“Because I wish to know,” said Johnson.  “That is always my motive in asking questions.  You propose to go looking for a house-boat in Central Africa; you suggest that Bonaparte lead an expedition in search of it through Europe—­all of which strikes me as nonsense.  This search is the work of sea-dogs, not of landlubbers.  You might as well ask Confucius to look for it in the heart of China.  What earthly use there is in ransacking the earth I fail to see.  What we need is a naval expedition to scour the sea, unless it is pretty well understood in advance that we believe Kidd has hauled the boat out of the water, and is now using it for a roller-skating rink or a bicycle academy in Ohio, or for some other purpose for which neither he nor it was designed.”

“Dr. Johnson’s point is well taken,” said a stranger who had been sitting upon the string-piece of the pier, quietly, but with very evident interest, listening to the discussion.  He was a tall and excessively slender shade, “like a spirt of steam out of a teapot,” as Johnson put it afterwards, so slight he seemed.  “I have not the honor of being a member of this association,” the stranger continued, “but, like all well-ordered shades, I aspire to the distinction, and I hold myself and my talents at the disposal of this club.  I fancy it will not take us long to establish our initial point, which is that the gross person who has so foully appropriated your property to his own base uses does not contemplate removing it from its keel and placing it somewhere inland.  All the evidence in hand points to a radically different conclusion, which is my sole reason for doubting the value of that conclusion.  Captain Kidd is a seafarer by instinct, not a landsman.  The House-boat is not a house, but a boat; therefore the place to look for it is not, as Dr. Johnson so well says, in the Sahara Desert, or on the Alps, or in the State of Ohio, but upon the high sea, or upon the waterfront of some one of the world’s great cities.”

[Illustration:  “‘Dr. Johnson’s point is well taken’”]

“And what, then, would be your plan?” asked Sir Walter, impressed by the stranger’s manner as well as by the very manifest reason in all that he had said.

“The chartering of a suitable vessel, fully armed and equipped for the purpose of pursuit.  Ascertain whither the House-boat has sailed, for what port, and start at once.  Have you a model of the House-boat within reach?” returned the stranger.

“I think not; we have the architect’s plans, however,” said the chairman.

“We had, Mr. Chairman,” said Demosthenes, who was secretary of the House Committee, rising, “but they are gone with the House-boat itself.  They were kept in the safe in the hold.”

A look of annoyance came into the face of the stranger.

“That’s too bad,” he said.  “It was a most important part of my plan that we should know about how fast the House-boat was.”