for shade trees—mainly young and not too healthy—clapboarded frame houses with narrow piazzas, a thin, monotonous current of social talk, a limited and local existence.

Until the year before, the fortunes of Mrs. Mink had hardly led her beyond the borders of the State, nor away from Potterville for more than a few days.

Mr. Mink, a silent, plodding man—as I gathered—a banker, counted a well-to-do citizen, but not suspected of unusual wealth, had died the year before, of a natural and normal sickness. There must have been a secretive element in him, something now forever unexplained. He had sat at his desk in his bank. Away from the bank he had never alluded to business. He had not liked any habits to be altered. No one in Potterville, not even the bank cashier, certainly not Mrs. Mink, suspected that Potterville harboured a millionaire. But when Mrs. Mink found herself a widow of extensive and varied wealth, she set herself to consider the situation. So far the story was partly inferential. Mrs. Mink spoke with some reserve.

When the size of her income was explained to her by her lawyer, who was also her neighbour, she cried, in some alarm, "What shall I do?"

He said: "Get a steam yacht. Go into high society, and found a college. Spend it on the heathen. Make your name immortal in Potterville."

"But," said Mrs. Mink, narratively, "I thought those were too many different things. But when I was little I often wished I could see the equator, and now I rather wanted to see the heathen, and the idols that have pictures in Sunday-school quarterlies. The more I thought of parrots and monkeys and bananas and Foreign Missions, the more I knew what I ought to do first. Because I knew more about Foreign Missions than about colleges, and I thought tropical countries would be nicer than high society."

"Admirable!" cried Dr. Ulswater, suddenly. "What logic! For subtle inference and accurate reasoning, look at that!"

Mrs. Mink looked surprised.

"But I felt sure that it would be better to be comfortable while I was examining the missions, so I went to the lawyer, and he sent me to some people who made ships. After that everything was plain."

"Plain!" cried Dr. Ulswater. "It's a syllogism."

"The ship-dealer was very kind," said Mrs. Mink, reflecting. "He got the Violetta and Captain Jansen. It has been quite pleasant so far. But——" She hesitated.

"But you haven't yet seen what you seek for," said Dr. Ulswater. "You have taken but a step into the imperium of the tropics. You have far to go. I have been on the road these twenty years. Imprimis, I will show you the model upon which the heathen idol is constructed."

He brought up the cuttlefish from the boat and unbundled it. Mrs. Mink thought it was somewhat uglier than any pictures of heathen idols.

"The faith of the savage is based upon fear in the midst of wonder," said Dr. Ulswater. "This is an incarnate terror and obscure nightmare seen moving through ineffable sea gardens. Behold the seed of religions. You are wise, madam, in desiring to see and to hear, to know the miracle of the world. Everywhere two miracles confront each other, the visible world and the soul of man beholding it, but custom and usage are blinding; that is to say, the more you get used to a thing, the more you don't see it."

Mrs. Mink nodded.

"The soul of the heathen," continued Dr. Ulswater, musing, "and that of the missionary are both remarkable." Mrs. Mink looked suspicious; but he continued, musing: "There is, at this moment, an insurrection in Haiti, a bad-tempered mountain blowing up in Peru, and ten thousand miles from there a large brown idol, that I know well, sitting in the woods in Ceylon, with green jade eyes and silver finger-nails. And they're all turned over once a day."

Something about Mrs. Mink, self-contained, quiet, and decisive, looking at him with shrewd, unbewildered eyes, seemed to rouse him to conversation; or else he had an object in being entertaining. Captain Jansen and two or three blue-capped sailors were near, and stood at the corner of the cabin listening, while he talked on, talked immensely, talked gloriously, talked like the power of Niagara, until the tide ran out and the sun set, and Mrs. Mink said, "Now you'll stay to tea," so decisively that we stayed to tea.

In the cabin were green curtains and pink lamp-shade, wall paper and framed prints, a radiator, biscuits, cake, preserves, a red-haired Irish servant-girl named Norah, and Mrs. Mink at home. She was thoughtful.

"Do you have to collect cuttlefish?" she asked at last.

"I? No. I do what I like. Why?" Dr. Ulswater's innocence of manner was perhaps too elaborate. "My curly-haired young friend must not go back to his job for some weeks in South America, for he is not yet a grizzly-bear. He is languid, like a jelly-fish."

"Well, I shouldn't dare ask any one away from business. But I have some spare rooms, and I would be pleased if you and Mr. Kirby would visit me. It would be a great help, if you aren't too busy."

"We are your grateful guests," said Dr. Ulswater, elaborately.

When we came to go, the sulky negro and his boat had disappeared. Captain Jansen offered to take us ashore. Dr. Ulswater bundled up his cuttlefish. Mrs. Mink said, "He's dreadfully untidy."

"Admirable!" cried Dr. Ulswater again. "It's a select word, a creative description! He's a regular litter. His very vital point is loose."

We slid away in the starlight.

"What personality!" muttered Dr. Ulswater. "What point of view! Untidy! The very word! She buys a steam yacht, furnishes it in the style of Potterville, Ohio, and starts off to examine Foreign Missions. Why, sure! That's easy!"

Captain Jansen chuckled: "I see men try sheet her more'n once, but they don't. She have a head."

"Untidy!" muttered Dr. Ulswater. "Untidy!"—as if he foreboded trouble in that word.

CHAPTER III—AND THE TWENTY PATRIOTS

WE left Nassau the following morning. On the third day we passed the Inaguas and sighted Tortuga. They were days rich with the tropical outpourings of Dr. Ulswater, into whose warm Gulf Stream of conversation Mrs. Mink now and then dropped cool comments and punctuations that excited his luxuriant praise. What Mrs. Mink thought of Dr. Ulswater was not so clear.

The green cliffs of Haiti overhung a white surf, and the lapping mouths of half-submerged caves below; above was the tangle of the forest, great pendant leaves, sweeping and coiling creepers. It was the hot morning of the fourth day. There was a thin, shining mist about, and Dr. Ulswater quoted:

"... soft and purple mist

Like a vaporous amethyst,

... red and golden vines

Piercing with their trellised lines

The rough dark-skirted wilderness.

"Vaporous amethyst!" he murmured, sentimentally. "Gaseous spirit of jewel! Ah, Mrs. Mink! Lyric poetry, is it not a religion?"

Mrs. Mink shook her head.

"You see a distinction. You are right. You would say, in the worship of beauty the ethical element is too subsidiary. You would point out the lack of rigidity and purpose."

Mrs. Mink did not commit herself. We watched the smoke of a steamer coming toward us from the east.

"I see the deep's untrampled floor!" murmured Dr. Ulswater.

The steamer, a dilapidated side-wheeler, drew nearer, and a small cannon was plainly to be seen in the prow, but the only men in sight were a negro at the wheel and another walking the bridge. As they came within hailing, the cannon went off suddenly, the ball boomed overhead, and struck, spat! against the cliff, and on the deck a crowd of negroes sprang up and fell to dancing, howling, waving their guns. Mrs. Mink said, "For goodness'