Again his curiosity had to wait. "Got a quid of 'baccy, mate?" asked the red-bearded man as he stood on the wharf beside the bugeye. "Ain't had a chaw in four years." He seized eagerly the plug that was handed to him, broke off a generous "chaw" and thrust it into his mouth. Then, and not until then, did he make reply. "How did I come? Caught in a sou'easter, that's all. Nastiest storm you ever want to see. Hit us suddenly five nights ago. Them palms was bent double with the wind. Lord only knows why my mansion yonder didn't go. After while sort a felt we were driftin'. When mornin' broke there was my kingdom afloat in the ocean cut in two, me alone on this bit and the biggest half gone off with my subjects on it." "Subjects?" "Yes, my people." The Captain looked at John and John edged off from the stranger and made a sign suggestive of deficient mentality. "Your people?" asked Captain Cromwell. "Yes, man. Why, I am the King of Tortilla Key." John renewed the aforesaid sign and edged still farther away. Captain Cromwell laughed. The stranger chimed in. "Does sound funny, don't it. Fact is I made myself King. I've got a crown up at the palace there. Rusty tin saucepan afore I knocked the bottom out." The Captain laughed again. "You're an odd fish," he remarked. "What was your name before you were King?" "Me? Oh! I'm a 'down Easter.' Peleg Timrod of Squan, Mass., U. S. A. Of course, I knowed Peleg was no royal name, so I just dubbed myself Victor Fust when I annexed this here island." "It ain't much of a kingdom." "About four times as large as you see afore the rest broke away. Anyway, I thought it a mighty big place when I got tossed up here goin' on four year ago. I'd been afloat on the roof of a deckhouse for three days arter the fruiter Bainbridge were cast away, and I tell you, mate, I was powerful glad to hit any old kind of terra firma then. The bunch of natives who fed me and sheltered me was a kind lot. They didn't seem to belong to no country in partikler, and though I knowed Britain claimed the Bahamas, I jes' kind a thought Teddy might want the place for a coaling station some time. So I let 'em know I was their King, and I reckon I ain't had any more trouble with them than Peter Leary had in Guam. Of course, I couldn't make it plain to 'em how the Constitution follows the flag, 'cos I didn't know myself." "Where did you get your American flag?" "American flag, mate?" Victor I. was offended. "Why, bless you, that ain't no stars and stripes. That there's the flag of Tortilla. There's no stars there. The red's my old undershirt, the blue I found thrown up in the surf one day and the white is a bit of sail I had with me when I dropped in to take my throne. That flag means business. I"---- His Majesty was interrupted by a shout from John Washington: "Golly, Cap. Jim, the island's stopped!" "Stopped, you lunkhead?" "Yes, Cap. Jim. It ain't movin' no more. I'se been watchin' Poole's Island yonder, and we done ceased."