“Tempted, are you?” he laughed.  He looked like a drunken troubadour en deshabille, with those up-brushed mustaches and his usually neat brown beard all spread awry.  “Temptation’s more fun than plunder!”

Yerkes threw an orange at him, more by way of recognition than remonstrance.  We had not heard Fred sing since he tried to charm cholera victims in the Bundesrath’s fo’castle, and, like the rest of us, he had his rights.  He sang with legs spread wide in front of him, and head thrown back, and, each time be came to the chorus, kept on repeating it until we joined in.

        There’s a prize that’s full familiar from Zanzibar to
France;
        From Tokio to Boston; we are paid it in advance. 
        It’s the wages of adventure, and the wide world knows the
        feel
        Of the stuff that stirs good huntsmen all and brings the
        hounds to heel! 
        It’s the one reward that’s gratis and precedes the
        toilsome task—­
        It’s the one thing always better than an optimist can
ask! 
        It’s amusing, it’s amazing, and it’s never twice the
        same;
        It’s the salt of true adventure and the glamour of the
game!

        Chorus
        It is tem-tem-pitation! 
        The one sublime sensation! 
        You may doubt it, but without it
        There would be no derring-do! 
        The reward the temptee cashes
        Is too often dust and ashes,
        But you’ll need no spurs or lashes
        When temptation beckons you!

        Oh, it drew the Roman legions to old Britain’s distant
isle,
        And it beckoned H. M. Stanley to the sources of the Nile;
        It’s the one and only reason for the bristling guns at
Gib,
        For the skeletons at Khartoum, and the crimes of Tippoo
        Tib. 
        The gentlemen adventurers braved torture for its sake,
        It beckoned out the galleons, and filled the hulls of
Drake! 
        Oh, it sets the sails of commerce, and it whets the edge
        of war,
        It’s the sole excuse for churches, and the only cause of
        law!

Chorus It is tem-tem-pitation! etc., etc.  No note is there of failure (that’s a tune the croakers sing!) This song’s of youth, and strength, and health, and time that’s on the wing!  Of wealth beyond the hazy blue of far horizons flung—­ But never of the folk returning, disillusioned, stung!  It’s a tale of gold and ivory, of plunder out of reach, Of luck that fell to other men, of treasure on the beach—­ A compound, cross-reciprocating two-way double spell, The low, sweet lure to Heaven, and the tallyho to hell!

        Chorus
        It is tem-tem-pitation! 
        The one sublime sensation! 
        You may doubt it, but without it
        There