We met with no difficulty in our second journey, and I expected none, for at my Bradcross employer’s I had read in a Pannonian paper the interesting news that ‘Prince Joseph of Arragon has sailed in his yacht Claudine on a foreign cruise. A vessel of the Imperial Navy has been detailed to escort his Royal Highness.’ That meant, I knew, that Martin Richter had done his work so well that I was believed to be on board the yacht, and a man-of-war had been sent in chase of her. On our voyage I fell in with a man named Logan, a shipbuilder in a small way in Rhode Island. Community of tastes drew us together, and I agreed to put in a week or two in his neighbourhood before settling down elsewhere. The truth was, I was waiting for Richter, with whom I had arranged a method of communication. As soon as I let him know where I was, he was to dispose of the yacht, either by firing her or running her ashore, and join me, bringing Konstantia’s old nurse with him. But instead of Martin came the news that the yacht was really lost with all hands. He had handled her with the most consummate skill, baffling the pursuing warship half round the world, but through some accident she got him cornered inside a reef in the Australian seas, with a gale coming on. He was staunch to the end, and actually tried to take the ship out by a passage that was practicable only for the native canoes, and that in fine weather. She struck, of course, and was beaten to pieces in the surf, and not a soul escaped. Our safety was secured--at that price. For days I could settle to nothing. In all my dreams Martin and I had worked together, and I could not feel able to do without him. Then my wife suggested that I should pay some attention to the hints Logan was continually throwing out. He wanted to have me join him in the business, for he was smart enough to see that I knew where I was when ships were in question. Besides, he wanted to marry Julie--she was a good-looking woman, and had picked up a lot from Konstantia--and he thought it would be pleasant if I bought the next lot to his, and built a house on it, that our wives might not be separated. The comicality of the idea took my fancy, and I went into business with him. I made things hum in that shipyard, and poor old Logan got frightened. I would go ahead in spite of all his forebodings, and at last, at his desire, I bought him out. We were just as friendly as ever. He was free of the yard yet, and loafed around all day, prophesying that my ships would go to the bottom as soon as they were off the slips; but they didn’t, and when he died he left me his daughter’s guardian. His wife had died before that, and Maimie became our child ’most the same as Félicia. I went on inventing and improving, and making a pile--not because I wanted it, but because the thing just happened. We had a boy, and he died, and when Félicia was six years old my wife died, and I have gone on making money and fighting to keep out of society.