The Pursuit of the House-Boat | Page 4

proper, I think, if the House-boat can
sail four knots an hour, to attempt to overhaul her with a launch, or
other nautical craft, with a maximum speed of two knots an hour."
"Hear! hear!" ejaculated Cæsar.
"That is my reason, your Majesty, for inquiring as to the speed of your
late club-house," said the stranger, bowing courteously to Solomon.
"Now if Sir Christopher Wren can give me her measurements, we can
very soon determine at about what rate she is leaving us behind under
favorable circumstances."
"'Tisn't necessary for Sir Christopher to do anything of the sort," said
Noah, rising and manifesting somewhat more heat than the occasion
seemed to require. "As long as we are discussing the question I will
take the liberty of stating what I have never mentioned before, that the
designer of the House-boat merely appropriated the lines of the Ark.
Shem, Ham, and Japhet will bear testimony to the truth of that
statement."
"There can be no quarrel on that score, Mr. Chairman," assented Sir
Christopher, with cutting frigidity. "I am perfectly willing to admit that
practically the two vessels were built on the same lines, but with
modifications which would enable my boat to sail twenty miles to
windward and back in six days less time than it would have taken the
Ark to cover the same distance, and it could have taken all the wash of
the excursion steamers into the bargain."
"Bosh!" ejaculated Noah, angrily. "Strip your old tub down to a flying
balloon-jib and a marline-spike, and ballast the Ark with elephants until
every inch of her reeked with ivory and peanuts, and she'd outfoot you
on every leg, in a cyclone or a zephyr. Give me the Ark and a breeze,
and your House-boat wouldn't be within hailing distance of her five
minutes after the start if she had 40,000 square yards of canvas spread
before a gale."
"This discussion is waxing very unprofitable," observed Confucius. "If

these gentlemen cannot be made to confine themselves to the subject
that is agitating this body, I move we call in the authorities and have
them confined in the bottomless pit."
"I did not precipitate the quarrel," said Noah. "I was merely trying to
assist our friend on the string-piece. I was going to say that as the Ark
was probably a hundred times faster than Sir Christopher Wren's--tub,
which he himself says can take care of all the wash of the excursion
boats, thereby becoming on his own admission a wash-tub--"
"Order! order!" cried Sir Christopher.
"I was going to say that this wash-tub could be overhauled by a launch
or any other craft with a speed of thirty knots a month," continued
Noah, ignoring the interruption.
"Took him forty days to get to Mount Ararat!" sneered Sir Christopher.
"Well, your boat would have got there two weeks sooner, I'll admit,"
retorted Noah, "if she'd sprung a leak at the right time."
"Granting the truth of Noah's statement," said Sir Walter, motioning to
the angry architect to be quiet--"not that we take any side in the issue
between the two gentlemen, but merely for the sake of argument--I
wish to ask the stranger who has been good enough to interest himself
in our trouble what he proposes to do--how can you establish your
course in case a boat were provided?"
"Also vot vill be dher gost, if any?" put in Shylock.
A murmur of disapprobation greeted this remark.
"The cost need not trouble you, sir," said Sir Walter, indignantly,
addressing the stranger; "you will have carte blanche."
"Den ve are ruint!" cried Shylock, displaying his palms, and showing
by that act a select assortment of diamond rings.
"Oh," laughed the stranger, "that is a simple matter. Captain Kidd has

gone to London."
"To London!" cried several members at once. "How do you know
that?"
"By this," said the stranger, holding up the tiny stub end of a cigar.
"Tut-tut!" ejaculated Solomon. "What child's play this is!"
"No, your Majesty," observed the stranger, "it is not child's play; it is
fact. That cigar end was thrown aside here on the wharf by Captain
Kidd just before he stepped on board the House-boat."
"How do you know that?" demanded Raleigh. "And granting the truth
of the assertion, what does it prove?"
"I will tell you," said the stranger. And he at once proceeded as follows.

II
THE STRANGER UNRAVELS A MYSTERY AND REVEALS
HIMSELF
"I have made a hobby of the study of cigar ends," said the stranger, as
the Associated Shades settled back to hear his account of himself.
"From my earliest youth, when I used surreptitiously to remove the
unsmoked ends of my father's cigars and break them up, and, in hiding,
smoke them in an old clay pipe which I had