After a long interval of quiet, no one knows what the hour was, the sleepers were softly awakened by the enthusiast, who by the straggling moonbeams was seen with a finger on his lips as an injunction of silence, while with the other hand he pointed toward the remains of the camp-fire in front of the tent. Each man arose noiselessly; one softly cocked his revolver, another grasped a boat hook, while a third clutched two empty beer-bottles, stole out of the tent, and peered warily about, in the shadows of the trees. Each man saw that the boats were safe, and as all cargoes had been removed to the tent before nightfall, the nature of the danger which impended could not be imagined by any one. The demented man threw several twigs upon the smouldering embers, thus making a bright light; then he squatted near the fire, motioned to the others to take similar attitudes, and spoke thus to his mystified auditors: "Gentlemen, for years I have endeavored to formulate a definition of the phrase 'pretty girl;' not to give a mere literal description, but one which should be artistic as well as truthful, and have the virtue, peculiar to all true art, of suggesting more than it says. At last I have fully succeeded; or, rather, a glorious inspiration has enlightened me. Before disclosing this marvel of truth and poetry, I beg you to give me your own definitions of the same precious phrase--they will be useful by way of contrast." "I can better tell you what a pretty girl is _not_," answered one of the party promptly. "She is not an imbecile who rouses people at dead of night for the idiotic purpose of revising standard lexicography." "Nor is she," quoth another, who, being a very light sleeper, sprang to his feet, in a violent fit of trembling, on being aroused, "nor is she a being who will in cold blood frighten an honest fellow almost to death." "Nor a person whose literary musings disturb the slumber of any one, unless, haply, he be editor of a paper containing a poet's column," said the third. "Listen, then," replied the lunatic, his look of scorn giving place to a lambent light from within, which irradiated his pale features. "A pretty girl is a person from whose glass you are willing to drink, after she is done with it." For several moments there was dead silence, then somebody asked in the iciest of tones, "And you aroused us only for the purpose of imparting this." "I did." "Have I offered you a single affront since the cruise began?" asked another. "I certainly have tried hard to do my duty, and have never discriminated knowingly against any one." "You are guiltless," was the reply. "I suppose I am the guilty one," groaned the third. "I gave him a cigar to-day which was not what it should have been. But how out of all proportion to the offence is the punishment!"