mixes them all up together, and then serenely labels them without any
regard to truth, propriety, or even plausibility. I have found him
breaking a stone in two, and labeling half of it "Chunk busted from the
pulpit of Demosthenes," and the other half "Darnick from the Tomb of
Abelard and Heloise." I have known him to gather up a handful of pebbles
by the roadside, and bring them on board ship and label them as coming
from twenty celebrated localities five hundred miles apart. I
remonstrate against these outrages upon reason and truth, of course, but
it does no good. I get the same tranquil, unanswerable reply every time:

"It don't signify--the old woman won't know any different."

Ever since we three or four fortunate ones made the midnight trip to
Athens, it has afforded him genuine satisfaction to give every body in
the ship a pebble from the Mars-hill where St. Paul preached. He got all
those pebbles on the sea shore, abreast the ship, but professes to have
gathered them from one of our party. However, it is not of any use for
me to expose the deception--it affords him pleasure, and does no harm to
any body. He says he never expects to run out of mementoes of St. Paul
as long as he is in reach of a sand-bank. Well, he is no worse than
others. I notice that all travelers supply deficiencies in their
collections in the same way. I shall never have any confidence in such
things again while I live.




CHAPTER XXXVI.

We have got so far east, now--a hundred and fifty-five degrees of