Cabbages and Kings...........................................................................................................................................1

O Henry ....................................................................................................................................................1

They will tell you in Anchuria, that President Miraflores, of that volatile republic, died by his own hand in the

coast town of Coralio; that he had reached thus far in flight from the inconveniences of an imminent

revolution; and that one hundred thousand dollars, government funds, which he carried with him in an

American leather valise as a souvenir of his tempestuous administration, was never afterward recovered.

For a ~real~, a boy will show you his grave. It is back of the town near a little bridge that spans a mangrove

swamp. A plain slab of wood stands at its head. Some one has burned upon the headstone with a hot iron this

It is characteristic of this buoyant people that they pursue no man beyond the grave. "Let God be his

judge!"Even with the hundred thousand unfound, though they greatly coveted, the hue and cry went no

To the stranger or the guest the people of Coralio will relate the story of the tragic end of their former

president; how he strove to escape from the country with the publice funds and also with Dona Isabel

Guilbert, the young American opera singer; and how, being apprehended by members of the opposing

political party in Coralio, he shot himself through the head rather than give up the funds, and, in consequence,

the Senorita Guilbert. They will relate further that Dona Isabel, her adventurous bark of fortune shoaled by

the simultaneous loss of her distinguished admirer and the souvenir hundred thousand, dropped anchor on

They say, in Coralio, that she found a prompt and prosperous tide in the form of Frank Goodwin, an

American resident of the town, an investor who had grown wealthy by dealing in the products of the

countrya banana king, a rubber prince, a sarsaparilla, indigo and mahogany baron. The Senorita Guilbert,

you will be told, married Senor Goodwin one month after the president's death, thus, in the very moment

when Fortune had ceased to smile, wresting from her a gift greater than the prize withdrawn.

Of the American, Don Frank Goodwin, and of his wife the natives have nothing but good to say. Don Frank

has lived among them for years, and has compelled their respect. His lady is easily queen of what social life

the sober coast affords. The wife of the governor of the district, herself, who was of the proud Castilian

family of Monteleon y Dolorosa de los Santos y Mendez, feels honored to unfold her napkin with

olivehued, ringed hands at the table of Senora Goodwin. Were you to refer (with your northern prejudices)

to the vivacious past of Mrs. Goodwin when her audacious and gleeful abandon in light opera captured the

mature president's fancy, or to her share in that statesman's downfall and malfeasance, the Latin shrug of the

shoulder would be your only answer and rebuttal. What prejudices there were in Coralio concerning Senora

It would seem that the story is ended, instead of begun; that the close of tragedy and the climax of a romance

have covered the ground of interest; but, to the more curious reader it shall be some slight instruction to trace

The headpiece bearing the name of President Miraflores is daily scrubbed with soapbark and sand. An old

halfbreed Indian tends the grave with fidelity and the dawdling minuteness of inherited sloth. He chops

down the weeds and everspringing grass with his machete, he plucks ants and scorpions and beetles from it

with his horny fingers, and sprinkles its turf with water from the plaza fountain. There is no grave anywhere

Only by following out the underlying threads will it be made clear why the old Indian, Galves, is secretly

paid to keep green the grave of President Miraflores by one who never saw that unfortunate statesman in life

or in death, and why that one was wont to walk in the twilight, casting from a distance looks of gentle

Elsewhere than at Coralio one learns of the impetuous career of Isabel Guilbert. New Orleans gave her birth

and the mingled French and Spanish creole nature that tinctured her life with such turbulence and warmth.

She had little education, but a knowledge of men and motives that seemed to have come by instinct. Far

beyond the common woman was she endowed with intrepid rashness, with a love for the pursuit of adventure

to the brink of danger, and with desire for the pleasures of life. Her spirit was one to chafe under any curb;

she was Eve after the fall, but before the bitterness of it was felt. She wore life as a rose in her bosom.

Of the legion of men who had been at her feet it was said that but one was so fortunate as to engage her

fancy. To President Miraflores, the brilliant but unstable ruler of Anchuria, she yielded the key to her resolute

heart. How, then, do we find her (as the Coralians would have told you) the wife of Frank Goodwin, and

The underlying threads reach far, stretching across the sea. Following them out it will be made plain why

"Shorty" O'Day, of the Columbia Detective Agency, resigned his position. And, for a lighter pastime, it shall

be a duty and a pleasing sport to wander with Momus beneath the tropic stars where Melpomene once stalked

austere. Now to cause laughter to echo from those lavish jungles and frowing crags where formerly rang the

cries of pirate's victims; to lay aside pike and cutlass and attack with quip and jollity; to draw one saving titter

of mirth from the rusty casque of Romancethis were pleasant to do in the shade of the lemontrees on that

For there are yet tales of the Spanish Main. That segment of continent washed by the tempestuous Caribbean,

and presenting to the sea a formidable border of tropicle jungle topped by the overweening Cordilleras, is still

begirt by mystery and romance. In past times, buccaneers and revolutionists roused the echoes of its cliffs,

and the condor wheeled perpetually above where, in the green groves, they made food for him with their

matchlocks and toledos. Taken and retaken by sea rovers, by adverse powers and by sudden uprising of

rebellious factions, the historic 300 miles of adventurous coast has scarcely known for hundreds of years

whom rightly to call its master. Pizarro, Balboa, Sir Francis Drake, and Bolivar did what they could to make

it a part of Christendom. Sir John Morgan, Lafitte and other eminent swashbucklers bombarded and pounded

The game still goes on. The guns of the rovers are silenced; but the tintype man, the enlarged photograph

brigand, the kodaking tourist and the scouts of the gentle brigade of fakirs have found it out, and carry on the

work. The hucksters of Germany, France, and Sicily now bag in small change across their counters.

Gentlemen adventurers throng the waitingrooms of its rulers with proposals for railways and concessions.

The little ~operabouffe~ nations play at government and intrigue until some day a big, silent gunboat glides

into the offing and warns them not to break their toys. And with these changes comes also the small

adventurer, with empty pockets to fill, light of heart, busybrainedthe modern fairy prince, bearing an

alarm clock with which, more surely than by the sentimental kiss, to awaken the beautiful tropics from their

centuries' sleep. Generally he wears a shamrock, which he matches pridefully against the extravagant palms;

and it is he who had driven Melpomene to the wings, and set Comedy to dancing before the footlights of the

So, there is a little tale to tell of many things. Perhaps to the promiscuous ear of the Walrus it shall come with

most avail; for in it there are indeed shoes and ships and sealingwax and cabbagepalms and presidents

Add to these a little love and counterplotting, and scatter everywhere throughout the maze a trail of tropical

dollarsdollars warmed no more by the torrid sun than by the hot palms of the scouts of Fortuneand, after

all, here seems to be Life, itself, with talk enough to weary the most garrulous of Walruses.

Coralio reclined, in the midday heat, like some vacuous beauty lounging in a guarded harem. The town lay

at the sea's edge on a strip of alluvial coast. It was set like a little pearl in an emerald band. Behind it, and

seeming almost to topple, imminent, above it, rose the seafollowing range of the Cordilleras. In front the sea

was spread, a smiling jailer, but even more incorruptible than the frowning mountains. The waves swished

along the smooth beach; the parrots screamed in the orange and ceibatrees; the palms waved their limber

Suddenly the town was full of excitement. A native boy dashed down a grassgrown street, shrieking:

The word passed quickly. Telegrams do not come to any one in Coralio. The cry for Senor Goodwin was

taken up by a dozen officious voices. The main street running parallel to the beach became populated with

those who desired to expedite the delivery of the dispatch. Knots of women with complexions varying from

palest olive to deepest brown gathered at street corners and plaintively carolled: "~Un telegrafo por Senor~

Goodwin!" The ~comandante~, Don Senor el Coronel Encarnacion Rios, who was loyal to the Ins and

suspected Goodwin's devotion to the Outs, hissed: "Aha!" and wrote in his secret memorandum book the

accusive fact that Senor Goodwin had on that momentous date received a telegram.

In the midst of the hullabaloo a man stepped to the door of a small wooden building and looked out. Above

the door was a sign that read "Keogh and Clancy"a nomenclature that seemed not to be indigenous to that

tropical soil. The man in the door was Billy Keogh, scout of fortune and progress and latterday rover of the

Spanish Main. Tintypes and photographs were the weapons with which Keogh and Clancy were at that time

assailing the hopeless shores. Outside the shop were set two large frames filled with specimens fo their art

Keogh leaned in the doorway, his bold and humorous countenance wearing a look of interest at the unusual

influx of life and sound in the street. When the meaning of the disturbance became clear to him he placed a

hand beside his mouth and shouted: "Hey! Frank!" in such a robustious voice that the feeble clamor of the

Fifty yards away, on the seaward side of the street, stood the abode of the consul for the United States. Out

from the door of this building tumbled Goodwin at the call. He had been smoking with Willard Geddie, the

consul, on the back porch of the consulate, which was conceded to be the coolest spot in Coralio.

"Hurry up," shouted Keogh. "There's a riot in town on account of a telegram that's come for you. You want to

be careful about these things, my boy. It won't do to trifle with the feelings of the public this way. You'll be

getting a pink note some day with violet scent on it; and then the country'll be steeped in the throes of a

Goodwin had strolled up the street and met the boy with the message. The oxeyed women gazed at him with

shy admiration, for his type drew them. He was big, blond, and jauntily dressed in white linen, with buckskin

~zapatos~. His manner was courtly, with a merciful eye. When the telegram had been delivered, and the

bearer of it dismissed with a gratuity, the relieved populace returned to the contiguities of shade from which

curiosity had drawn itthe women to their baking in the mud ovens under the orangetrees, or to the

interminable combing of their long, straight hair; the men to their cigarettes and gossip in the cantinas.

Goodwin sat on Keogh's doorstep, and read his telegram. It was from Bob Englehart, an American, who lived

in San Mateo, the capital city of Anchuria, eighty miles in the interior. Englehart was a gold miner, an ardent

revolutionist and "good people." That he was a man of resource and imagination was proven by the telegram

he had sent. It had had been his task to send a confidential message to his friend in Coralio. This could not

have been accomplished in either Spanish or English, for the eye politic in Anchuria was an active one. But

Englehart was a diplomatist. There existed but one code upon which he might make requisition with promise

of safetythe great and potent code of Slang. So, here is the message that slipped, unconstrued, through the

"His Nibs skedaddled yesterday per jackrabbit line with all the coin in the kitty and the bundle of muslin

he's spoony about. The boodle is six figures short. Our crowd in good shape, but we need the spondulicks.

You collar it. The main guy and the dry goods are headed for the briny. You to know what to do.

This screed, remarkable as it was, had no mystery for Goodwin. He was the most successful of the small

advanceguard of speculative Americans that had invaded Anchuria, and he had not reached that enviable

pinnacle without having well exercised the arts of foresight and deduction. He had taken up political intrigue

as a matter of business. He was acute enough to wield a certain influence among the leading schemers, and he

was prosperous enough to be able to purchase the respect of the pettyofficeholders. There was always a

revolutionary party; and to it he had allied himself; for the adherents of a new administration received the

rewards of their labors. There was now a Liberal party seeking to overturn President Miraflores. If the wheel

successfully revolved, Goodwin stood to win a concession to 30,000 manzanas of the finest coffee lands in

the interior. Certain incidents in the recent career of President Miraflores had excited a shrewd suspicion in

Goodwin's mind that the government was near a dissolution from another cause than that of a revolution, and

The telegram, which had remained unintelligible to the Anchurian linguists who had applied to it in vain their

knowledge of Spanish and elemental English, conveyed a stimulating piece of news to Goodwin's

understanding. It informed him that the president of the republic had decamped from the capital city with the

contents of the treasury. Furthermore, that he was accompanied in his flight by that winning adventuress

Isabel Guilbert, the opera singer, whose troupe of performers had been entertained by the president at San

Mateo during the past month on a scale less modest than that with which royal visitors are often content. The

reference to the "jackrabbit line" could mean nothing else than the muleback system of transport that

prevailed between Coralio and the capital. The hint that the "boodle" was "six figures short" made the

condition of the national treasury lamentably clear. Also it was convincingly true that the ingoing partyits

way now made a pacific onewould need the "spondulicks." Unless its pledges should be fulfilled, and the

spoils held for the delectation of the victors, precarious indeed, would be the position of the new government.

Therefore it was exceeding necessary to "collar the main guy," and recapture the sinews of war and

"Read that, Billy," he said. "It's from Bob Englehart. Can you manage the cipher?"

"'Tis not a cipher," he said, finally. "'Tis what they call literature, and that's a system of language put in the

mouths of people that they've never been introduced to by writers of imagination. The magazines invented it,

but I never knew before that President Norvin Green had stamped it with the seal of his approval. 'Tis now no

longer literature, but language. The dictionaries tried, but they couldn't make it go for anything but dialect.

Sure, now that the Western Union indorses it, it won't be long till a race of people will spring up that speaks

"You're running too much to philology, Billy," said Goodwin. "Do you make out the meaning of it?"

"Sure," replied the philosopher of Fortune. "All languages come easy to the man who must know 'em. I've

even failed to misunderstand an order to evacuate in classical Chinese when it was backed up by the muzzle

of a breechloader. This little literary essay I hold in my hands means a game of FoxintheMorning. Ever

"You do not," interrupted Keogh. "You've got a fine sporting game mixed up in your head with 'All Around

the Rosebush.' The spirit of 'FoxintheMorning' is opposed to the holding of hands. I'll tell you how it's

played. This president man and his companion in play, they stand up over in San Mateo, ready for the run,

and shout: "FoxintheMorning!' Me and you, standing here, we say: 'Goose and Gander!' They say: 'How

many miles is it to London town?' We say: 'Only a few, if your legs are long enough. How many comes out?'

"I catch the idea," said Goodwin. "It won't do to let the goose and gander slip through your fingers, Billy;

their feathers are too valuable. Our crowd is prepared and able to step into the shoes of the government at

once; but with the treasury empty we'd stay in power about as long as a tenderfoot would stick on an untamed

bronco. We must play the fox on every foot of the coast to prevent their getting out of the country."

