the earth I fail to see. What we need is a naval expedition to scour the
sea, unless it is pretty well understood in advance that we believe Kidd
has hauled the boat out of the water, and is now using it for a
roller-skating rink or a bicycle academy in Ohio, or for some other
purpose for which neither he nor it was designed."

"Dr. Johnson's point is well taken," said a stranger who had been sitting
upon the string-piece of the pier, quietly, but with very evident
interest, listening to the discussion. He was a tall and excessively
slender shade, "like a spirt of steam out of a teapot," as Johnson put it
afterwards, so slight he seemed. "I have not the honor of being a member
of this association," the stranger continued, "but, like all well-ordered
shades, I aspire to the distinction, and I hold myself and my talents at
the disposal of this club. I fancy it will not take us long to establish
our initial point, which is that the gross person who has so foully
appropriated your property to his own base uses does not contemplate
removing it from its keel and placing it somewhere inland. All the
evidence in hand points to a radically different conclusion, which is my
sole reason for doubting the value of that conclusion. Captain Kidd is a
seafarer by instinct, not a landsman. The House-boat is not a house, but a
boat; therefore the place to look for it is not, as Dr. Johnson so well
says, in the Sahara Desert, or on the Alps, or in the State of Ohio, but
upon the high sea, or upon the waterfront of some one of the world's great
cities."

[Illustration: "'DR. JOHNSON'S POINT IS WELL TAKEN'"]

"And what, then, would be your plan?" asked Sir Walter, impressed by the
stranger's manner as well as by the very manifest reason in all that he
had said.