German, anything to the east, British.”

“Show us the line on a map,” says Buck, and Marks gets up and fetches down a map and draws the line with a pencil.

Buck gives a great sigh and thanks him, and then we started off back home with the rising moon to show us our way and a three hours’ tramp before us.

On the way I tried to get out of him what his meaning was in asking those questions, but he wouldn’t tell.

“You thought I was mad when I tried to tell you first,” he said, “and now you’ll have to wait till I’ve landed the business, but I’ll tell you one thing——”

“What?” I asks.

“Never mind,” he says, “shut heads are best where a word might spoil everything.”

Three weeks at Levua got the cargo out and the cargo in, and the morning came when we were due to start. Sadie and Levenstein had been getting thicker and thicker; she was one of those girls that take the bit between the teeth, and it didn’t knock us down with surprise when, coming on board with her trunks, she said she’d been married that morning to Mr. Levenstein by the native parson and that Levenstein was going to follow her on to ’Frisco by the next boat he could catch.

Did you ever hear of such a tomfool arrangement? For she could just as well have waited till he got to ’Frisco, and then she’d have had time to change her mind; that’s what Buck told her as we put out with Levenstein waving to us from the shore.

Buck rubbed it into her proper, he being a relative and all that, but I doubt if he wasn’t as glad as myself to think of the face Pat would pull when he found his daughter had married herself to a small island trader and a German at that. She took his lip without saying a word, and a day or two after she made inquiries as to when we should reach Palm Island.

“Oh, in a day or two,” says Buck.

Now we weren’t due to touch at that place for fourteen days if the wind held good, and when I got him alone a few minutes later I asked him why he had told her that lie.

“And what would you have had me say?” he asked.

“Why, that we wouldn’t be there for a fortnight,” I answered.

“Well,” said he, “that would have been as big a lie, for we aren’t going to touch there at all. I’ve got extra water casks from that cooper chap at Levua and an extra supply of bananas.”

“What’s your reason?” I asks.

“I’ll tell you when this deal is through,” he answers, and knowing it was useless to ask any more, I didn’t.

A few days later. Buck told us that we’d passed the location of the island and that it wasn’t there; must have sunk in the sea, he said, same as these small islands sometimes do.

When he sprung this on us you might have thought by the way Sadie went on she’d lost a relative; said that she wanted to see it more than the New Jerusalem, owing to Buck’s description of it, and asked couldn’t we poke round and make sure it was gone and that we weren’t being deceived owing to some error of the compass.

Buck says: “All right,” and we spent the better part of two days fooling about pretending to look for that damn island and then we lit for ’Frisco.

No sooner had we got there and landed the cargo, Sadie included, than Buck says to me one morning: “Clutch on here,” he says, “whilst I’m away. I’m going to London.”

“London, Ontario?” I asks.

“No, London, England,” he says.

“And what are you going there for?” I questions.

“To see the Tower,” says he.

Off he goes and in two months he returns.

I was sitting at breakfast when he comes in, having arrived by the early morning train.

Down he sits and has a cup of coffee.

“How’s Pat?” says he.

“You’re even with Pat,” I says. “Levenstein got here a week ago and Pat don’t like his new son-in-law. There’s been the devil to pay.”

“I’m better even with him than that,” says Buck. “Brent, we’re millionaires.”

“Spit yer meaning out,” I says.

“Do you remember,” says he, “my saying to you last time we touched at Palm Island that the place seemed built of a sort of rock I’d never seen before, and my bringing a chunk of it away in my pocket? Well, what do you think that rock is but phosphate of lime.”

“What’s that?” I queries.

“Seagull guano mixed with the lime of coral,” he says, “the finest fertiliser in the world and worth thirteen to fourteen dollars a ton. How many tons would Palm Island weigh, do you think, and it’s most all phosphate of lime?”

I begins to sweat in the palms of my hands, but I says nothing and he goes on:

“Palm Island being a British possession, since an Irishman has discovered it and it lies to eastward of the German British line, I went to London, and I’ve got not only the fishing rights but the mining rights for ninety-nine years. I didn’t say nothing about the mining rights, said I wanted to start a cannery there since the fishing was so good, and an old cockatoo in white whiskers did the rest and dropped the mining rights in gratis like an extra strawberry. Then, coming through N’ York I got a syndicate together that’ll buy the proposition when they’ve inspected it. I’ll take a million or nothing,” says he.

“But, look here,” I says, “how in the nation did it all happen; how did you know?”

“Well,” says he, “it was this way. That chunk of rock I was telling you of, I stuck in my sea chest, and unpacking when I got back I gave it to little Micky Murphy who was in the room pretending to help me. He used it for a play toy.

“Now do you remember Pat O’Brien that morning he left us, talking to Micky outside and taking him off to buy candy? Well, next day Mrs. Murphy said to me that the old gentleman was very free with his money, but she didn’t think he was quite right as he’d offered Micky a dollar for the stone he was playing with. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but later on, you remember that night on board ship, the thing hit me like a belt on the head.

“Micky had told the old chap I’d given him the stone when I came back from that trip and Pat had recognised it for what it was. The only question that bothered him was where I’d picked it up. He knew I traded regular with Levua, and when he found we stopped nowhere but Levua and Palm Island he knew it was at one of those two places. Phosphate of lime was to be found, enough maybe to double his fortune. He sent the girl to prospect, and she’d have done me in only that night I suddenly remembered a chap telling me about the phosphate business and saying the stuff was like rock, striped in places; I’d never thought of it till then, and what made me think of it was that I’d been worrying a lot since I’d left ’Frisco over Pat and all his doings. Seems to me the mind does a lot of thinking we don’t know of.”

“Well,” I says, “when he sent the girl to prospect he didn’t bargain she was going to prospect Levenstein.”

“No,” says Buck, “seems to me we’ve got the double bulge on him.”

But we hadn’t.

Buck got a million for his phosphate rights and gave me a share, and, as much will have more, we flew high and lost every buck in the Eagle Consolidated Gold and Silver Mining Corporation, Inc.

Pat met us the day after the burst and we asked him how the Levensteins were doing.

“Fine,” says he. “He asked me how to become a millionaire last night and I told him it was quite easy, you only had to pick up a million and stick to it, but mind you,” I said, “it’s not the picking it up’s the bother, but the sticking to it. Now look at that Eagle Consolidated business,” I says, “many’s the fine boy has put his money in tripe stock like that, tumbling balmy after working for years like a sensible man. You know the stock I mean,” he finishes. “The Eagle Consolidated Gold and Silver Mining Corporation, Inc.”

“Yes, I know,” says Buck.

We didn’t want to have no last words or let the old boy rub it in any more; we hiked off, Buck and me, resuming our way to the wharf and the same old life we’d always been living but for the three months we’d been million dollar men.

“Pat seemed to have the joke on us,” said Brent, “but looking back on those three months and the worries and dyspepsias and late hours that make a millionaire’s life, I’m not so sure we hadn’t the bulge on him over the whole transaction, specially considering that Levenstein went bust, forged cheques and let him in for forty thousand or so to save the name of the family.

“That’s the last transaction we ever had with Pat,” finished Brent. “He dropped calling on us to tell us how to become millionaires, seeing we’d given instructions to Mrs. Murphy always to tell him we were out.”