"
"I am," I exclaimed. "Always have been."
"Have you," he demanded searchingly, "any practical experience?"
I tried to appear at ease; but I knew then just how the man who
applies to look after your furnace feels, when you ask him if he
can also run a sixty horse-power dynamo.
"I have never actually FOUND any buried treasure," I admitted; "but
I know where lots of it is, and I know just how to go after it." I
endeavored to dazzle him with expert knowledge.
"Of course," I went on airily, "I am familiar with all the
expeditions that have tried for the one on Cocos Island, and I know
all about the Peruvian treasure on Trinidad, and the lost treasures
of Jalisco near Guadalajara, and the sunken galleon on the Grand
Cayman, and when I was on the Isle of Pines I had several very
tempting offers to search there. And the late Captain Boynton
invited me----"
"But," interrupted Edgar in a tone that would tolerate no trifling,
"you yourself have never financed or organized an expedition with
the object in view of----"
"Oh, that part's easy!" I assured him. "The fitting-out part you
can safely leave to me." I assumed a confidence that I hoped he
might believe was real. "There's always a tramp steamer in the Erie
Basin," I said, "that one can charter for any kind of adventure,
and I have the addresses of enough soldiers of fortune,
filibusters, and professional revolutionists to man a battle-ship,
all fine fellows in a tight corner.
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