"By the muleback schedule," said Keogh, "it's five days down from San Mateo. We've got plenty of time to

set our outposts. There's only three places on the coast where they can hope to sail fromhere and Solitas

and Alazan. They're the only points we'll have to guard. It's as easy as a chess problemfox to play, and

mate in three moves. Oh, goosey, goosey, gander, whither do you wander? By the blessing of the literary

telegraph the boodle of this benighted fatherland shall be preserved to the honest political party that is

The situation had been justly outlined by Keogh. The down trail from the capital was at all times a weary

road to travel. A jiggety joggety journey it was; icecold and hot, wet and dry. The trail climbed appalling

mountains, wound like a rotten string about the brows of breathless precipices, plunged through chilling

snowfed streams, and wriggled like a snake through sunless forests teeming with menacing insect and

animal life. After descending to the foothills it turned to a trident, the central prong ending at Alazan. Another

branched off to Coralio; the third penetrated to Solitas. Between the sea and the foothills stretched the five

miles breadth of alluvial coast. Here was the flora ofthe tropics in its rankest and most prodigal growth.

Spaces here and there had been wrested from the jungle and planted with bananas and cane and orange

groves. The rest was a riot of wild vegetation, the home of monkeys, tapirs, jaguars, alligators, and prodigious

reptiles and insects. Where no road was cut a serpent could scarcely make its way through the tangle of vines

and creepers. Across the treacherous mangrove swamps few things without wings could safely pass.

Therefore the fugitives could hope to reach the coast only by one of the routes named.

"Keep the matter quiet, Billy," advised Goodwin. "We don't want the Ins to know that the president is in

flight. I suppose Bob's information is something of a scoop in the capital as yet. Otherwise he would not have

tried to make his message a confidential one; and, besides, everybody would have heard the news. I'm going

around now to see Dr. Zavalla, and start a man up the trail to cut the telegraph wire."

As Goodwin rose, Keogh threw his hat upon the grass by the door and expelled a tremendous sigh.

"What's the trouble, Billy?" asked Goodwin, pausing. "That's the first time I heard you sigh."

"'Tis the last," said Keogh. "With that sorrowful puff of wind I resign myself to a life of praiseworthy but

harassing honesty. What are tintypes, if you please, to the opportunities of the great and hilarious class of

ganders and geese? Not that I would be a president, Frankand the boodle he's got is too big for me to

handle but in some ways I feel my conscience hurting me for addicting myself to photographing a nation

instead of running away with it. Frank, did you ever see the 'bundle of muslin' that His Excellency has

"Isabel Guilbert?" said Goodwin, laughing. "No, I never did. From what I've heard of her, though, I imagine

that she wouldn't stick at anything to carry her point. Don't get romantic, Billy. Sometimes I begin to fear that

"I never saw her either," went on Keogh; "but they say she's got all the ladies of mythology, sculpture, and

fiction reduced to chromos. They say she can look at a man once, and he'll turn monkey and climb trees to

pick coconuts for her. Think of that president man with Lord know how many hundreds of thousands of

dollars in one hand, and this muslin siren in the other, galloping down the hill on a sympathetic mule amid

songbirds and flowers! And here is Billy Keogh, because he is virtuous, condemned to the unprofitable

swindle of slandering the faces of missing links on tin for an honest living! 'Tis an injustice of nature."

"Cheer up," said Goodwin. "You are a pretty poor fox to be envying a gander. Maybe the enchanting Guilbert

will take a fancy to you and your tintypes after we impoverish her royal escort."

"She could do worse," reflected Keogh; "but she won't. 'Tis not a tintype gallery, but a gallery of the gods that

she's fitted to adorn. She's a very wicked lady, and the president man is in luck. But I hear Clancy swearing in

the back room for having to do all the work." And Keogh plunged for the rear of the "gallery," whistling gaily

in a spontaneous way that belied his recent sigh over the questionable good luck of the flying president.

Goodwin turned from the main street into a much narrower one that intersected it at a right angle.

These side streets were covered by a growth of thick, rank grass, which was kept to a navigable shortness by

the machetes of the police. Stone sidewalks, little more than a ledge in width, ran along the base of the mean

and monotonous adobe houses. At the outskirts of the village these streets dwindled to nothing; and here were

set the palmthatched huts of the Caribs and the poorer natives, and the shabby cabins of negroes from

Jamaica and the West India islands. A few structures raised their heads above the redtiled roofs of the

onestory housesthe bell tower of the ~Calaboza~, the Hotel de los Extranjeros, the residence of the

Vesuvius Fruit Company's agent, the store and residence of Bernard Brannigan, a ruined cathedral in which

Columbus had once set foot, and, most imposing of all, the Casa Morenathe summer "White House" of the

President of Anchuria. On the principal street running along the beachthe Broadway of Coraliowere the

larger stores, the government ~bodega~ and postoffice, the ~cuartel~, the rumshops and the market place.

On his way Goodwin passed the house of Bernard Brannigan. It was a modern wooden building, two stories

in height. The ground floor was occupied by Brannigan's store, the upper one contained the living apartments.

A wide cool porch ran around the house half way up its outer walls. A handsome, vivacious girl neatly

dressed in flowing white leaned over the railing and smiled down upon Goodwin. She was no darker than

many an Andalusian of high descent; and she sparkled and glowed like a tropical moonlight.

"Good evening, Miss Paula," said Goodwin, taking off his hat, with his ready smile. There was little

difference in his manner whether he addressed women or men. Everybody in Coralio liked to receive the

"Is there any news, Mr. Goodwin? Please don't say no. Isn't it warm? I feel just like Mariana in her moated

"No, there's no news to tell, I believe," said Goodwin, with a mischievous look in his eye, "except that old

Geddie is getting grumpier and crosser every day. If something doesn't happen to relieve his mind I'll have to

quit smoking on his back porchand there's no other place available that is cool enough."

But she ceased suddenly, and drew back with a deepening color; for her mother had been a ~mestizo~ lady,

and the Spanish blood had brought to Paula a certain shyness that was an adornment to the other half of her

Willard Greddie, consul for the United States in Coralio, was working leisurely on his yearly report.

Goodwin, who had strolled in as he did daily for a smoke on the much coveted porch, had found him so

absorbed in his work that he departed after roundly abusing the consul for his lack of hospitality.

"I shall complain to the civil service department," said Goodwin; "or is it a department?perhaps it's only

a theory. One gets neither civility nor service from you. You won't talk; and you won't set out anything to

Goodwin strolled out and across to the hotel to see if he could bully the quarantine doctor into a game on

Coralio's solitary billiard table. His plans were completed for the interception of the fugitives from the

The consul was interested in his report. He was only twentyfour; and he had not been in Coralio long

enough for his enthusiasm to cool in the heat of the tropicsa paradox that may be allowed between Cancer

So many thousand bunches of bananas, so mnay thousand oranges and coconuts, so many ounces of gold

dust, pounds of rubber, coffee, indigo and sarparillaactually, exports were twenty per cent greater than for

A little thrill of satisfaction ran through the consul. Perhaps, he thought, the State Department, upon reading

his introduction, would noticeand then he leaned back in his chair and laughed. He was getting as bad as

the others. For the moment he had forgotten that Coralio was an insignificant republic lying along the

byways of a secondrate sea. He thought of Gregg, the quarantine doctor, who subscribed for the London

~Lancet~, expecting to find it quoting his reports to the home Board of Health concerning the yellow fever

germ. The consul knew that not one in fifty of his acquaintances in the States had ever heard of Coralio. He

knew that two men, at any rate, would have to read his reportsome underling in the State Department and a

compositor in the Public Printing Office. Perhaps the typesticker would note the increase of commerce in

He had just written: "Most unaccountable is the supineness of the large exporters in the United States in

permitting the French and German houses to practically control the trade interests of this rich and productive

Geddie laid down his pen and gathered his Panama hat and umbrella. By the sound he knew it to be the

~Valhalla~, one of the line of fruit vessels plying for the Vesuvius Company. Down to ~ninos~ of five years,

every one in Coralio could name you each incoming steamer by the note of her siren.

The consul sauntered by a roundabout, shaded way to the beach. By reason of long practice he gauged his

stroll so accurately that by the time he arrived on the sandy shore the boat of the customs officials was rowing

back from the steamer, which had been boarded and inspected according to the laws of Anchuria.

There is no harbor at Coralio. Vessels of the draught of the ~Valhalla~ must ride at anchor a mile from shore.

When they take on fruit it is conveyed on lighters and freighter sloops. At Solitas, where there was a fine

harbor, ships of many kinds were to be seen, but in the roadstead off Coralio scarcely any save the fruiters

paused. Now and then a tramp coaster, or a mysterious brig from Spain, and then a tramp coaster, or a

mysterious brig from Spain, or a saucy French barque would hang innocently for a few days in the offing.

Then the customhouse crew would become doubly vigilant and wary. At night a sloop or two would be

making strange trips in and out along the shore; and in the morning the stock of ThreeStar Hennessey, wines

and drygoods in Coralio would be found vastly increased. It has also been said that the customs officials

jingled more silver in the pockets of their redstriped trousers, and that the record books showed no increase

The custom's boat and the ~Valhalla~ gig reached the shore at the same time. When they grounded in the

shallow water there was still five yards of rolling surf between them and dry sand. Then half clothed Caribs

dashed into the water, and brought in on their backs the ~Valhalla's~ purser, and the little native officials in

their cotton undershirts, blue trousers with red stripes, and flapping straw hats.

At college Geddie had been a treasure as a firstbaseman. He now closed his umbrella, stuck it upright in the

sand, and stooped, with his hands resting upon his knees. The purser, burlesquing the pitcher's contortions,

hurled at the consul the heavy roll of newspapers, tied with a string, that the steamer always brought for him.

Geddie leaped high and caught the roll with a sounding "thwack." The loungers on the beachabout a third

of the population of the townlaughed and applauded delightedly. Every week they expected to see that roll

of papers delivered and received in that same manner, and they were never disappointed. Innovations did not

This home of a great nation's representative was a wooden structure of two rooms, with a nativebuilt gallery

of poles, bamboo and nipa palm running on three sides of it. One room was the official apartment, furnished

chastely with a flattop desk, a hammock, and three uncomfortable caneseated chairs. Engravings of the

first and latest president of the country represented hung against the wall. The other room was the consul's

It was eleven o'clock when he returned from the beach, and therefore breakfast time. Chanca, the Carib

woman who cooked for him, was just serving the meal on the side of the gallery facing the seaa spot

famous as the coolest in Coralio. The breakfast consisted of shark's fin soup, stew of land crabs, breadfruit, a

Geddie took his seat, and unrolled with luxurious laziness his bundle of newspapers. Here in Coralio for two

days or longer he would read the goingson in the world very much as we of the world read those whimsical

contributions to inexact science that assume to portray the doings of the Martians. After he had finished with

the papers they would be sent on the rounds of the other Englishspeaking residents of the town.

The paper that came first to his hand was one of those bulky mattresses of printed stuff upon which the

readers of certain New York journals are supposed to take their Sabbath literary nap. Opening this the consul

rested it upon the table, supporting its weight with the aid of the back of a chair. Then he partook of his meal

deliberately, turning the leaves from time to time and glancing half idly at the contents.

Presently he was struck by something familiar to him in a picture a halfpage, badly printed reproduction

of a photograph of a vessel. Languidly interested, he leaned for a nearer scrutiny and a view of the florid

Yes; he was not mistaken. The engraving was of the eighthundredton yacht ~Idalia~, belonging to "that

prince of good fellows, Midas of the money market, and society's pink of perfection, J. Ward Tolliver."

Slowly sipping his black coffee, Geddie read the column of print. Following a listed statement of Mr.

Tolliver's real estate and bonds, came a description of the yacht's furnishings, and then the grain of news no

bigger than a mustard seed. Mr. Tolliver, with a party of favored guests, would sail the next day on a six

weeks' cruise along the Central American and South American coasts and among the Bahama Islands.

The writer, with the fatuous presumption that was demanded of him by his readers, had concocted a romance

suited to their palates. He bracketed the names of Miss Payne and Mr. Tolliver until he had wellnigh read

the marriage ceremony over them. He played coyly and insinuatingly upon the strings of "~on dit~" and

"Madame Rumor" and "a little bird" and "no one would be surprised," and ended with congratulations.

Geddie, having finished his breakfast, took his papers to the edge of the gallery, and sat there in his favorite

steamer chair with his feet on the bamboo railing. He lighted a cigar, and looked out upon the sea. He felt a

glow of satisfaction at finding he was so little disturbed by what he had read. He told himself that he had

conquered the distress that had sent him, a voluntary exile, to this far land of the lotus. He could never forget

Ida, of course; but there was no longer any pain in thinking about her. When they had had that

misunderstanding and quarrel he had impulsively sought this consulship, with the desire to retaliate upon her

by detaching himself from her world and presence. He had succeeded thoroughly in that. During the twelve

months of his life in Coralio no word had passed between them, though he had sometimes heard of her

through the dilatory correspondence with the few friends to whom he still wrote. Still he could not repress a

little thrill of satisfaction at knowing that she had not yet married Tolliver or any one else. But evidently

Well, it made no difference to him now. He had eaten of the lotus. He was happy and content in this land of

perpetual afternoon. Those old days of life in the States seemed like an irritating dream. He hoped Ida would

be as happy as he was. The climate as balmy as that of distant Avalon; the fetterless, idyllic round of

enchanted days; the life among this indolent, romantic peoplea life full of music, flowers, and low

laughter; the influence of the imminent sea and mountains, and the many shapes of love and magic and

beauty that bloomed in the white tropic nightswith all he was more than content. Also, there was Paula

Geddie intended to marry Paulaif, of course, she would consent; but he felt rather sure that she would do

that. Somehow, he kept postponing his proposal. Several times he had been quite near to it; but a mysterious

something always held him back. Perhaps it was only the unconscious, instinctive conviction that the act

He could be very happy with Paula. Few of the native girls could be compared with her. She had attended a

convent school in New Orleans for two years; and when she chose to display her accomplishments no one

could detect any difference between her and the girls of Norfolk and Manhattan. But it was delicious to see

her at home dressed, as she sometimes was, in the native costume, with bare shoulders and flowing sleeves.

