boat. I'm dry as a fish."

"There he goes again!" growled Murray. "Dry as a fish! What fish,
I'd like to know, is dry?"

"Red herrings," retorted Socrates; and there was a great laugh at the
expense of the purist, in which even Hamlet, who had grown more and
more melancholy and morbid since the abduction of Ophelia, joined.

"Then it is settled," said Raleigh; "something must be done. And now
the point is, what?"

"Relief expeditions have a way of finding things," suggested Dr.
Livingstone. "Or rather of being found by the things they go out to
relieve. I propose that we send out a number of them. I will take
Africa; Bonaparte can lead an expedition into Europe; General
Washington may have North America; and--"

"I beg pardon," put in Dr. Johnson, "but have you any idea, Dr.
Livingstone, that Captain Kidd has put wheels on this House-boat of
ours, and is having it dragged across the Sahara by mules or camels?"

"No such absurd idea ever entered my head," retorted the Doctor.

"Do you, then, believe that he has put runners on it, and is engaged
in the pleasurable pastime of taking the ladies tobogganing down the
Alps?" persisted the philosopher.

"Not at all. Why do you ask?" queried the African explorer,
irritably.