Alex Simoneau, being of French descent, and speaking the Gallic tongue, was not to be found at the Tiare.  He was at the Paris, or other cafe, surrounded by gaping Frenchmen, who pressed upon him Pernoud, rum, and the delicate wines of France.  So great was his absorption in his new friends, and so unbounded their hospitality, that M. Lontane laid him by the heels to rest him.  Simoneau was wiry, talking the slang of the New York waterfront, swearing that he would “hike for Attleboro, and hoe potatoes until he died.”  I was forced to seek Steve Drinkwater.  Short, pillow-like, as red-cheeked as a winter apple, and yellow-haired, he was a Dutchman, unafraid of anything, stolid, powerful, but not resourceful.  I called Steve to my room above Captain Benson’s, and set before him a bottle of schnapps, in a square-faced bottle, and a box of cigars.

“Steve,” I said, “that squarehead of a skipper of yours won’t tell me anything about the El Dorado’s sinking and your great trip in the boat.  He said he’s going to write it up in the papers, and make speeches about it in a museum.  He wants to make money out of it.”

“Vere do ve gat oop on dat?” asked the Hollander, sorely.  “Ve vas dere mit ’im, und vas ve in de museum, py damage?  Dot shkvarehet be’n’t de only wrider?”

I shuddered at the possible good fortune.  I transfixed him with a sharp eye.

“Steve,” I asked gentry, “did you keep a log?  Pour yourself a considerable modicum of the Hollands and smoke another cigar.”

“Vell,” said the seaman, after obeying instructions, “I yoost had vun hell of a time, und he make a long rest in de land, I do py dammage!  I keep a leedle book from off de day ve shtart ouid.”

I heard the measured pace of the brave “shkvarehet” below as he racked his brains for words.  I would have loved to aid him, to do all I could to make widely known his and his crew’s achievements and gain him fortune.  However, he would sow his ink and reap his gold harvest, and I must, by master or by man, hear and record for myself the wonderful incidents of the El Dorado’s wreck.  The insurance was doubtless long since paid on her, and masses said for the repose of the soul of Alex Simoneau.  The world would not know of their being saved, or her owners of the manner of her sinking, until these three arrived in San Francisco, or until a few days before, when the steamship wireless might inform them.

Steve came back with a memorandum book in which he had kept day by day the history of the voyage.  But it was in Dutch, and I could not read it.  I made him comfortable in a deep-bottomed rocker, and I jotted down my understanding of the honest sailor’s Rotterdam English as he himself translated his ample notes in his native tongue.  I pieced these out with answers to my questions, for often Steve’s English was more puzzling than pre-Chaucer poetry.