Bernard Brannigan was the great merchant of Coralio. Besides his store, he maintained a train of pack mules,

and carried on a lively trade with the interior towns and villages. He had married a native lady of high

Castilian descent, but with a tinge of Indian brown showing through her olive cheek. The union of the Irish

and the Spanish had produced, as it so often has, an offshoot of rare beauty and variety. They were very

excellent people indeed, and the upper story of the house was ready to be placed at the service of Geddie and

By the time two hours were whiled away the consul tired of reading. The papers lay scattered about him on

the gallery. Reclining there, he gazed dreamily out upon an Eden. A clump of banana plants interposed their

broad shields between him and the sun. The gentle slope from the consulate to the sea was covered with the

darkgreen foliage of lemontrees and orangetrees just bursting into bloom. A lagoon pierced the land like

a dark, jagged crystal, and above it a pale ceibatree rose almost to the clouds. The waving coconut palms on

the beach flared their decorative green leaves against the slate of an almost quiescent sea. His senses were

cognizant of brilliant scarlet and ochres and the vert of the coppice, of odors of fruit and bloom and the

smoke from Chanca's clay oven under the calabashtree; of the treble laughter of the native women in their

huts, the song of the robin, the salt taste of the breeze, the diminuendo of the faint surf running along the

shoreand, gradually, of a white speck, growing to a blur, that intruded itself upon the drab prospect of the

Lazily interested, he watched this blur increase until it became the ~Idalia~ steaming at full speed, coming

down the coast. Without changing his position he kept his eyes upon the beautiful white yacht as she drew

swiftly near, and came opposite to Coralio. Then, sitting upright, he saw her float steadily past and on. He

had seen the frequent splash of her polished brass work and the stripes of her deckawningsso much, and

no more. Like a ship on a magic lantern slide the ~Idalia~ had crossed the illuminated circle of the consul's

little world, and was gone. Save for the tiny cloud of smoke that was left hanging over the brim of the sea,

Geddie went into his office and sat down to dawdle over his report. If the reading of the article in the paper

had left him unshaken, this silent passing of the ~Idalia~ had done for him still more. It had brought the calm

and peace of a situation from which all uncertainty had been erased. He knew that men sometimes hope

without being aware of it. Now, since she had come two thousand miles and had passed without a sign, not

After dinner, when the sun was low behind the mountains, Geddie walked on the little strip of beach under

the coconuts. The wind was blowing mildly landward, and the surface of the sea was rippled by tiny

A miniature breaker, spreading with a soft "swish" upon the sand brought with its something round and shiny

that rolled back again as the wave receded. The next influx beached it clear, and Geddie picked it up. The

thing was a longnecked wine bottle of colorless glass. The cork had been driven in tightly to the level of the

mouth, and the end covered with darkred sealingwax. The bottle contained only what seemed to be a sheet

of paper, much curled from the manipulation it had undergone while being inserted. In the sealingwax was

the impression of a sealprobably of a signetring, bearing the initials of a monogram; but the impression

had been hastily made, and the letters were past anything more certain than a shrewd conjecture. Ida Payne

had always worn a signetring in preference to any other finger decoration. Geddie thought he could make

out the familiar "I P"; and a queer sensation of disquietude went over him. More personal and intimate was

this reminder of her than had been the sight of the vessel she was doubtless on. He walked back to his house,

Throwing off his hat and coat, and lighting a lampfor the night had crowded precipitately upon the brief

By holding the bottle near the light and turning it judiciously, he made out that it contained a double sheet of

notepaper filled with close writing; further, that the paper was of the same size and shade as that always

used by Ida; and that, to the best of his belief, the handwriting was hers. The imperfect glass of the bottle so

distorted the rays of light that he could read no word of the writing; but certain capital letters, of which he

There was a little smile both of perplexity and amusement in Geddie's eyes as he set the bottle down, and laid

three cigars side by side on his desk. He fetched his steamer chair from the gallery, and stretched himself

For it amounted to a problem. He almost wished that he had not found the bottle; but the bottle was there.

Why should it have drifted in from the sea, whence come so many disquieting things, to disturb his peace?

In this dreamy land, where time seemed so redundant, he had fallen into the habit of bestowing much thought

He bagan to speculate upon many fanciful theories concerning the story of the bottle, rejecting each in turn.

Ships in danger of wreck or disablement sometimes cast forth such precarious messengers calling for aid. But

he had seen the ~Idalia~ not three hours before, safe and speeding. Suppose the crew had mutinied and

imprisoned the passengers below, and the message was one begging for succor! But, premising such an

improbable outrage, would the agitated captives have taken the pains to fill four pages of notepaper with

Thus by elimination he soon rid the matter of the more unlikely theories, and was reducedthough

averselyto the less assailable ones that the bottle contained a message to himself. Ida knew he was in

Coralio; she must have launched the bottle while the yacht was passing and the wind blowing fairly toward

As soon as Geddie reached this conclusion a wrinkle came between his brows and a stubborn look settled

around his mouth. He sat looking out through the doorway at the gigantic fireflies traversing the quiet

If this was a message to him from Ida, what could it mean save an overture at reconciliation? And if that, why

had she not used the same methods of the post instead of this uncertain and even flippant means of

communication? A note in an empty bottle, cast into the sea! There was something light and frivolous about

The thought stirred his pride, and subdued whatever emotions had been resurrected by the finding of the

Geddie put on his coat and hat and walked out. He followed a street that led him along the border of the little

plaza where a band was playing and people were rambling, carefree and indolent. Some timorous

~senoritas~ scurrying past with fireflies tangled in the jetty braids of their hair glanced at him with shy,

flattering eyes. The air was languorous with the scent of jasmin and orangeblossoms.

The consul stayed his steps at the house of Bernard Brannigan. Paula was swinging in a hammock on the

gallery. She rose from it like a bird from its nest. The color came to her cheeck at the sound of Geddie's

He was charmed at the sight of her costumea flounced muslin dress, with a little jacket of white flannel, all

made with neatness and style. He suggested a stroll, and they walked out to the old Indian well on the hill

road. They sat on the curb, and there Geddie made the expected but longdeferred speech. Certain though he

had been that she would not say him nay, he was still thrilled at the completeness and sweetness of her

surrender. Here was surely a heart made for love and steadfastness. Here was no caprice or questionings or

When Geddie kissed Paula at her door that night he was happier than he had ever been before. "Here in this

hollow lotus land, ever to live and lie reclined" seemed to him, as it has seemed to many mariners, the best as

well as the easiest. His future would be an ideal one. He had attained a Paradise without a serpent. His Eve

would be indeed a part of him, unbeguiled, and therefore more beguiling. He had made his decision tonight,

Geddie went back to his house whistling that finest and saddest love song, "La Golondrina." At the door his

tame monkey leaped down from his shelf, chattering briskly. The consul turned to his desk to get him some

nuts he usually kept there. Reaching in the halfdarkness, his hand struck against the bottle. He started as if

He lighted the lamp and fed the monkey. Then, very deliberately, he lighted a cigar, and took the bottle in his

There was a moon, and the sea was glorious. The breeze had shifted, as it did each evening, and was now

Stepping to the water's edge, Geddie hurled the unopened bottle far out into the sea. It disappeared for a

moment, and then shot upward twice its length. Geddie stood still, watching it. The moonlight was so bright

that he could see it bobbing up and down with the little waves. Slowly it receded from the shore, flashing and

turning as it went. The wind was carrying it out to sea. Soon it became a mere speck, doubtfully discerned at

irregular intervals; and then the mystery of it was swallowed up by the greater mystery of the ocean. Geddie

"Simon!Oh, Simon!Wake up there, Simon!" bawled a sonorous voice at the edge of the water.

Old Simon Cruz was a halfbreed fisherman and smuggler who lived in a hut on the beach. Out of his earliest

He slipped on his shoes and went outside. Just landing from one of the ~Valhalla's~ boats was the third mate

of that vessel, who was an acquaintance of Simon's, and three sailors from the fruiter.

"Go up, Simon," called the mate, "and find Doctor Gregg or Mr. Goodwin or anybody that's a friend to Mr.

"Saints of the skies!" said Simon, sleepily, "nothing has happened to Mr. Geddie?"

"He's under that tarpauling," said the mate, pointing to the boat, "and he's rather more than half drowned. We

seen him from the steamer nearly a mile out from shore, swimmin' like mad after a bottle that was floatin' in

the water, outward bound. We lowered the gig and started for him. He nearly had his hand on the bottle,

when he gave out and went under. We pulled him out in time to save him, maybe; but the doctor is the one to

"A bottle?" said the old man, rubbing his eyes. He was not yet fully awake. "Where is the bottle?"

"Driftin' along out there some'eres," said the mate, jerking his thumb toward the sea. "Get on with you,

Goodwin and the ardent patriot, Zavalla, took all the precautions that their foresight could contrive to prevent

the escape of President Miraflores and his companion. The sent trusted messengers up the coast to Solitas and

Alazan to warn the local leaders of the flight, and to instruct them to patrol the water line and arrest the

fugitives at all hazards should they reveal themselves in that territory. After this was done there remained

only to cover the district about Coralio and await the coming of the quarry. The nets were well spread. The

roads were so few, the opportunities for embarkation so limited, and the two or three probable points of exit

so well guarded that it would be strange indeed if there should slip through the meshes so much of the

country's dignity, romance, and collateral. The president would, without doubt, move as secretly as possible,

and endeavor to board a vessel by stealth from some secluded point along the shore.

On the fourth day after the receipt of Englehart's telegram the ~Karlsefin~, a Norwegian steamer chartered by

the New Orleans fruit trade, anchored off Coralio with three horse toots of her siren. The ~Karlesfin~ ws not

one of the line operated by the Vesuvius Fruit Company. She was something of a dilettante, doing odd jobs

for a company that was scarcely important enough to figure as a rival to the Vesuvius. The movements of the

~Karlesfin~ were dependent upon the state of the market. Sometimes she would ply steadily between the

Spanish Main and New Orleans in the regular transport of fruit; next she would be maing erratic trips to

Mobile or Charleston, or even as far north as New York, according to the distribution of the fruit supply.

Goodwin lounged upon the beach with the susual crowd of idlers that had gathered to view the steamer. Now

that President Miraflores might be expected to reach the borders of his abjured country at any time, the orders

were to keep a strict and unrelenting watch. Every vessel that approached the shores might now be considered

a possible means of escape for the fugitives; and an eye was kept even on the slopes and dories that belonged

to the seagoing contingent of Coralio. Goodwin and Zavalla moved everywhere, but without ostentation,

The customs official crowded importantly into their boat and rowed out to the ~Karlesfin~. A boat from the

steamer landed her purser with his papers, and took out the quarantine doctor with his green umbrella and

clinical thermometer. Next a swarm of Caribs began to load upon lighters the thousands of bunches of

bananas heaped upon the shore and row them out to the steamer. The ~Karlesfin~ had no passenger list, and

was soon done with the attention of the authorities. The purser declared that the steamer would remain at

anchor until morning, taking on her fruit during the night. The ~Karlesfin~ had come, he said, from New

York, to which port her latest load of oranges and coconuts had been conveyed. Two or three of the freighter

sloops were engaged to assist in the work, for the captain was anxious to make a quick return in order to reap

About four o'clock in the afternoon another of those marine monsters, not very familiar in those waters, hove

in sight, following the fateful ~Idalia~a graceful steam yacht, painted a light buff, cleancut as a steel

engraving. The beautiful vessel hovered off shore, seesawing the waves as lightly as a duck in a rain barrel.

A swift boat manned by a crew in uniform came ashore, and a stocky built man leaped to the sands.

The newcomer seemed to turn a disapproving eye upon the rather motley congregation of native Anchurians,

and made his way at once toward Goodwin, who was the most conspicuously AngloSaxon figure present.

Conversation developed that the newly landed one was named Smith, and that he had come in a yacht. A

meagre biography, truly; for the yacht was most apparent; and the "Smith" not beyond a reasonable guess

before the revelation. Yet to the eye of Goodwin, who has seen several things, there was a discrepancy

between Smith and his yacht. A bulletheaded man Smith was, with an oblique, dead eye and the moustache

of a cocktailmixer. And unless he had shifted costumes before putting off for shore he had affronted the

deck of his correct vessel clad in a pearlgray derby, a gay plaid suit and vaudeville neckwear. Men owning

Smith looked business, but he was no advertiser. He commented upon the scenery, remarking upon its

fidelity to the pictures in the geography; and then inquired for the United States consul. Goodwin pointed out

the starredandstriped bunting hanging from above the little consulate, which was concealed behind the

"Mr. Geddie, the consul, will be sure to be there," said Goodwin. "He was very nearly drowned a few days

ago while taking a swim in the sea, and the doctor has ordered him to remain indoors for some time."

Smith ploughed his way through the sand to the consulate, his haberdashery creating violent discord against

Geddie was lounging in his hammock, somewhat pale of face and languid in pose. On that night when the

~Valhalla's~ boat had brought him ashore apparently drenched to death by the sea, Doctor Gregg and his

other friends had toiled for hours to preserve the little spark of life that remained to him. The bottle, with its

impotent message, was gone out to sea, and the problem that it had provoked was reduced to a simple sum in

additionone and one make two, by the rule of arithmetic; one by the rule of romance.

There is a quaint old theory that man may have two soulsa peripheral one which serves ordinarily, and a

central one which is stirred only at certain times, but then with activity and vigor. While under the

domination of the former a man will shave, vote, pay taxes, give money to his family, buy subscription books

and comport himself on the average plan. But let the central soul suddenly become dominant, and he may, in

the twinkling of an eye, turn upon the partner of his joys with furious execration; he may change his politics

while you could snap your fingers; he may deal out deadly insult to his dearest friend; he may get him,

instanter, to a monastery or a dance hall; he may elope, or hang himselfor he may write a song or poem, or

kiss his wife unasked, or give his funds to the search of a microbe. Then the peripheral soul will return; and

we have our safe, sane citizen again. It is but the revolt of the Ego against Order; and its effect is to shake up

Geddie's revulsion had been a mild oneno more than a swim in a summer sea after so inglorious an object

as a drifting bottle. And now he was himself again. Upon his desk, ready for the post, was a letter to his

government tendering his resignation as consul, to be effective as soon as another could be appointed in his

place. For Bernard Brannigan, who never did things in a halfway manner, was to take Geddie at once for a

partner in his very profitable and various enterprises; and Paula was happily engaged in plans for refurnishing

The consul rose from his hammock when he saw the conspicuous stranger at this door.

"Keep your seat, old man," said the visitor, with an airy wave of his large hand. "My name's Smith; and I've

come in a yacht. You are the consulis that right? A big, cool guy on the beach directed me here. Thought

"Sit down, said Geddie. "I've been admiring your craft ever since it came in sight. Looks like a fast sailer.

