to perform in the sacred name of Friendship. It ill became him to pass
an eulogy upon the qualities of the speaker who had preceded him, for
he had known him from "boyhood's hour." Side by side they had wrought
together in the Spanish war. For a neat hand with a toledo he challenged
his equal, while how nobly and beautifully he had won his present title
of Slit-the-Weazand, all could testify. The speaker, with some show
of emotion, asked to be pardoned if he dwelt too freely on passages of
their early companionship; he then detailed, with a fine touch of
humor, his comrade's peculiar manner of slitting the ears and lips of a
refractory Jew, who had been captured in one of their previous voyages.
He would not weary the patience of his hearers, but would briefly
propose that the report of Slit-the-Weazand be accepted, and that the
thanks of the company be tendered him.

A beaker of strong spirits was then rolled into the hut, and cans
of grog were circulated freely from hand to hand. The health of
Slit-the-Weazand was proposed in a neat speech by Mark-the-Pinker, and
responded to by the former gentleman in a manner that drew tears to the
eyes of all present. To the broker, in his concealment, this momentary
diversion from the real business of the meeting occasioned much anxiety.
As yet nothing had been said to indicate the exact locality of the
treasure to which they had mysteriously alluded. Fear restrained him
from open inquiry, and curiosity kept him from making good his escape
during the orgies which followed.

But his situation was beginning to become critical. Flash-in-the-Pan,
who seemed to have been a man of choleric humor, taking fire during some
hotly contested argument, discharged both his pistols at the breast of
his opponent. The balls passed through on each side immediately below
his arm-pits, making a clean hole, through which the horrified broker