“Yes, I would,” said Lois.

“Well, then, my good girl, remember this:  If a thing gives you pleasure, it’s very likely that it will give somebody else pleasure.  So let somebody else have a chance, and the next time you hear a riddle that you think the owner has no answer for, guess it for him, if you can.  Good-by!”

And away went Master Huckleberry, skipping and singing and snapping his fingers and twirling his cap, until he came to a wide crack in the ground, when he rolled himself up like a huckleberry dumpling, and went tumbling and bouncing down into the underground home of the gnomes.

“Get out of the way!” said he to the gnomes he passed, as he proudly strode to his father’s apartments.  “I’m going to make a report.  For the first time in my life I’ve taught somebody something.”

When Huckleberry left her, the goose-girl stood silently in the midst of her geese.  Her brow was overcast.

“How’s anybody to do two things that can’t both be done?” she exclaimed at last.  “I’ll have nothing more to do with riddles as long as I live.”

HOW SIR WILLIAM PHIPS FOUND THE TREASURE IN THE SEA.

BY S.G.W.  BENJAMIN.

There is scarcely anything more exciting to the imagination than tales of hidden treasure, especially treasure lost at sea.  The mystery, the wonder, the adventure, the tragedy, the seemingly boundless possibilities connected with riches lost by shipwreck or war, and yet not gone beyond the hope of recovery, have given rise to a multitude of romantic stories, some of them pure fictions, but many founded more or less on fact.

I have known several cases in which treasure lost by piracy or shipwreck has been recovered after a century or more.  Some years ago a company of men from Boston made two cruises to the shoals of the Silver Key on the Bahama Banks, a spot noted for shipwrecks.  They had some clue to a treasure-laden ship which had foundered there long ago.  The first trip was unsuccessful, but on the second voyage the wreck was found.  Divers, armed with modern apparatus, spent several days in the quest, but in vain, until, finally, just as the last diver was about to give the signal to be drawn up, he leaned against what seemed only the barnacle-encrusted end of a beam; but suddenly it gave way, and numbers of golden doubloons rolled out at his feet.  Considerable sums rewarded further search in the sand-filled and decaying carcass of the old ship; but exactly how much was realized is known only to the discoverers, who kept the matter secret, and thus evaded paying a great part of the share due to the British crown, in whose dominion the treasure was found.