"Search me!" said Smith. "I don't know what she weighs in at. But she's got a tidy gait. The

~Rambler~that's her namedon't take the dust of anything afloat. This is my first trip on her. I'm taking a

squint along this coast just to get an idea of the countries where the rubber and red pepper and revolutions

come from. I had no idea there was so much scenery down here. Why, Central Park ain't in it with this neck

of the woods. I'm from New York. They get monkeys, and coconuts, and parrots down hereis that right?"

"We have them all," said Geddie. "I'm quite sure that our fauna and flora would take a prize over Central

"Maybe they would," admitted Smith, cheerfully. "I haven't seen them yet. But I guess you've got us skinned

on the animal and vegetation question. You don't have much travel here, do you?"

"Travel?" queried the consul. "I suppose you mean passengers on steamers. No; very few people land in

Coralio. An investor now and thentourists and sightseers generally go further down the coast to one of the

"I see a ship out there loading up with bananas," said Smith. "Any passengers come on her?"

"That's the ~Karlesfin~," said the consul. "She's a tramp fruiter made her last trip to New York, I believe.

No; she brought no passengers. I saw her boat come ashore, and there was no one. About the only exciting

recreation we have here is watching steamers when they arrive; and a passenger on one of them generally

causes the whole town to turn out. If you are going to remain in Coralio a while, Mr. Smith, I'll be glad to

take you around to meet some people. There are four or five American chaps that are good to know, besides

"Thanks," said the yachtsman, "but I wouldn't put you the trouble. I'd like to meet the guys you speak of, but I

won't be here long enough to do much knocking around. That cool gent on the beach spoke of a doctor; can

you tell me where to find him? The ~Rambler~ ain't quite as steady on her feet as a Broadway hotel; and a

fellow gets a touch of seasickness now and then. Thought I'd strike the croaker for a handful of the little sugar

"You will be apt to find Doctor Gregg at the hotel," said the consul. "You can see it from the doorit's that

The Hotel de los Extranjeros was a dreary hostelry, in great disuse both by strangers and friends. It stood at a

corner of the Street of the Holy Sepulchre. A grove of small orangetrees crowded against one side of it,

enclosed by a low, rock wall over which a tall man might easily step. The house was of plastered adobe,

stained a hundred shades of color by the salt breeze and the sun. Upon its upper balcony opened a central

The lower floor communicated by two doorways with the narrow, rockpaved sidewalk. The ~pulperia~or

drinking shopof the proprietess, Madama Timotea Ortiz, occupied the ground floor. On the bottles of

brandy, ~anisada~, Scotch "smoke," and inexpensive wines behind the little counter the dust lay thick save

where the fingers of infrequent customers had left irregular prints. The upper story contained four or five

guestrooms which were rarely put to their destined use. Sometimes a fruitgrower, riding in from his

plantation to confer with his agent, would pass a melancholy night in the dismal upper story; sometimes a

minor native official on some trifling government quest would have his pomp and majesty awed by

Madama's sepulchral hospitality. But Madama sat behind her bar content, not desiring to quarrel with Fate. If

any one required meat, drink or lodging at the Hotel de los Extranjeros they had but to come, and be served.

As the exceptional yachtsman was making his way down the precarious sidewalk of the Street of the Holy

Sepulchre, the solitary permanent guest of that decaying hotel sat at its door, enjoying the breeze from the

Doctor Gregg, the quarantine physician, was a man of fifty or sixty, with a florid face and the longest beard

between Topeka and Terra del Fuego. He held his position by virtue of an appointment by the Board of

Health of a seaport city in one of the Southern states. That city feared the ancient enemy of every Southern

seaportthe yellow feverand it was the duty of Doctor Gregg to examine crew and passengers of every

vessel leaving Coralio for preliminary symptoms. The duties were light, and the salary, for one who lived in

Coralio, ample. Surplus time there was in plenty; and the good doctor added to his gains by a large private

practice among the residents of the coast. The fact that he did not know ten words of Spanish was no

obstacle; a pulse could be felt and a fee collected without one being a linguist. Add to the description the facts

that the doctor had a story to tell concerning the operation of trepanning which no listener had ever allowed

him to conclude, and that he believed in brandy as a prophylactic; and the special points of interest possessed

The doctor had dragged a chair to the sidewalk. He was coatless, and he leaned back against the wall and

smoked, while he stroked his beard. Surprise came into his pale blue eyes when he caught sight of Smith in

"You're Doctor Greggis that right?" said Smith, feeling the dog's head pin in his tie. "The constableI

mean the consul, told me you hung out at this caravansary. My name's Smith; and I came in a yacht. Taking a

cruise around, looking at the monkeys and pineapple trees. Come inside and have a drink, Doc. This cafe

"I will join you, sir, in just a taste of brandy," said Doctor Gregg, rising quickly. "I find that as a prophylactic

As they turned to enter the ~pulperia~ a native man, barefoot, glided noiselessly up and addressed the doctor

in Spanish. He was yellowishbrown, like an overripe lemon; he wore a cotton shirt and ragged linen

trousers girded by a leather belt. His face was like an animal's, live and wary, but without promise of much

intelligence. This man jabbered with animation and so much seriousness that it seemed a pity that his words

"~Mi mujer es enferma en la casa,~" said the man, thus endeavoring to convey the news, in the only language

The doctor drew a handful of capsules filled with a white powder from his trousers pocket. He counted out

"Take one," said the doctor, "every two hours." He then held up two fingers, shaking them emphatically

before the native's face. Next he pulled out his watch and ran his finger round the dial twice. Again the two

He pulled a cheap silver watch from his own pocket and laid it in the doctor's hand. "Me bring," said he,

struggling painfully with his scant English, "other watchy tomorrow," then he departed downheartedly with

"A very ignorant race of people, sir," said the doctor, as he slipped the watch into his pocket. "He seems to

have mistaken my directions for taking the physic for the fee. However, it is all right. He owes me an

account, anyway. The chances are that he won't bring the other watch. You can't depend on anything they

promise you. About that drink, now? How did you come to Coralio, Mr. Smith? I was not aware that any

The two leaned against the deserted bar; and Madama set out a bottle without waiting for the doctor's order.

"You say there were no passengers on the ~Karlesfin~, Doc? Are you sure about that? It seems to me I heard

"They were mistaken, sir. I myself went out and put all hands through a medical examination, as usual. The

~Karlesfin~ sails as soon as she gets her bananas loaded, which will be about daylight in the morning, and

she got everything ready this afternoon. No, sir, there was no passenger list. Like that ThreeStar? A French

schooner landed two slooploads of it a month ago. If any customs duties on it went to the distinguished

republic of Anchuria you may have my hat. If you won't have another, come out and let's sit in the cool a

while. It isn't often we exiles get a chance to talk with somebody from the outside world."

The doctor brought out another chair to the sidewalk for his new acquaintance. The two seated themselves.

"You are a man of the world," said Doctor Gregg; "a man of travel and experience. Your decision in a matter

of ethics and, no doubt, on the points of equity, ability and professional probity should be of value. I would

be glad if you will listen to the history of a case that I think stands unique in medical annals.

"About nine years ago, while I was engaged in the practice of medicine in my native city, I was called to treat

a case of contusion of the skull. I made the diagnosis that a splinter of bone was pressing upon the brain, and

that the surgical operation known as trepanning was required. However, as the patient was a gentleman of

Smith rose from his chair, and laid a hand, soft with apology, upon the doctor's shirt sleeve.

"Say, Doc," he said, solemnly, "I want to hear that story. You've got me interrested; and I don't want to miss

the rest of it. I know it's a loola by the way it begins; and I want to tell it at the next meeting of the Barney

O'Flynn Association, if you don't mind. But I've got one or two matters to attend to first. If I get 'em attended

to in time I'll come right back and hear you spiel the rest before bedtimeis that right?"

"By all means," said the doctor, "get your business attended to, and then return. I shall wait up for you. You

see, one of the most prominent physicians at the consultation diagnosed the trouble as a blood clot; another

"Don't tell me now, Doc. Don't spoil the story. Wait till I come back. I want to hear it as it runs off the

The mountains reached up their bulky shoulders to receive the level gallop of Apollo's homing steeds, the day

died in the lagoons and in the shadowed banana groves and in the mangrove swamps, where the great blue

crabs were beginning to crawl to land for their nightly ramble. And it died, at last, upon the highest peaks.

Then the brief twilight, ephemeral as the flight of a moth, came and went; the Southern Cross peeped with its

topmost eye above a row of palms, and the fireflies heralded with their torches and approach of softfooted

In the offing the ~Karlesfin~ swayed at anchor, her lights seeming to penetrate the water to countless fathoms

with their shimmering, lanceolate reflections. The Caribs were busy loading her by means of the great

On the sandy beach, with his back against a coconuttree and the stubs of many cigars lying around him,

Smith sat waiting, never relaxing his sharp gaze in the direction of the steamer.

The incongruous yachtsman had concentrated his interest upon the innocent fruiter. Twice had he been

assured that no passengers had come to Coralio on board of her. And yet, with a persistence not to be

attributed to an idling voyager, he had appealed the case to the higher court of his own eyesight. Surprisingly

like some gaycoated lizard, he crouched at the foot of the coconut palm, and with the beady, shifting eyes of

On the white sands a whiter gig belonging to the yacht was drawn up, guarded by one of the whiteducked

crew. Not far away in a ~pulperia~ on the shorefollowing Calle Grande three other sailors swaggerred with

their cues around Coralio's solitary billiardtable. The boat lay there as if under orders to be ready for use at

any moment. There was in the atmosphere a hint of expectation, of waiting for something to occur, which

Like some passing bird of brilliant plumage, Smith alights on this palmy shore but to preen his wings for an

instant and then to fly away upon silent pinions. When morning dawned there was no Smith, no waiting gig,

no yacht in the offing, Smith left no intimation of his mission there, no footprints to show where he had

followed the trail of his mystery on the sands of Coralio that night. He came; he spake his strange jargon of

the asphalt and the cafes; he sat under the coconuttree, and vanished. The next morning Coralio, Smithless,

ate its fried plantain and said: "The man of pictured clothing went himself away." With the ~siesta~ the

So, for a time, must Smith pass behind the scenes of the play. He comes no more to Coralio, nor to Doctor

Gregg, who sits in vain, wagging his redundant beard, waiting to enrich his derelict audience with his moving

But prosperously to the lucidity of these loose pages, Smith shall flutter among them again. In the nick of

time he shall come to tell us why he strewed so many anxious cigar stumps around the coconut palm that

night. This he must do; for, when he sailed away before the dawn in his yacht ~Rambler~, he carried with

him the answer to a riddle so big and preposterous that few in Anchuria had ventured even to propound it.

The plans for the detention of the flying President Miraflores and his companion at the coast line seemed

hardly likely to fail. Doctor Zavalla himself had gone to the port of Alazan to establish a guard at that point.

At Solitas the Liberal patriot Varras could be depended upon to keep close watch. Goodwin held himself

The news of the president's flight had been disclosed to no one in the coast towns save trusted members of the

ambitious political party that was desirous of succeeding to power. The telegraph wire running from San

Mateo to the coast had been cut far up on the mountain trail by an emissary of Zavalla's. Long before this

could be repaired and word received along it from the capital the fugitives would have reached the coast and

Goodwin had stationed armed sentinels at frequent intervals along the shore for a mile in each direction from

Coralio. They were instructed to keep a vigilant lookout during the night to prevent Miraflores from

attempting to embark stealthily by means of some boat or sloop found by chance at the water's edge. A dozen

patrols walked the streets of Coralio unsuspected, ready to intercept the truant official should he show himself

Goodwin was very well convinced that no precautions had been overlooked. He strolled about the streets that

bore such high sounding names and were but narrow, grasscovered lanes, lending his own aid to the vigil

The town had begun the tepid round of its nightly diversions. A few leisurely dandies, cald in white duck,

with flowing neckties, and swinging slim bamboo canes, threaded the grassy byways toward the houses of

their favored senoritas. Those who wooed the art of music dragged tirelessly at whining concertinas, or

fingered lugubrious guitars at doors and windows. An occasional soldier from the ~cuartel~, with flapping

straw hat, without coat or shoes, hurried by, balancing his long gun like a lance in one hand. From every

density of the foliage the giant tree frogs sounded their loud and irritating clatter. Further out, the guttural

cries of marauding baboons and the coughing of the alligators in the black estuaries fractured the vain silence

By ten o'clock the streets were deserted. The oil lamps that had burned, a sickly yellow, at random corners,

had been extinguished by some economical civic agent. Coralio lay sleeping calmly between toppling

mountains and encroaching sea like a stolen babe in the arms of its abductors. Somewhere over in that

tropical darknessperhaps already threading the profundities of the alluvial lowlandsthe high adventurer

and his mate were moving toward land's end. The game of FoxintheMorning should be coming soon to

Goodwin, at his deliberate gait, passed the long, low ~cuartel~ where Coralio's contingent of Anchuria's

military force slumbered, with its bare toes pointed heavenward. There was a law that no civilian might come

so near the headquarters of that citadel of war after nine o'clock, but Goodwin was always forgetting the

"~Quien vive,~" shrieked the sentinel, wrestling prodigiously with his lengthy musket.

"~Americano,~" growled Goodwin, without turning his head, and passed on, unhalted.

To the right he turned, and to the left up the street that ultimately reached the Plaza Nacional. When within

the toss of a cigar stump from the intersecting Street of the Holy Sepulchre, he stopped suddenly in the

He saw the form of a tall man, clothed in black and carrying a large valise, hurry down the crossstreet in the

direction of the beach. And Goodwin's second glance made him aware of a woman at the man's elbow on the

farther side, who seemed to urge forward, if not even to assist, her companion in their swift but silent

Goodwin followed at increased speed, but without any of the artful tactics that are so dear to the heart of the

sleuth. The American was too broad to feel the instinct of the detective. He stood as an agent for the people of

Anchuria, and but for political reasons he would have demanded then and there the money. It was the design

of his party to secure the imperilled fund, to restore it to the treasury of the country, and to declare itself in

The couple halted at the door of the Hotel de los Extranjeros, and the man struck upon the wood with the

impatience of one unused to his entry being stayed. Madama was long in response, but after a time her light

Goodwin stoodin the quiet street, lighting another cigar. In two minutes, a faint gleam began to show between

the slats of the jalousies in the upper story of the hotel. "They have engaged rooms," said Goodwin to

At the moment there came along one Esteban Delgado, a barber, an enemy to existing government, a jovial

plotter against stagnation in any form. This barber was one of Coralio's saddest dogs, often remaining out of

doors as late as eleven, post meridian. He was a partisan Liberal; and he greeted Goodwin with flatulent

"What think you, Don Frank!" he cried, in the universal tone of the conspirator. "I have tonight shaved ~la

barba~what you call the 'weeskers' of the ~Presidente~ himself, of this countree! Consider! He sent for me

to come. In the poor ~casita~ of an old woman he awaited mein a verree leetle house in a dark place.

