lack of courage. It is in utter disgust with the man that I write you the following synopsis. I only want you to remember two things before I do. One, that I am quite aware of his brilliant past as a bird collector, and two, that I hate to run an old fellow down, no matter who he is, who is pretty poor, in bad health, and whom everybody else is down on too. Beck has the mentality and point of view on life of a day laborer. He is boorish, unspeakably impolite (with the ability to be polite for a minute or two when he is straining), vain as a little baby, sly, full of tricks, over which his most dominant motif, an inflated idea of his own great importance in the world, waves like a preposterous parasol continually. Beck as some insig- nificant trolley car conductor, or ditch digger, or milk- man, or just plain bird collector, would exhaust no emotion or trouble from anybody. But Beck at the head of an ex- pedition, like a vagabond king, or Jackie Coogan at the wheel of the "Leviathan", is another matter altogether. Especially when the prestige of the American Museum, and in a small way American diplomacy with officials of for- eign countries is at stake. I would say, from what has occured on this boat since I have been on board, that the man is noth- ing more or less than insane. But his deliberate and malicious treatment of Dr. Drowne, a subject which I con- sider quite the most important matter in this letter, and which was too subtle to have attracted my attention before I wrote my first letter, shows that Beck, in exploiting