the other boarders crowded about me; handed it from hand to hand;
grew excited to think that they had a hero in their midst; and put
down my explanation to the proverbial modesty of the brave.
Blended with my amusement were some qualms at the intrinsic value
of the medal, for it could scarcely have cost less than three or
four hundred dollars, and it worried me to think that Grossensteck
must have drawn so lavishly on his savings. It had not occurred to
me, either before or then, that he was rich; somehow, in the bare
cabin of the schooner, I had received no such impression of his
means. I had not even realised that the vessel was his own, taking
it for granted that it had been hired, all standing, for a week or
two with the put-by economies of a year. His home address ought to
have set me right, but I had not taken the trouble to read it,
slipping it into my pocket-book more to oblige him than with any
idea of following up the acquaintance. It was one of the boarders
that enlightened me.

"Grossensteck!" he exclaimed; "why, that's the great cheap grocer
of New York, the Park & Tilford of the lower orders! There are
greenbacks in his rotten tea, you know, and places to leave your
baby while you buy his sanded sugar, and if you save eighty tags
of his syrup you get a silver spoon you wouldn't be found dead
with! Oh, everybody knows Grossensteck!"

"Well, I pulled the great cheap grocer out of the East River," I
said. "There was certainly a greenback in that tea," and I took
another look at my medal, and began to laugh all over again.

"There's no reason why you should ever have another grocery bill,"
said the boarder. "That is, if flavour cuts no figure with you,