~Carramba!~ el Senor Presidente to make himself thus secret and obscured! I shave a man and not see his

face? This gold piece he gave me, and said it was to be all quite still. I think, Don Frank, there is what you

"But once," answered Esteban. "He is tall; and he had weeskers, verree black and sufficient."

"An old Indian woman, Senor, that belonged with the ~casa~, and one senoritaa ladee of so much

"All right, Esteban," said Goodwin. "It's very lucky that you happened along with your tonsorial information.

Then in a few words he made the barber acquainted with the crisis into which the affairs of the nation had

culminated, and instructed him to remain outside, keeping watch upon the two sides of the hotel that looked

upon the street, and observing whether any one should attempt to leave the house by any door or window.

Goodwin himself went to the door through which the guests had entered, opened it and stepped inside.

Madama had returned downstairs from her journey above to see after the comfort of her lodgers. Her candle

stood upon the bar. She was about to take a thimbleful of rum as a solace for having her rest disturbed. She

"Ah! it is the Senor Goodwin. Not often does he honor my poor house with his presence."

"I must come oftener," said Goodwin, with a Goodwin smile. "I hear that your cognac is the best between

Belize to the north and Rio to the south. Set out the bottle, Madama, and let us have the proof in ~un vasito~

"My ~aguardiente~," said Madama, with pride, "is the best. It grows, in beautiful bottles, in the dark places

among the bananatrees. ~Si, Senor~. Only at midnight can they be picked by sailormen who bring them,

before daylight comes, to your back door. Good ~aguardiente~ is a verree difficult fruit to handle, Senor

Smuggling, in Coralio, was much nearer than competition to being the life of trade. One spoke of it slyly, yet

"You have guests in the house tonight," said Goodwin, laying a silver dollar upon the counter.

"Why not?" said Madama, counting the change. "Two; but the smallest while finished to arrive. One senor,

not quite old, and one senorita of sufficient hadsomeness. To their rooms they have ascended, not desiring the

"I was expecting that gentleman and that lady," said Goodwin. "I have important ~negocios~ that must be

"Why not?" sighed Madama, placidly. "Why should not Senor Goodwin ascend and speak to his friends?

Goodwin loosened in his coat pocket the American revolver that he carried, and ascended the steep, dark

In the hallway above, the saffron light from a hanging lamp allowed him to select the gaudy numbers on the

If that was Isabel Guilbert seated by the table in that poorly furnished room, report had failed to do her

charms justice. She rested her head upon one hand. Extreme fatigue was signified in every line of her figure;

and upon her countenance a deep perplexity was written. Her eyes were grayirised, and of that mold that

seems to have belonged to the orbs of all the famous queens of hearts. Their whites were singularly clear and

brilliant, concealed above the irises by heavy horizontal lids, and showing a snowy line between them. Such

eyes denote great nobility, vigor, and, if you can conceive of it, a most generous selfishness. She looked up

when the American entered, with an expression of surprised inquiry, but without alarm.

Goodwin took off his hat and seated himself, with his characteristic deliberate ease, upon a corner of the

table. He held a lighted cigar between his fingers. He took this familiar course because he was sure that

preliminaries would be wasted upon Miss Guilbert. He knew her history, and the small part that the

"Good evening," he said. "Now, madame, let us come to business at once. You will observe that I mention no

names, but I know who is in the next room, and what he carries in that valise. That is the point which brings

The lady neither moved nor replied, but steadily regarded the cigar in Goodwin's hand.

"We," continued the dictator, thoughtfully regarding the neat buckskin shoe on his gently swinging foot"I

speak for a considerable majority of the peopledemand the return of the stolen funds belonging to them.

Our terms go very little further than that. They are very simple. As an accredited spokesman, I promise that

our interference will cease if they are accepted. Give up the money, and you and your companion will be

permitted to proceed wherever you will. In fact, assistance will be given you in the matter of securing a

passage by any outgoing vessel you may choose. It is on my personal responsibility that I add congratulations

Returning his cigar to his mouth, Goodwin observed her, and saw that her eyes followed it and rested upon it

with icy and significant concentration. Apparently she had not heard a word he had said. He understood,

tossed the cigar out the window, and, with an amused laugh, slid from the table to his feet.

"That is better," said the lady. "It makes it possible for me to listen to you. For a second lesson in good

"I am sorry," said Goodwin, leaning one hand on the table, "that my time is too brief for devoting much of it

to a course of etiquette. Come, now; I appeal to you good sense. You have shown yourself, in more than one

instance, to be well aware of what is to your advantage. This is an occasion that demands the exercise of your

undoubted intelligence. There is no mystery here. I am Frank Goodwin; and I have come for the money. I

entered this room at a venture. Had I entered the other I would have had it before me now. Do you want it in

words? The gentleman in Number 10 has betrayed a great trust. He has robbed his people of a large sum, and

it is I who will prevent their losing it. I do not say who that gentleman is; but if I should be forced to see him

and he should prove to be a certain high official of the republic, it will be my duty to arrest him. The house is

guarded. I am offering you liberal terms. It is not absolutely necessary that I confer personally with the

gentleman in the next room. Bring me the valise containing the money, and we will call the affair ended."

"I am an instrument of the republic. I was advised by wire of the movements of thegentleman in Number

"May I ask you two or three questions? I believe you to be a man more apt to be truthful thantimid. What

"Not much of a town," said Goodwin, smiling. "A banana town, as they run. Grass huts, 'dobes, five or six

twostory houses, accomodations limited, population halfbreed Spanish and Indian, Caribs and

blackamoors. No sidewalks to speak of, no amusements. Rather unmoral. That'a an offhand sketch, of

"Are there any inducements, say in a social or in a business way, for people to reside here?"

"Oh, yes," answered Goodwin, smiling broadly. "There are no afternoon teas, no handorgans, no department

"He told me," went on the lady, speaking as if to herself, and with a slight frown, "that there were towns on

this coast of beauty and importance; that there was a pleasing social orderespecially an American colony

"There is an American colony," said Goodwin, gazing at her in some wonder. "Some of the members are all

right. Some are fugitives from justice from the States. I recall two exiled bank presidents, one army

paymaster under a cloud, a couple of manslayers, and a widow arsenic, I believe, was the suspicion in her

case. I myself complete the colony, but, as yet, I have not distinguished myself by any particular crime."

"Do not lose hope," said the lady, dryly; "I see nothing in your actions tonight to guarantee you further

obscurity. Some mistake has been made; I do not know just where. But ~him~ you shall not disturb tonight.

The journey has fatigued him so that he has fallen asleep, I think, in his clothes. You talk of stolen money! I

do not understand you. Some mistake has been made. I will convince you. Remain where you are and I will

She moved toward the closed door that connected the two rooms, but stopped, and half turned and bestowed

"You force my door," she said, "and you follow your ruffianly behavior with the basest accusations; and

yet"she hesitated, as if to reconsider what she was about to say"and yetit is a puzzling thingI am

She took a step toward the door, but Goodwin stayed her by a light touch upon her arm. I have said before

that women turned to look at him in the streets. He was the viking sort of man, big, good looking, and with

an air of kindly truculence. She was dark and proud, glowing or pale as her mood moved her. I do not know if

Eve were light or dark, but if such a woman had stood in the garden I know that the apple would have been

eaten. This woman was to be Goodwin's fate, and he did not know it; but he must have felt the first throes of

destiny, for, as he faced her, the knowledge of what report named her turned bitter in her throat.

"If there has been any mistake," he said, hotly, "it was yours. I do not blame the man who has lost his

country, his honor, and is about to lose the poor consolation of his stolen riches as much as I blame you, for,

by Heaven! I can very well see how he was brought to it. I can understand, and pity him. It is such women as

you that strew this degraded coast with wretched exiles, that make men forget their trusts, that drag"

"There is no need to continue your insults," she said, coldly. "I do not understand what you are saying, nor do

I know what mad blunder you are making; but if the inspection of the contents of a gentleman's portmanteau

She passed quickly and noiselessly into the other room, and returned with the heavy leather valise, which she

Goodwin set the valise quickly upon the table and began to unfasten the straps. The Lady stood by, with an

The valise opened wide to a powerful, sidelong wrench. Goodwin dragged out two or three articles of

clothing, exposing the bulk of its contentspackage after package of tightly packed United States bank and

treasury notes of large denomination. Reckoning from the high figures written upon the paper bands that

Goodwin glanced swiftly at the woman, and saw, with surprise and a thrill of pleasure that he wondered at,

that she had experienced an unmistakeable shock. Her eyes grew wide, she gasped, and leaned heavily

against the table. She had been ignorant, then, he inferred, that her companion had looted the government

treasury. But why, he angrily asked himself, should he be so well pleased to think this wandering and

A noise in the other room startled them both. The door swung open, and a tall, elderly, dark complexioned

All the pictures of President Miraflores represent him as the possessor of a luxuriant supply of dark and

carefully tended whiskers; but the story of the barber, Esteban, had prepared Goodwin for the change.

The man stumbled in from the dark room, his eyes blinking at the lamplight, and heavy from sleep.

"What does this mean?" he demanded in excellent English, with a keen and perturbed look at the

"Very near it," answered Goodwin. "But I rather think I'm in time to prevent it. I represent the people to

whom this money belongs, and I have come to convey it back to them." He thrust his hand into a pocket of

The lady stepped forward, and laid one hand upon the shoulder of her hesitating companion. She pointed to

the table. "Tell me the truth the truth," she said, in a low voice. "Whose money is that?"

The man did not answer. He gave a deep, longdrawn sigh, leaned and kissed her on the forehead, stepped

Goodwin foresaw his purpose, and jumped for the door, but the report of the pistol echoed as his hand

touched the knob. A heavy fall followed, and some one swept him aside and struggled into the room of the

A desolation, thought Goodwin, greater than that derived from the loss of cavalier and gold must have been

in the heart of the enchantress to have wrung from her, in that moment, the cry of one turning to the

allforgiving, allcomforting earthly consolerto have made her call out from that bloody and dishonored

But there was an alarm outside. The barber, Esteban, at the sound of the shot, had raised his voice; and the

shot itself had aroused half the town. A pattering of feet came up the street, and official orders rang out on the

still air. Goodwin had a duty to perform. Circumstances had made him the custodian of his adopted country's

treasure. Swiftly cramming the money into the valise, he closed it, leaned far out of the window and dropped

They will tell you in Coralio, as they delight in telling the stranger, of the conclusion of that tragic flight.

They will tell you how the upholders of the law came apace when the alarm was soundedthe

~Comandante~ in red slippers and a jacket like a head waiter's and girded sword, the soldiers with their

interminable guns, followed by outnumbering officers struggling into their gold and lace epaulettes; the

barefooted policemen (the only capables in the lot), and ruffled citizens of every hue and description.

They say that the countenance of the dead man was marred sadly by the effects of the shot; but he was

identified as the fallen president by both Goodwin and the barber Esteban. On the next morning messages

began to come over the mended telegraph wire; and the story of the flight from the capital was given out to

the public. In San Mateo the revolutionary party had seized the sceptre of government, without opposition,

and the ~vivas~ of the mercurial populace quickly effaced the interest belonging to the unfortunate

They will relate to you how the new government sifted the towns and raked the roads to find the valise

containing Anchuria's surplus capital, which the president was known to have carried with him, but all in

vain. In Coralio Senor Goodwin himself led the searching party which combed that town as carefully as a

So they buried the dead man, without honors, back of the town near the little bridge that spans the mangrove

swamp; and for a ~real~ a boy will show you his grave. They say that the old woman in whose hut the barber

shaved the president placed the wooden slab at his head, and burned the inscription upon it with a hot iron.

You will hear also that Senor Goodwin, like a tower of strength, shielded Dona Isabel Guilbert through those

subsequent distressful days; and that his scruples as to her past career (if he had any) vanished; and her

adventuresome waywardness (if she had any) left her, and they were wedded and were happy.

The American built a home on a little foothill near the town. It is a conglomerate structure of native woods

that, exported, would be worth a fortune, and of brick, palm, glass, bamboo and adobe. There is a paradise of

nature about it; and something of the same sort within. The natives speak of its interior with hands uplifted in

admiration. There are floors polished like mirrors and covered with handwoven Indian rugs of silk fibre, tall

ornaments and pictures, musical instruments and papered walls"figureittoyourself!" they exclaim.

But they cannot tell you in Coralio (as you shall learn) what became of the money that Frank Goodwin

dropped into the orangetree. But that shall come later; for the palms are fluttering in the breeze, bidding us

The United States of America, after looking over its stock of consular timber, selected Mr. John De

Graffenreid Atwood, of Dalesburg, Alabama, for a successor to Willard Geddie, resigned.

Without prejudice to Mr. Atwood, it will have to be acknowledged that, in this instance, it was the man who

sought the office. As with the selfbanished Geddie, it was nothing less than the artful smiles of lovely

woman that had driven Johnny Atwood to the desperate expedient of accepting office under a despised

Federal Government so that he might go far, far away and never see again the false, fair face that had

wrecked his young life. The consulship at Coralio seemed to offer a retreat sufficiently removed and romantic

enough to inject the necessary drama into the pastoral scenes of Dalesburg life.

It was while playing the part of Cupid's exile that Johnny added his handiwork to the long list of casualties

along the Spanish Main by his famous manipulation of the shoe market, and his unparalleled feat of elevating

the most despised and useless weed in his own country from obscurity to be a valuable product in

The trouble began, as trouble often begins instead of ending, with a romance. In Dalesburg there was a man

named Elijah Hemstetter, who kept a general store. His family consisted of one daughter called Rosine, a

name that atoned much for "Hemstetter." This young woman was possessed of plentiful attractions, so that

the young men of the community were agitated in their bosoms. Among the more agitated was Johnny, the

son of Judge Atwood, who lived in the big colonial mansion on the edge of Dalesburg.

