companion. Why! surely it was ---- ----, an old dare-devil comrade of
mine, whose disappearance from New York some ten years before had been
the talk of the two or three clubs to which we both belonged. A curious
blending of soldier, poet, and mining engineer, he had been popular with
all of us, and when he had disappeared without warning we were sure that
he was off on some Knight-errant business--to Mexico or the Moon!_

_He was, indeed, wearing that disguise of Time, which we all come
involuntarily to wear--an unfamiliar greyness of his hair at the
temples, and a moustache that would soon be a distinguished white; yet
the disguise was not sufficient to conceal the youthful vigour of his
personality from one who had known him so well as I. The more I looked
at him, the more certain I grew that it was he, and I determined to go
round to his box at the conclusion of the second act._

_Then, becoming absorbed in the play, I forgot him and his companion of
the doubloons for a while, and when I looked for them again, they had
vanished. However, a letter in my mail next morning told me that the
observation had not been all on my side. My eyes had not deceived me. It
was my friend--and, at dinner with him and his lady, next evening, I
heard the story of some of those lost years. Moreover, he confided to me
that a certain portion of his adventures had seemed so romantic that he
had been tempted to set them down in a narrative, merely, of course, for
the amusement of his family and friends. On our parting, he entrusted me
with this manuscript, which I found so interesting that I was able to
persuade him to consent to its publication to that larger world which it
seemed to me unfair to rob of one of those few romances that have been
really lived, and not merely conjured up out of the imaginations of
professional romancers._