I don't know as you remember; but, in spite of Killam's havin' got balled up on the location of this pirate island, and Vee and me havin' to find it for him, he came in for his share of the loot. Must have been quite a nice little pot for Rupert, too--enough to keep him costumed for his mysterious hero act for a long time, providin' he don't overdress the part. Weird combination--Rupert: about 60 per cent. camouflage and the rest solemn boob. An ex-school-teacher from some little flag station in middle Illinois, who'd drifted down to the West Coast, and got to be a captain by ownin' an old cruiser that he took fishin' parties out to the grouper banks on. Them was the real facts in the life story of Rupert. But the picture he threw on the screen of himself must have been something else again--seasoned sailor, hardy adventurer, daredevil explorer, and who knows what else? Catch him in one of his silent, starey moods, with them buttermilk blue eyes of his opened wide and vacant, and you had the outline. But that's as far as you'd get. I always thought Rupert himself was a little vague about it, but he would insist on takin' himself so serious. That's why we never got along well, I expect. To me Rupert was a walkin' joke, except when he got to sleuthin' around Vee and me and made a nuisance of himself. "How completely people like that drop out of sight sometimes," says Vee, shuttin' up the album. "Yes," says I. "Contrary to old ladies who meet at summer resorts and in department-stores, it's a sizable world we live in. Thanks be for that, too." But you never can tell. It ain't more'n three days later, as I'm breezin through a cross street down in the cloak-and-suit and publishin' house district, when a taxi rolls up to the curb just ahead, and out piles a wide-shouldered gent with freckles on the back of his neck. Course, I don't let on I can spot anybody I've ever known just by a sectional glimpse like that. But this was no common case of freckles. This was a splotchy, spattery system of rust marks, like a bird's-eye view of the enemy's trenches after a week of drum fire. Besides, there was the pale carroty hair. Even then, the braid-bound cutaway and the biscuit-colored spats had me buffaloed. So I slows up until I can get a front view of the party who's almost tripped himself with the horn-handled walkin'-stick and is havin' a few last words with someone in the cab. Then I sees the washed out blue eyes, and I know there can't be any mistake. About then, too, he turns and recognizes me. "Well, for the love of beans!" says I. "Rupert!" The funny part of it is that I gets it off as cordial as if I was discoverin' an old trench mate. You know how you will. And, while I can't say Captain Killam registered any wild joy in his greetin', still he seemed pleased enough. He gives me a real hearty shake. "And here is someone else you know," says he, wavin' to the cab: "Mrs. Mumford."