It would seem that the desirable Rosine should have been pleased to return the affection of an Atwood, a

name honored all over the state long before and since the war. It does seem that she should have gladly

consented to have been led into that stately but rather empty colonial mansion. But not so. There was a cloud

on the horizon, a threatening, cumulus cloud, in the shape of a lively and shrewd young farmer in the

One night Johnny propounded to Rosine a question that is considered of much importance by the young of

the human species. The accessories were all theremoonlight, oleanders, magnolias, the mockingbird's

song. Whether or no the shadow of Pinkney Dawson, that prosperous young farmer came between them on

that occasion is not known; but Rosine's answer was unfavorable. Mr. John De Graffenreid Atwood bowed

till his hat touched the lawn grass, and went away with his head high, but with a sore wound in his pedigree

Among other accidents of that year was a Democratic president. Judge Atwood was a warhorse of

Democracy. Johnny persuaded him to set the wheels moving for some foreign appointment. He would go

awayaway. Perhaps in years to come Rosine would think how true, how faithful his love had been, and

would drop a tearmaybe in the cream she would be skimming for Pink Dawson's breakfast.

The wheels of politics revolved; and Johnny was appointed consul to Coralio. Just before leaving he dropped

in at Hemstetter's to say goodbye. There was a queer, pinkish look about Rosine's eyes; and had the two

been alone, the United States might have had to cast about for another consul. But Pink Dawson was there, of

course, talking about his 400acre orchard, and the threemile alfalfa tract, and the 200acre pasture. So

Johnny shook hands with Rosine as coolly as if he were only going to run up to Montgomery for a couple of

"If you happen to strike anything in the way of a good investment down there, Johnny," said Pink Dawson,

"just let me know, will you? I reckon I could lay my hands on a few extra thousands 'most any time for a

"Certainly, Pink," said Johnny, pleasantly. "If I strike anything of that sort I'll let you in with pleasure."

So Johnny went down to Mobile and took a fruit steamer for the coast of Anchuria.

When the new consul arrived in Coralio the strangeness of the scenes diverted him much. He was only

twentytwo; and the grief of youth was not worn like a garment as it is by older men. It has its seasons when

it reigns; and then it is unseated for time by the assertion of the keen senses.

Billy Keogh and Johnny seemed to conceive a mutual friendship at once. Keogh took the new consul about

town and presented him to the handful of Americans and the smaller number of French and Germans who

made up the "foreign" contingent. And then, of course, he had to be more formally introduced to the native

There was something about the young Southerner that the sophisticated Keogh liked. His manner was simple

almost to boyishness; but he possessed the cool carelessness of a man of far greater age and experience.

Neither uniforms nor titles, red tape nor foreign languages, mountains nor sea weighed upon his spirits. He

was heir to all ages, an Atwood, of Dalesburg; and you might know every thought conceived to his bosom.

Geddie came down to the consulate to explain the duties and workings of the office. He and Keogh tried to

interest the new consul in their description of the work that his government expected him to perform.

"It's all right," said Johnnie from the hammock that he had set up as the official reclining place. "If anything

turns up that has to be done I'll let you fellows do it. You can't expect a Democrat to work during his first

"You might look over these headings," suggested Geddie, "of the different lines of exports you will have to

keep account of. The fruit is classified; and there are the valuable woods, coffee, rubber"

"That last account sounds all right," interrupted Mr. Atwood. "Sounds as if it could be stretched. I want to

buy a new flag, a monkey, a guitar and a barrel of pineapples. Will the rubber account stretch over 'em?"

"That's merely statistics," said Geddie, smiling. "The expense account is what you want. It is supposed to

have a slight elasticity. The 'stationery' items are sometimes carelessly audited by the State Department."

"We're wasting our time," said Keogh. "This man was born to hold office. He penetrates to the root of the art

at one step of his eagle eye. The true genius of government shows its hand in every word of his speech."

"I didn't take this job with any intention of working," explained Johnny, lazily. "I wanted to go somewhere in

"Not the kind you are acquainted with," answered the exconsul. "There is no such art here as agriculture.

"This is the country for me," murmured the consul, and immediately he fell asleep.

The cheerful tintypist pursued his intimacy with Johnny in spite of open charges that he did so to obtain a

preemption on a seat in that coveted spot, the rear gallery of the consulate. But whether his designs were

selfish or purely friendly, Keogh achieved that desirable privilege. Few were the nights on which the two

could not be found reposing there in the sea breeze, with their heels on the railing, and the cigars and brandy

One evening they sat thus, mainly silent, for their talk had dwindled before the stilling influence of an

There was a great, full moon; and the sea motherofpearl. Almost every sound was hushed, for the air was

but faintly stirring; and the town lay panting, waiting for the night to cool. Offshore lay the fruit steamer

~Andador~, of the Vesuvius line, fullladen and scheduled to sail at six in the morning. There were no

loiterers on the beach. So bright was the moonlight that the two men could see the small pebbles shining on

Then down the coast, tacking close to shore, slowly swam a little sloop, whitewinged like some snowy sea

fowl. Its course lay within twenty points of the wind's eye; so it veered in and out again in long, slow strokes

Again the tactics of its crew brought it close in shore, this time nearly opposite the consulate; and then there

blew from the sloop clear and surprising notes as if from a horn of elfland. A fairy bugle it might have been,

sweet and silvery and unexpected, playing with spirit the familiar air of "Home, Sweet Home."

It was a scene set for the land of the lotus. The authority of the sea and the tropics, the mystery that attends

unknown sails, and the prestige of drifting music on moonlit waters gave it an anodynous charm. Johnny

Atwood felt it, and thought of Dalesburg; but as soon as Keogh's mind had arrived at a theory concerning the

peripatetic solo he sprang to the railing, and his earrending yawp fractured the silence of Coralio like a

The sloop was now on its outward tack; but from it came a clear, answering hail:

The ~Andador~ was the sloop's destination. No doubt some passenger with a sailing permit from some

upthecoast point had come down in this sloop to catch the regular fruit steamer on its return trip. Like a

coquettish pigeon the little boat tacked on its eccentric way until at last its white sail was lost to sight against

"That's old H. P. Mellinger," explained Keogh, dropping back into his chair. "He's going back to New York.

He was a private secretary of the late hotfoot president of this grocery and fruit stand that they call a

"Why does he disappear to music, like Zozo, the magic queen?" asked Johnny. "Just to show 'em that he

"That noise you heard is a phonograph," said Keogh. "I sold him that. Mellinger had a graft in this country

that was the only thing of its kind in the world. The tooting machine saved it for him once, and he always

"I'm no disseminator of narratives," said Keogh. "I can use language for purposes of speech; but when I

attempt a discourse the words come out as they will, and they may make sense when they strike the

"I want to hear about the graft," persisted Johnny, "You've got no right to refuse. I've told you all about every

"You shall hear it," said Keogh. "I said my instincts of narrative were perplexed. Don't you believe it. It's an

"What was this this graft? asked Johnny, with the impatience of the great public to whom tales are told.

"'Tis contrary to art and philosophy to give you the information," said Keogh, calmly. "The art of narrative

consists in concealing from your audience everything it wants to know until after you expose your favorite

opinions on topics foreign to the subject. A good story is like a bitter pill with the sugar coating inside of it. I

will begin, if you please, with a horoscope located in the Cherokee Nation; and end with a moral tune on the

"Me and Henry Horsecollar brought the first phonograph to this country. Henry was a quarterbreed,

quarterback cherokee, educated East in the idioms of football, and West in contraband whiskey, and a

gentleman, the same as you and me. He was easy and romping in his ways; a man about six foot, with a kind

of rubbertire movement. Yes, he was a little man about five foot five, or five foot eleven. He was what you

would call a medium tall man of average smallness. Henry had quit college once, and the Muscogee jail three

timesthe lastnamed institution on account of introducing and selling whisky in the territories. Henry

Horsecollar never let any cigar stores come up and stand behind him. He didn't belong to that tribe of Indians.

"Henry and me met at Texarkana, and figured out this phonograph scheme. He had $360 which came to him

out of a land allotment in the reservation. I had run down from Little Rock on account of a distressful scene I

had witnessed on the street there. A man stood on a box and passed around some gold watches, screw case,

stemwinders, Elgin movement, very elegant. Twenty bucks they cost you over the counter. At three dollars

the crowd fought for the tickers. The man happened to find a valise full of them handy, and he passed them

out like putting hot biscuits on a plate. The backs were hard to unscrew, but the crowd put its ear to the case,

and they ticked mollifying and agreeable. Three of these watches were genuine tickers; the rest were only

kickers. Hey? Why, empty cases with one of them horny black bugs that fly around electric lights in 'em.

Them bugs kick off minutes and seconds industrious and beautiful. So, this man I was speaking of cleaned up

$288; and then he went away, because he knew that when it came time to wind watches in Little Rock an

"So, as I say, Henry had $360 and I had $288. The idea of introducing the phonograph to South America was

"'The Latin races,' says Henry, explaining easy in the idioms he learned at college, 'are peculiarly adapted to

be victims of the phonograph. They yearn for music and color and gaiety. They give wampum to the

handorgan man and the fourlegged chicken in the tent when they're three months behind with the grocery

"'Then,' says I, 'we'll export canned music to the Latins; but I'm mindful of Mr. Julius Caesar's account of 'em

where he says: ~"Omnia Gallia in tres partes divisa est"~; which is the same as to say, "We will need all of

"I hated to make a show of education; but I was disinclined to be overdone in syntax by a mere Indian, a

member of a race to which we owe nothing except the land on which the United States is situated.

"We bought a fine phonograph in Texarkanaone of the best makeand half a trunkful of records. We

packed up, and took the T. and P. for New Orleans. From that celebrated center of molasses and disfranchised

"We landed at Solitas, forty miles up the coast from here. 'Twas a palatable enough place to look at. The

houses were clean and white; and to look at 'em stuck around among the scenery they reminded you of

hardboiled eggs served with lettuce. There was a block of skyscraper mountains in the suburbs; and they

kept pretty quiet, like they had crept up there and were watching the town. And the sea was remarking

'Shshsh' on the beach; and now and then a ripe coconut would drop kerblip in the sand; and that was all

there was doing. Yes, I judge that town was considerably on the quiet. I judge that after Gabriel quits blowing

his horn, and the car starts, with Philadelphia swinging to the last strap, and Pine Gully, Arkansas, hanging

"The captain went ashore with us, and offered to conduct what he seemed to like to call the obsequies. He

introduced Henry and me to the United States Consul, and a roan man, the head of the Department of

"'By that time,' we told him, 'we'll be amassing wealth in the interior towns with our galvanized prima donna

"'Ye'll not,' says the captain. 'Ye'll be hypnotized. Any gentleman in the audience who kindly steps upon the

stage and looks this country in the eye will be converted to the hypothesis that he's but a fly in the Elgin

creamery. Ye'll be standing knee deep in the surf waiting for me, and your machine for making Hamburger

steak out of the hitherto respected art of music will be playing "There's no place like home."'

"Henry skinned a twenty off his roll, and received from the Bureau of Mercenary Dispositions a paper

"Then we got the consul full of red wine, and struck him for a horoscope. He was a thin, youngish kind of

man, I should say past fifty, sort of FrenchIrish in his affections, and puffed up with disconsolation. Yes, he

was a flattened kind of man, in whom drink lay stagnant, inclined to corpulence and misery. Yes, I think he

"'The marvelous invention,' he says, 'entitled the phonograph, has never invaded these shores. The people

have never heard it. They would not believe it if they should. Simplehearted children of nature, progress has

never condemned them to accept the work of a canopener as an overture, and ragtime might incite them to

a bloody revolution. But you can try the experiment. The best chance you have is that the populace may not

wake up when you play. There's two ways,' says the consul, 'they may take it. They may become inebriated

with attention, like an Atlanta colonel listening to "Marching Through Georgia," or they will get excited and

transpose the key of the music with an axe and yourselves into a dungeon. In the latter case,' says the consul,

'I'll do my duty by cabling to the State Department, and I'll wrap the Stars and Stripes around you when you

come to be shot, and threaten them with the vengeance of the greatest gold export and financial reserve nation

on earth. The flag is full of bullet holes now,' says the consul, 'made in that way. Twice before,' says the

consul, 'I have cabled our government for a couple of gunboats to protect American citizens. The first time

the Department sent me a pair of gum boots. The other time was when a man named Pease was going to be

executed here. They referred that appeal to the Secretary of Agriculture. Let us now disturb the senor behind

"But, notwithstanding, we hired a room that afternoon in the Calle de los Angeles, the main street that runs

along the shore, and put our trunks there. 'Twas a goodsized room, dark and cheerful, but small. 'Twas on a

various street, diversified by houses and conservatory plants. The peasantry of the city passed to and fro on

the fine pasturage between the sidewalks. 'Twas, for the world, like an opera chorus when the Royal

"We were rubbing the dust off the machine and getting fixed to start business the next day, when a big,

finelooking white man in white clothes stopped at the door and looked in. We extended the invitations, and

he walked inside and sized us up. He was chewing a long cigar, and wrinkling his eyes, meditative, like a girl

"'It's simple,' says he, 'when you know how. It's the fit of the vest. They don't cut vests right anywhere else.

"'Mellinger,' says the man'Homer P. Mellinger. Boys, you're confiscated. You're babes in the wood without

a chaperon or referee, and it's my duty to start you going. I'll knock out the props and launch you proper in

the pellucid waters of this tropical mud puddle. You'll have to be christened, and if you'll come with me I'll

"Well, for two days Homer P. Mellinger did the honors. That man cut ice in Anchuria. He was It. He was the

Royal Kafoozlum. If me and Henry was babes in the wood, he was a Robin Redbreast from the topmost

bough. Him and me and Henry Horsecollar locked arms, and toted that phonograph around, and had wassail

and diversions. Everywhere we found doors open we went inside and set the machine going, and Mellinger

called upon the people to observe the artful music and his two lifelong friends, the Senores Americanos. The

opera chorus was agitated with esteem, and followed us from house to house. There was a different kind of

drink to be had with every tune. The natives had acquirements of a pleasant thing in the way of a drink that

gums itself to the recollection. They chop off the end of a green coconut, and pour in on the juice of it French

"Mine and Henry's money was counterfeit. Everything was on Homer P. Mellinger. That man could find rolls

of bills concealed in places on his person where Hermann the Wizard couldn't have conjured out a rabbit or

an omelette. He could have founded universities, and made orchid collections, and then had enough left to

purchase the colored vote of his country. Henry and me wondered what his graft was. One evening he told us.

