some perfectly sober path by the phantasia of a headache powder, driven to frenzy by the pattern of his dining-room wall paper 'Whatever in the world became of Father?'" "Well, whatever did?" quickened Daphne. "Oh, we chucked him into our canoe," said Jaffrey Bretton, "and took him back to the yacht, and from the yacht in due time to this same little coral island. And every quarter now, when the trading boat skirts the coast, it rather plans, I think, to throw a box of fodder ashore at the entrance to Lost Man's pass--whether Lost Man himself is in sight or not. And usually in the winter when I [114] come down I send a Seminole Indian back into that mad green maze to find him. No one but an Indian could find him, I imagine. And always, without the slightest question or demur, Lost Man comes and cooks for me. Yet never once, I think, has he shown a flicker of recognition beyond staring up bewilderedly through every first brew of camp coffee to inquire, 'Say, boss,--have--I--ever--cooked for you before?'" "Oh, but Old-Dad!" cried Daphne. "Don't you think we ought to try and take him home?" "Home to what?" frowned her father. With a sudden glance of a lover his eyes reswept the turquoise-colored tide. "Wouldn't any man," he questioned, "rather die on the Spanish Main--than live in an asylum? Also, incidentally," he murmured, "when a man has once formed the Seminole Indian sort of habit of living in a gay gingham jumper with or without trousers he doesn't slip over-easily, you understand, into linen collars again." "Yes, but what about his family?" protested [115] Daphne, "and the awful tragedy of being lost?" "God knows!" said her father. "But the awful tragedy of being lost is considerably less sometimes, I fancy, than the awful tragedy of being found! Every human catastrophe makes a lot of new problems of course--but it cancels, I imagine, just as many old ones. By land or sea there never was any smash-up yet, I suppose, that didn't release some poor soul with the cry, 'Now, I'll never have to tell! Now, they'll never need to know! Now, we'll never have to pay!' People who wondered how they could meet the coming day just didn't have to, that's all! And lads like our old friend here, Kiddie, are pretty apt to represent somebody's canceled problem. And anyway" (for comedy instead of tragedy he restaged his whole face suddenly by the shift of a single eyebrow), "and anyway, Kiddie," he laughed, "it must simplify life pretty considerably to forget everything in it except how to cook the one thing you like best! In your own case, for instance, what will you choose? Guava jelly? Or fudge?" [116] "Guava jelly and fudge _nothing_!" flared Daphne. In another instant she was on her feet and speeding toward Lost Man. "Whatever you do--don't start him swearing!" shouted her father. "Truly, I couldn't advise it!"