what work earthquakes, floods, fire, and fever could do in
great cities, and had contradicted the President, and borrowed
matches from burglars. And now he thought he would like to
rest and breathe a bit, and not to work again unless as a war
correspondent. The only obstacle to his becoming a great war
correspondent lay in the fact that there was no war, and a war
correspondent without a war is about as absurd an individual
as a general without an army. He read the papers every
morning on the elevated trains for war clouds; but though
there were many war clouds, they always drifted apart, and
peace smiled again. This was very disappointing to young
Gordon, and he became more and more keenly discouraged.

And then as war work was out of the question, he decided to
write his novel. It was to be a novel of New York life, and
he wanted a quiet place in which to work on it. He was
already making inquiries among the suburban residents of his
acquaintance for just such a quiet spot, when he received an
offer to go to the Island of Opeki in the North Pacific Ocean,
as secretary to the American consul at that place. The
gentleman who had been appointed by the President to act as
consul at Opeki was Captain Leonard T. Travis, a veteran of
the Civil War, who had contracted a severe attack of
rheumatism while camping out at night in the dew, and who on
account of this souvenir of his efforts to save the Union had
allowed the Union he had saved to support him in one office or
another ever since. He had met young Gordon at a dinner, and
had had the presumption to ask him to serve as his secretary,
and Gordon, much to his surprise, had accepted his offer. The
idea of a quiet life in the tropics with new and beautiful