"'Boys, said he, I've deceived you. You think I'm a painted butterfly; but in fact I'm the hardest worked man

in this country. Ten years ago I landed on its shores; and two years ago on the point of its jaw. Yes, I guess I

can get the decision over this ginger cake commonwealth at the end of any round I choose. I'll confide in you

because you are my countrymen and guests, even if you have assaulted my adopted shores with the worst

"'My job is private secretary to the president of this republic; and my duties are running it. I'm not headlined

in the bills, but I'm the mustard in the salad dressing just the same. There isn't a law goes before Congress,

there isn't a concession granted, there isn't an import duty levied but what H. P. Mellinger he cooks and

seasons it. In the front office I fill the president's inkstand and search visiting statesmen for dirks and

dynamite; but in the back room I dictate the policy of the government. You'd never guess in the world how I

got my pull. It's the only graft of its kind on earth. I'll put you wise. You remember the old topliner in the

copy book Honesty is the Best Policy?" That's it. I'm working honestly for a graft. I'm the only honest man

in the republic. The government knows it; the people know it; the boodlers know it; the foreign investors

know it. I make the government keep its faith. If a man is promised a job he gets it. If outside capital buys a

concession it gets the goods. I run the monopoly of square dealing here. There's no competition. If Colonel

Diogenes were to flash his lantern in this precinct he'd have my address inside of two minutes. There isn't big

"Thus Homer P. Mellinger made oration to me and Henry Horsecollar. And, later, he divested himself of this

"'Boys, I'm to hold a ~soiree~ this evening with a gang of leading citizens, and I want your assistance. You

bring the musical corn sheller and give the affair the outside appearance of a function. There's important

business on hand, but it mustn't show. I can talk to you people. I've been pained for years on account of not

having anybody to blow off and brag to. I get homesick sometimes, and I'd swap the entire perquisites of

office for just one hour to have a stein and a caviar sandwich somewhere on Thirtyfourth Street, and stand

and watch the street cars go by, and smell the peanut roaster at old Giuseppe's fruit stand.'

"'Yes,' said I, 'there's fine caviar at Billy Renfrew's cafe, corner of Thirtyfourth and'

"'God knows it,' interrupts Mellinger, 'and if you'd told me you knew Billy Renfrew I'd have invented tons of

ways of making you happy. Billy was my sidekicker in New York. There is a man who never knew what

crooked was. Here I am working Honesty for a graft, but that man loses money on it. Carrambos! I get sick at

times of this country. Everything's rotten. From the executive down to the coffee pickers, they're plotting to

down each other and skin their friends. If a mule driver takes off his hat to an official, that man figures it out

that he's a popular idol, and set his pegs to stir up a revolution and upset the administration. It's one of my

little chores as private secretary to smell out these revolutions and affix the kibosh before they break out and

scratch the paint off the government property. That's why I'm down here now in this mildewed coast town.

The governor of the district and his crew are plotting to uprise. I've got every one of their names, and they're

invited to listen to the phonograph tonight, compliments of H. P. M. That's the way I'll get them in a bunch,

"We three were sitting at table in the cantina of the Purified Saints. Mellinger poured out wine, and was

"'They're a sharp crowd,' he says, kind of fretful. 'They're capitalized by a foreign syndicate after rubber, and

they're loaded to the muzzle for bribing. I'm sick,' goes on Mellinger, 'of comic opera. I want to smell East

River and wear suspenders again. At times I feel loke throwing up my job, but I'm dn fool enough to be

sort of proud of it. "There's Mellinger," they say here. "~Por dios!~ you can't touch him with a million." I'd

like to take that record back and show it to Billy Renfrow some day; and that tightens my grip whenever I see

a fat thing that I could corral just by winking one eyeand losing my graft. By, they can't monkey with

me. They know it. What money I get I make honest and spend it. Some day, I'll make a pile and go back and

eat caviar with Billy. Tonight I'll show you how to handle a bunch of corruptionists. I'll show them what

Mellinger, private secretary, means when you spell it with the cotton and tissue paper off.'

"I says to myself, 'White man, if I'm not mistaken there's been a bait laid out where the tail of your eye could

"That night, according to arrangements, me and Henry took the phonograph to a room in a 'dobe house in a

dirty side street, where the grass was knee high. 'Twas a long room, lit with smoky oil lamps. There was

plenty of chairs, and a table at the back end. We set the phonograph on the table. Mellinger was there,

walking up and down, disturbed in his predicaments. He chewed cigars and spat 'em out, and he bit the thumb

"By and by the invitations to the musicale come sliding in by pairs and threes and spade flushes. Their color

was of a diversity, running from a threeday's smoked meerschaum to a patentleather polish. They were as

polite as wax, being devastated with enjoyments to give Senor Mellinger the good evenings. I understood

their Spanish talk I ran a pumping engine two years in a Mexican silver mine, and had it patbut I never

"Maybe fifty of 'em had come, and was seated, when in slid the king bee, the governor of the district.

Mellinger met him at the door, and escorted him to the grand stand. When I saw that Latin man I knew that

Mellinger, private secretary, had all the dances on his card taken. That was a big, squashy man, the color of a

"Mellinger explained, fluent, in the Castilian idioms, that his soul was disconcerted with joy at introducing to

his respected friends America's greatest invention, the wonder of the age. Henry got the cue and run on an

elegant brassband record and the festivities became initiated. The governor man had a bit of English under

"'Verrree fine. ~Grr'rrracias~, the American gentlemen, the so esplendeed moosic as to playee.'

"The table was a long one, and Henry and me sat at the end of it next the wall. The governor sat at the other

end. Homer P. Mellinger stood at the side of it. I was just wondering how Mellinger was going to handle his

"That governor man was suitable for uprisings and policies. I judge he was a ready kind of man, who took his

own time. Yes, he was full of attention and immediateness. He leaned his hands on the table and imposed his

"'Then listen,' goes on the Latin man, prompt. 'The musics are of sufficient prettiness, but not of necessity.

Let us speak of business. I well know why we are here, since I observe my compatriots. You had a whisper

yesterday, Senor Mellinger, of our proposals. Tonight we will speak out. We know that you stand in the

president's favor, and we know your influence. The government will be changed. We know the worth of your

services. We esteem your friendship and aid so much that'Mellinger praises his hand, but the governor

"The governor man then draws a package wrapped in paper from his pocket, and lays it on the table by

"'In that you will find fifty thousand dollars in money of your country. You can do nothing against us, but

you can be worth that for us. Go back to the capital and obey our instructions. Take that money now. We trust

you. You will find with it a paper giving in detail the work you will be expected to do for us. Do not have the

"'The governor man paused, with his eyes fixed on Mellinger, full of expressions and observances. I looked at

Mellinger, and was glad Billy Renfrew couldn't see him then. The sweat was popping out on his forehead,

and he stood dumb, tapping the little package with the ends of his fingers. The coloradomaduro gang was

after his graft. He had only to change his politics, and stuff five fingers in his inside pocket.

"Henry whispers to me and wants the pause in the program interpreted. I whisper back: 'H. P. is up against a

bribe, senator's size, and the coons have got him going.' I saw Mellinger's hand moving closer to the package.

'He's weakening,' I whispered to Henry. 'We'll remind him,' says Henry, 'of the peanutroaster on

"Henry stooped down and got a record from the basketful we'd brought, slid it in the phonograph, and started

her off. It was a cornet solo, very neat and beautiful, and the name of it was 'Home, Sweet Home.' Not one of

them fifty odd men in the room moved while it was playing, and the governor man kept his eyes steady on

Mellinger. I saw Mellinger's head go up little by little and his hand came creeping away from the package.

Not until the last note sounded did anybody stir. And there Homer P. Mellinger takes up the bundle of boodle

"'That's my answer,' says Mellinger, private secretary, 'and there'll be another in the morning. I have proofs of

"'There's one more act,' puts in the governor man. 'You are a servant, I believe, employed by the president to

copy letters and answer raps at the door. I am governor here. Senores, I call upon you in the name of the

"That brindled gang of conspirators shoved back their chairs and advanced in force. I could see where

Mellinger had made a mistake in massing his enemy so as to make a grandstand play. I think he made

another one, too; but we can pass that, Mellinger's idea of a graft and mine being different, according to

"There was only one window and door in that room, and they were in the front end. Here was fifty odd Latin

men coming in a bunch to obstruct the legislation of Mellinger. You may say there were three of us, for me

and Henry, simultaneous, declared New York City and the Cherokee Nation in sympathy with the weaker

"Then it was that Henry Horsecollar rose to a point of disorder and intervened, showing, admirable, the

advantages of education as applied to the American Indian's natural intellect and native refinement. He stood

up and smoothed back his hair on each side with his hands as you have seen little girls do when they play.

"'I'm going to buck center,' says Henry, in his football idioms. There isn't a tackle in the lot of them. Follow

"'Then that cultured Red Man exhaled an arrangement of sounds with his mouth that made the Latin

aggregation pause, with thoughtfulness and hesitations. The matter of his proclamation seemed to be a

cooperation of the Carlisle warwhoop with the Cherokee college yell. He went at the chocolate team like a

bean out of a little boy's nigger shooter. His right elbow laid out the governor man on the gridiron, and he

made a lane the length of the crowd so wide that a woman could have carried a stepladder through it without

"It took us just three minutes to get out of that street around to military headquarters, where Mellinger had

things his own way. A colonel and a battalion of baretoed infantry turned out and went back to the scene of

the musicale with us, but the conspirator gang was gone. But we recaptured the phonograph with honors of

war, and marched back to the ~cuartel~ with it playing 'All Coons Look Alike to Me.'

"The next day Mellinger takes me and Henry to one side, and begins to shed tens and twenties.

"'I want to buy that phonograph,' says he. I liked that last tune it played at the ~soiree~.'

"'Tis government expense money,' says Mellinger. The government pays for it, and it's getting the

"Me and Henry knew that pretty well. We knew that it had saved Homer P. Mellinger's graft when he was on

"'Now you boys better slide off further down the coast for a while,' says Mellinger, 'till I get the screws put on

these fellows here. If you don't they'll give you trouble. And if you ever happen to see Billy Renfrew again

before I do, tell him I'm coming back to New York as soon as I can make a stakehonest.'

"Me and Henry laid low until the day the steamer came back. When we saw the captain's boat on the beach

we went down and stood in the edge of the water. The captain grinned when he saw us.

"And that," said Keogh, "is the way me and Henry Horsecollar introduced the phonograph into this country.

Henry went back to the States, but I've been rummaging around in the tropics ever since. They say Mellinger

never travelled a mile after that without his phonograph. I guess it kept him reminded about his graft

whenever he saw the siren voice of the boodler tip him the wink with a bribe in his hand."

"Not as a souvenir," said Keogh. "He'll need two of 'em in New York, running day and night."

The new administration of Anchuria entered upon its duties and privileges with enthusiasm. Its first act was

to send an agent to Coralio with imperative orders to recover, if possible, the sum of money ravished from the

Colonel Emilio Falcon, the private secretary of Losada, the new president, was despatched from the capital

The position of private secretary to a tropical president is a responsible one. He must be a diplomat, a spy, a

ruler of men, a bodyguard to his chief, and a smellerout of plots and nascent revolutions. Often he is the

power behind the throne, the dictator of policy; and a president chooses him with a dozen times the care with

Colonel Falcon, a handsome and urbane gentleman of Castilian courtesy and debonnaire manners, came to

Coralio with the task before him of striking upon the cold trail of the lost money. There he conferred with the

military authorities, who had received instructions to cooperate with him in the search.

Colonel Falcon established his headquarters in one of the rooms of the Casa Morena. Here for a week he held

informal sittingsmuch as if he were a kind of unified grand juryand summoned before him all those

whose testimony might illumine the financial tragedy that had accompanied the less momentous one of the

Two or three who were thus examined, among whom was the barber Esteban, declared that they had

"Of a truth," testified Esteban before the mighty secretary, "it was he, the president. Consider!how could I

shave a man and not see his face? He sent for me to shave him in a small house. He had a beard very black

and thick. Had I ever seen the president before? Why not? I saw him once ride forth in a carriage from the

~vapor~ in Solitas. When I shaved him he gave me a gold piece, and said there was to be no talk. But I am a

"It is known," said Colonel Falcon, smoothly, "that the late President took with him an American leather

"~De veras~no," Esteban answered. "The light in the little house was but a small lamp by which I could

scarcely see to shave the President. Such a thing there may have been, but I did not see it. No. Also in the

room was a young ladya senorita of much beauty that I could see even in so small a light. But the

The ~comandante~ and other officers gave testimony that they had been awakened and alarmed by the noise

of a pistolshot in the Hotel de los Extranjeros. Hurrying thither to protect the peace and dignity of the

republic, they found a man lying dead, with a pistol clutched in his hand. Beside him was a young woman,

weeping sorely. Senor Goodwin was also in the room when they entered it. But of the valise of money they

Madame Timotea Ortiz, the proprietress of the hotel in which the game of FoxintheMorning had been

"To my house they came," said she"one ~senor~ not quite old, and one ~senorita~ of sufficient

handsomeness. They desired not to eat or to drinknot even of my ~aguardiente~, which is the best. To their

rooms they ascended~Numero Nueve~ and ~Numero Diez~. Later came Senor Goodwin, who ascended to

speak with them. Then I heard a great noise like that of a ~canon~, and they said that the ~pobre Presidente~

had shot himself. ~Esta bueno~. I saw nothing of money or of the thing you call ~veliz~ that you say he

Colonel Falcon soon came to the reasonable conclusion that if any one in Coralio could furnish a clue to the

vanished money, Frank Goodwin must be the man. But the wise secretary pursued a different course in

seeking information from the American. Goodwin was a powerful friend to the new administration, and one

who was not to be carelessly dealt with in respect to either his honesty or his courage. Even the private

secretary of His Excellency hesitated to have this rubber prince and mahogany baron haled before him as a

common citizen of Anchuria. So he sent Goodwin a flowery epistle, each wordpetal dripping with honey,

requesting the favor of an interview. Goodwin replied with an invitation to dinner at his own house.

