his; and does he slip off privately after business hours to Venice,
and Spain, and Egypt, perhaps to El Dorado? Does he run races with
Ptolemy, Philopater and Hiero of Syracuse, rare regattas on fabulous
seas?

Why not? He is a rich, man, too, and why should not a New York
merchant do what a Syracuse tyrant and an Egyptian prince did? Has
Bourne's yacht those sumptuous chambers, like Philopater's galley, of
which the greater part was made of split cedar, and of Milesian
cypress; and has he twenty doors put together with beams of
citron-wood, with many ornaments? Has the roof of his cabin a carved
golden face, and is his sail linen with a purple fringe?

"I suppose it is so," I said to myself, as I looked wistfully at the
ship, which began to glimmer and melt in the haze.

"It certainly is not a fishing smack?" I asked, doubtfully.

No, it must be Bourne's magic yacht; I was sure of it. I could not
help laughing at poor old Hiero, whose cabins were divided into many
rooms, with floors composed of mosaic work, of all kinds of stones
tessellated. And, on this mosaic, the whole story of the Iliad was
depicted in a marvellous manner. He had gardens "of all sorts of most
wonderful beauty, enriched with all sorts of plants, and shadowed by
roofs of lead or tiles. And, besides this, there were tents roofed
with boughs of white ivy and of the vine--the roots of which derived
their moisture from casks full of earth, and were watered in the same
manner as the gardens. There were temples, also, with doors of ivory
and citron-wood, furnished in the most exquisite manner, with pictures
and statues, and with goblets and vases of every form and shape