his book on his forefinger, he waved me to a chair beside him.

"My son," he said, "they mix better than you think, Voltaire and
gunpowder. Have you not found it so?"

"I fear," I replied, "that my experience has been too limited. Give me
time, sir, I have only been twice to sea. Next time I shall remember to
take Voltaire with me."

"Do," he advised courteously; "you will find it will help with the
privateers--tide you over every little unpleasantness. Ah yes, it is
advice worth following. I learned it long ago--a little difference of
opinion--and the pages of the great philosopher--"

He raised his arm and glanced at it critically.

"Words well placed--is it not wonderful, their steadying effect--the
deadly accuracy which their logic seems to impart to the hand and eye? A
man can be dangerous indeed with twenty pages of Voltaire behind him."

He took a pinch of snuff, and leaned forward to tap me gently on the
knee, his expression coldly genial.

"I have read all the works of Voltaire, Henry, read them many times."

Unbidden, a picture of him came before me in a room with gilt chairs and
candelabra whose glass pendants sparkled in the mild yellow light--with a
smell of powder mingling strangely with the scent of flowers.

"But why," he concluded, "should I be more explicit than Mr. Aiken? To