except in the line of duty. I make no bones of the fact that I think
he's a scrub."

Mr. von Staden nodded sagely. "Perhaps I'd better wait and get
acquainted with him," he suggested, and closed his bag. Murphy showed
him to his quarters, which the steward, under the first mate's
supervision, was already setting in order; and, having decided to set
up the wireless in the sleeping-room, von Staden accompanied the
skipper round to superintend the taking on board of the wireless plant
from the gasoline launch bobbing alongside. When the equipment was
finally hoisted to the deck of the _Narcissus_, Michael J, Murphy
boarded the launch and was whisked ashore for the avowed purpose of
sending to his aged parents the fruits of his elastic conscience.

Herr August Carl von Staden stood at the head of the accommodation
ladder and smiled as the launch disappeared into the tropic twilight.
Then he said something in German to Mr. Schultz, who laughed.
Evidently it was very good news, for even the quartermaster at the
companion ladder smiled covertly. It is possible they would not have
felt so cheerful had they known that Michael J. Murphy's "dear old
father and mother" had been sleeping in a Boston cemetery some fifteen
years, and that their last words to Michael had been an exhortation to
remember that manliness and honor must be his only heritage. And as
the launch bore him shoreward, he looked back and grinned at the dim,
duck-clad figure of von Staden.

"Your agents looked me up, my hearty," he soliloquized, "and if they
did their work half well, they told you I was an honest man. Only a
crook comes with a bag of gold to talk illegitimate business with an
honest man. I'm banking you're as crooked as a bed spring, and that