"To be sure I do, don't I tell you? I say the precious metals are indestructible. All the coins that have figured prominently in history are in some shape or other among us still. Twenty-four hundred years of active use are needed to wear out a coin completely. How long will it last with moderate use, and with intervals of lying buried for hundreds of years, as much of the coinage of antiquity now extant in its original condition has done? We have among us the rings, bolts, chains bracelets, drinking-vessels, and vases that glitter in the narratives of all the chroniclers, and embody the pomp and luxury of all the ages. "My silver dollar here, which I ring upon Gruyère's table, and with which, had it not been for your amiable politeness, I should have paid for my frugal lunch, has haply been moulded in Cellini's dagger-hilts or crucifixes, or formed part of a pirate's booty from a scuttled galleon on the Spanish Main. For aught I know, it was current money in Nineveh and Babylon. Perhaps it is one of the pieces paid by Abraham to the children of Heth for the double cave that looked towards Mamre." "Or one of the pieces for which Judas betrayed the Master," suggested Barwood. Megilp looked startled, and involuntarily pushed the money away from him. "That is a singular fancy of yours." "It came to me quite spontaneously this moment," said Barwood. "I don't know but it is, and yet it was a very natural sequence from what preceded." Both were abstracted for some moments, and contemplated in silence the bubbles twisting up the stems of the delicate wine-glasses. "Do you suppose," finally said Barwood, "that those coins, if extant, carry with them an enduring curse?" "There's no good in them, you may depend," said the other. By this time both bottle and plates were empty. The train of thought they had been pursuing seemed to have found its climax in the turn given it by Barwood. Over their coffee and dessert they discussed more cheerful topics. "Come around to my place before you leave town," said Megilp, as they shook hands at parting. "I have a one-legged bronze Hercules from Pompeii. I think ye'll enjoy it." As he hobbled away he muttered to himself more than once, "It's the divil's own fancy, so it is." * * * * * II. ETHEREAL CLAIMS.