"Because I wish to know," said Johnson. "That is always my motive in
asking questions. You propose to go looking for a house-boat in
Central Africa; you suggest that Bonaparte lead an expedition in
search of it through Europe--all of which strikes me as nonsense.
This search is the work of sea-dogs, not of landlubbers. You might
as well ask Confucius to look for it in the heart of China. What
earthly use there is in ransacking the earth I fail to see. What we
need is a navel 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