overboard, so great was the temptation to the men to judge this or that piece of coral worthless and throw it away. After taking a lunch, I took out my instruments which I had provided for the occasion, and made a careful examination of the stones, to see what life might be upon them, scrutinizing every cavity and crevice closely with the lens. At last I found the particular object of which I was in search. It was a little shell about the size and thickness of a lentil, which had grown fast to the stone by a piece of its edge. It was of a dingy, brownish color, with a dim red spot in the middle, and was so covered with slime and mud that it could hardly be distinguished from a stone-splinter. I loosened it with a knife and exhibited it to the boatmen on the palm of my hand. "Look at it sharply," I said, "so that you will be able to recognize it anywhere, and then help me to look for more." In the course of half an hour every stone had been examined, and three or four shells had been obtained, among them a larger one, yellowish-green and three-cornered, which was attached by the tip. "Your Excellency," said one of the sailors, "are there no such shells in the country you came from?" "In Switzerland?" I replied. "No. These shells grow only in the sea, and there is no sea in Switzerland." "That is a good way from here, and the journey must have cost a great deal of money. We are very simple people, your Excellency, and must believe you; but we can not understand why you should have come so far and spent so much money just to get two or three poor little shells that are not worth any money." "But I tell you it is worth a great deal to me to see these shells living." "But you can't sell the shells and get your money back again?" "Certainly not, but I have another kind of interest in them." "We believe, indeed, that something else must be hidden behind this, and that is what we should like to know; but it does not concern us any further. We give you the shells because you have paid us for them, and wash our hands in innocence. You are responsible for what else is done with them; but a prudent man does not act as you do. Don't consider it wrong in us, your Excellency. We should like to earn enough in this business to devote a candle to the Madonna of Valverde, with which we may atone for our sins, and the Madonna will pardon us if we have helped on a little foolery or witchcraft to earn a little money by it."
It had come to this, then, that I was a fool or a wizard. I should clearly have to give some explanation of my business to these men; but it would be impossible to make their simple heads take the conception of science or of scientific interest. So I was obliged to make up a little fiction or allegory with which to put them off, and I told them that I wanted the shells to settle a wager. I had been present at a discussion, I said, a long time ago, in the company of Prince Humbert (now king), as to which were the oldest noble families on the earth. Some were of the opinion that they were to be found in this nation and some in that, when I interfered and said that I knew of a
