And the hero of the occasion, the centre of all this enthusiasm--thus carried as if in triumph into this assembly in evening dress, in white tulle and whiter kid, odorous of delicate sachets and scarce-perceptible perfumes--was a figure unhandsome and unkempt beyond description. His hair was long, and hanging over his eyes. A thick, uncared-for beard concealed the mouth and chin. He was dressed in a Chinaman's blouse and jeans--the latter thrust into slashed and tattered boots. The tan and weatherbeatings of nearly half a year of the tropics were spread over his face; a partly healed scar disfigured one temple and cheek-bone; the hands, to the very finger-nails, were gray with grime; the jeans and blouse and boots were fouled with grease, with oil, with pitch, and all manner of the dirt of an uncared-for ship. And as the dancers of the cotillon pressed about, and a hundred kid-gloved hands stretched toward his own palms, there fell from Wilbur's belt upon the waxed floor of the ballroom the knife he had so grimly used in the fight upon the beach, the ugly stains still blackening on the haft. There was no more cotillon that night. They put him down at last; and in half a dozen sentences Wilbur told them of how he had been shanghaied--told them of Magdalena Bay, his fortune in the ambergris, and the fight with the beach-combers. “You people are going down there for target-practice, aren't you?” he said, turning to one of the “Monterey's” officers in the crowd about him. “Yes? Well, you'll find the coolies there, on the beach, waiting for you. All but one,” he added, grimly. “We marooned six of them, but the seventh didn't need to be marooned. They tried to plunder us of our boat, but, by -----, we made it interesting for 'em!” “I say, steady, old man!” exclaimed Nat Ridgeway, glancing nervously toward the girls in the surrounding group. “This isn't Magdalena Bay, you know.” And for the first time Wilbur felt a genuine pang of disappointment and regret as he realized that it was not. Half an hour later, Ridgeway drew him aside. “I say, Ross, let's get out of here. You can't stand here talking all night. Jerry and you and I will go up to my rooms, and we can talk there in peace. I'll order up three quarts of fizz, and--” “Oh, rot your fizz!” declared Wilbur. “If you love me, give me Christian tobacco.” As they were going out of the ballroom, Wilbur caught sight of Josie Herrick, and, breaking away from the others, ran over to her.