Before the hour named the American walked over to the Casa Morena, and greeted his guest frankly and

friendly. Then the two strolled, in the cool of the afternoon, to Goodwin's home in the environs.

The American left Colonel Falcon in a big, cool, shadowed room with a floor of inlaid and polished woods

that any millionaire in the States Would have envied, excusing himself for a few minutes. He crossed a

~patio~, shaded with deftly arranged awnings and plants, and entered a long room looking upon the sea in the

opposite wing of the house. The broad jalousies were opened wide, and the ocean breeze flowed in through

the room, an invisible current of coolness and health. Goodwin's wife sat near one of the windows, making a

Here was a woman who looked to be happy. And moreshe looked to be content. Had a poet been inspired

to pen just similes concerning her favor, he would have likened her full, clear eyes, with their

whiteencircled, gray irises, to moonflowers. With none of the goddesses whose traditional charms have

become coldly classic would the discerning rhymester have compared her. She was purely Paradisaic, not

Olympian. If you can imagine Eve, after the eviction, beguiling the flaming warriors and serenely reentering

the Garden, you will have her. Just so human, and still so harmonious with Eden seemed Mrs. Goodwin.

When her husband entered she looked up, and her lips curved and parted; her eyelids fluttered twice or

thricea movement remindful (Proesy forgive us!) of the tailwagging of a faithful dogand a little ripple

went through her like the commotion set up in a weeping willow by a puff of wind. Thus she ever

acknowledged his coming, were it twenty times a day. If they who sometimes sat over their wine in Coralio,

reshaping old, diverting stories of the madcap career of Isabel Guilbert, could have seen the wife of Frank

Goodwin that afternoon in the estimable aura of her happy wifehood, they might have disbelieved, or have

agreed to forget, those graphic annals of the life of the one for whom their president gave up his country and

"I have brought a guest to dinner," said Goodwin. "One Colonel Falcon, from San Mateo. He is come on

government business. I do not think you will care to see him, so I prescribe for you one of those convenient

"He has come to inquire about the lost money, has he not?" asked Mrs. Goodwin, going on with her sketch.

"A good guess!" acknowledged Goodwin. "He has been holding an inquisition among the natives for three

days. I am next on his list of witnesses, but as he feels shy about dragging one of Uncle Sam's subjects before

him, he consents to give it the outward appearance of a social function. He will apply the torture over my

"Not a soul. Even Madama Ortiz, whose eyes are so sharp for the sight of a revenue official, does not

"I am so sorry, Frank," she said, "that they are giving you so much trouble about the money. But we can't let

"Not without doing our intelligence a great injustice," said Goodwin, with a smile and a shrug that he had

picked up from the natives. "~Americano~, though I am, they would have me in the ~calaboza~ in half an

hour if they knew we had appropriated that valise. No; we must appear as ignorant about the money as the

"Do you think that this man they have sent suspects you?" she asked, with a little pucker of her brows. "He'd

better not," said the American, carelessly. "It's lucky that no one caught a sight of the valise except myself.

As I was in the rooms when the shot was fired, it is not surprising that they should want to investigate my

part in the affair rather closely. But there's no cause for alarm. This colonel is down on the list of events for a

good dinner, with a dessert of American 'bluff' that will end the matter, I think."

Mrs. Goodwin rose and walked to the window. Goodwin followed and stood by her side. She leaned to him,

and rested in the protection of his strength, as she had always rested since that dark night on which he had

Straight through the lavish growth of tropical branch and leaf and vine that confronted them had been

cunningly trimmed a vista, that ended at the cleared environs of Coralio, on the banks of the mangrove

swamp. At the other end of the aerial tunnel they could see the grave and wooden headpiece that bore the

name of the unhappy President Miraflores. From this window when the rains forbade the open, and from the

green and shady slopes of Goodwin's fruitful lands when the skies were smiling, his wife was wont to look

upon that grave with a gentle sadness that was now scarcely a mar to her happiness.

"I loved him so, Frank!" she said, "even after that terrible flight and its awful ending. And you have been so

good to me, and have made me so happy. It has all grown into such a strange puzzle. If they were to find out

that we got the money do you think they would force you to make the amount good to the government?"

"They would undoubtedly try," answered Goodwin. "You are right about its being a puzzle. And it must

remain a puzzle to Falcon and all his countrymen until it solves itself. You and I, who know more than any

one else, only know half of the solution. We must not let even a hint about this money get abroad. Let them

come to the theory that the president concealed it in the mountains during his journey, or that he found means

to ship it out of the country before he reached Coralio. I don't think that Falcon suspects me. He is making a

Thus they spake together. Had any one overheard or overseen them as they discussed the lost funds of

Anchuria there would have been a second puzzle presented. For upon the faces and in the bearing of each of

them was visible (if countenances are to be believed) Saxon honesty and pride and honorable thoughts. In

Goodwin's steady eye and firm lineaments, molded into material shape by the inward spirit of kindness and

As for his wife, physiognomy championed her even in the face of their accusive talk. Nobility was in her

guise; purity was in her glance. The devotion that she manifested had not even the appearance of that feeling

that now and then inspires a woman to share the guilt of her partner out of the pathetic greatness other love.

No, there was a discrepancy here between what the eye would have seen and the ear have heard.

Dinner was served to Goodwin and his guest in the patio, under cool foliage and flowers. The American

begged the illustrious secretary to excuse the absence of Mrs. Goodwin, who was suffering, he said, from a

After the meal they lingered, according to the custom, over their coffee and cigars. Colonel Falcon, with true

Castilian delicacy, waited for his host to open the question that they had met to discuss. He had not long to

wait. As soon as the cigars were lighted, the American cleared the way by inquiring whether the secretary's

"I have found no one yet," admitted Colonel Falcon, "who even had sight of the valise or the money. Yet I

have persisted. It has been proven in the capital that President Miraflores set out from San Mateo with one

hundred thousand dollars belonging to the government, accompanied by Senorita Isabel Guilbert, the opera

singer. The Government, officially and personally, is loathe to believe," concluded Colonel Falcon, with a

smile, "that our late President's tastes would have permitted him to abandon on the route, as excess baggage,

"I suppose you would like to hear what I have to say about the affair," said Goodwin, coming directly to the

"On that night, with others of our friends here, I was keeping a lookout for the president, having been notified

of his flight by a telegram in our national cipher from Englehart, one of our leaders in the capital. About ten

o'clock that night I saw a man and a woman hurrying along the streets. They went to the Hotel de los

Extranjeros, and engaged rooms. I followed them upstairs, leaving Esteban, who had come up, to watch

outside. The barber had told me that he had shaved the beard from the president's face that night; therefore I

was prepared, when I entered the rooms, to find him with a smooth face. When I apprehended him in the

name of the people he drew a pistol and shot himself instantly. In a few minutes many officers and citizens

Goodwin paused. Losada's agent maintained an attitude of waiting, as if he expected a continuance.

"And now," went on the American, looking steadily into the eyes of the other man, and giving each word a

deliberate emphasis, "you will oblige me by attending carefully to what I have to add. I saw no valise or

receptacle of any kind, or any money belonging to the Republic of Anchuria. If President Miraflores

decamped with any funds belonging to the treasury of this country, or to himself, or to any one else, I saw no

trace of it in the house or elsewhere, at that time or at any other. Does that statement cover the ground of the

Colonel Falcon bowed, and described a fluent curve with his cigar. His duty was performed. Goodwin was

not to be disputed. He was a loyal supporter of the government, and enjoyed the full confidence of the new

president. His rectitude had been the capital that had brought him fortune in Anchuria, just as it had formed

"I thank you, ~Senor~ Goodwin, " said Falcon, "for speaking plainly. But, ~Senor~ Goodwin, I am instructed

to pursue every clue that presents itself in this matter. There is one that I have not yet touched upon. Our

friends in France, senor, have a saying, '~Cherchez la femme~,' when there is a mystery without a clue. But

here we do not have to search. The woman who accompanied the late President in his flight must surely"

"I must interrupt you there," interposed Goodwin. "It is true that when I entered the hotel for the purpose of

intercepting President Miraflores I found a lady there. I must beg of you to remember that that lady is now

my wife. I speak for her as I do for myself. She knows nothing of the fate of the valise or of the money that

you are seeking. You will say to his excellency that I guarantee her innocence. I do not need to add to you,

"~Por supuesto~, no!" he cried. And to indicate that the inquiry was ended he added: "And now, senor, let me

beg of you to show me that sea view from your galeria of which you spoke. I am a lover of the sea."

In the early evening Goodwin walked back to the town with his guest, leaving him at the corner of the Calle

Grande. As he was returning homeward one "Beelzebub" Blythe, with the air of a courtier and the outward

aspect of a scarecrow, pounced upon him hopefully from the door of a ~pulperia~.

Blythe had been rechristened "Beelzebub" as an acknowledgement of the greatness of his fall. Once in some

distant Paradise Lost, he had foregathered with the angels of the earth. But Fate had hurled him headlong

down to the tropics, where flamed in his bosom a fire that was seldom quenched. In Coralio they called him a

beachcomber; but he was, in reality, a categorical idealist who strove to anamorphosize the dull verities of

life by the means of brandy and rum. As Beelzebub, himself, might have held in his clutch with unwitting

tenacity his harp or crown during his tremendous fall, so his namesake had clung to his goldrimmed

eyeglasses as the only souvenir of his lost estate. These he wore with impressiveness and distinction while he

combed beaches and extracted toll from his friends. By some mysterious means he kept his drinkreddened

face always smoothly shaven. For the rest he sponged gracefully upon whomsoever he could for enough to

"Hallo, Goodwin!" called the derelict, airily. "I was hoping I'd strike you. I wanted to see you particularly.

Suppose we go where we can talk. Of course you know there's a chap down here looking up the money old

"Yes," said Goodwin, "I've been talking with him. Let's go into Espada's place. I can spare you ten minutes."

They went into the ~pulperia~ and sat at a little table upon stools with rawhide tops.

"They can't bring it too quickly," said Blythe. "I've been in a drought ever since morning.

"Now, what do you want to see me about?" asked Goodwin, when the drinks were before them.

"Confound it, old man," drawled Blythe, "why do you spoil a golden moment like this with business? I

wanted to see youwell, this has the preference." He gulped down his brandy, and gazed longingly into the

"Between gentlemen," said the fallen angel, "I don't quite like your use of that word 'another.' It isn't quite

The glasses were refilled. Blythe sipped blissfully from his, as he began to enter the state of a true idealist.

"I must trot along in a minute or two," hinted Goodwin. "Was there anything in particular?"

"Old Losada would make it a hot country," he remarked at length, "for the man who swiped that gripsack of

"Undoubtedly, he would," agreed Goodwin calmly, as he rose leisurely to his feet. "I'll be running over to the

house, now old man. Mrs. Goodwin is alone. There was nothing important you had to say, was there?"

"That's all," said Blythe. "Unless you wouldn't mind sending in another drink from the bar as you go out. Old

Espada has closed my account to profit and loss. And pay for the lot, will you, like a good fellow?"

"Beezlebub" Blythe lingered over his cups, polishing his eyeglasses with a disreputable handkerchief.

"I thought I could do it, but I couldn't," he muttered to himself after a time. "A gentleman can't blackmail the

Spilled milk draws few tears from an Anchurian administration. Many are its lacteal sources; and the clocks'

hands point forever to milking time. Even the rich cream skimmed from the treasury by the bewitched

Miraflores did not cause the newly installed patriots to waste time in unprofitable regrets. The government

philosophically set about supplying the deficiency by increasing the import duties and by "suggesting" to

wealthy private citizens that contributions according to their means would be considered patriotic and in

order. Prosperity was expected to attend the reign of Losada, the new president. The ousted officeholders

and military favorites organized a new "Liberal" party, and began to lay their plans for a resuccession. Thus

the game of Anchurian politics began, like a Chinese comedy, to unwind slowly its serial length. Here and

A dozen quarts of champagne in conjunction with an informal sitting of the president and his cabinet led to

the establishment of the navy and the appointment of Felipe Carrera as its admiral.

Next to the champagne the credit of the appointment belongs to Don Sabas Placido, the newly confirmed

The president had requested a convention of his cabinet for the discussion of questions politic and for the

transaction of certain routine matters of state. The session had been signally tedious; the business and the

wine prodigiously dry. A sudden, prankish humor of Don Sabas, impelling him to the deed, spiced the grave

affairs of state with a whiff of agreeable playfulness. In the dilatory order of business had come a bulletin

from the coast department of Orilla del Mar reporting the seizure by the customhouse officers at the town of

Coralio of the sloop ~Estrella del Noche~ and her cargo of drygoods, patent medicines, granulated sugar and

threestar brandy. Also six Martini rifles and a barrel of American whiskey. Caught in the act of smuggling,

the sloop with its cargo was now, according to law, the property of the republic.

The Collector of Customs, in making his report, departed from the conventional forms so far as to suggest

that the confiscated vessel be converted to the use of the government. The prize was the first capture to the

credit of the department in ten years. The collector took opportunity to pat his department on the back.

It often happened that government officers required transportation from point to point along the coast, and

means were usually lacking. Furthermore, the sloop could be manned by a loyal crew and employed as a

coast guard to discourage the pernicious art of smuggling. The collector also ventured to nominate one to

whom the charge of the boat could be safely intrusteda young man of Coralio, Felipe Carrera not, be it

understood, one of extreme wisdom, but loyal and the best sailor along the coast.

It was upon this hint that the Minister of War acted, executing a rare piece of drollery that so enlivened the

In the consultation of this small, maritime banana republic was a forgotten section that provided for the

maintenance of a navy. This provisionwith many other wiser oneshad lain inert since the establishment

of the republic. Anchuria had no navy and had no use for one. It was characteristic of Don Sabas�a man at

once merry, learned, whimsical and audaciousthat he should have disturbed the dust of this musty and

sleeping statute to increase the humor of the world by so much as a smile from his indulgent colleagues.

With delightful mock seriousness the Minister of War proposed the creation of a navy. He argued its need

and the glories it might achieve with such gay and witty zeal that the travesty overcame with its humor even

The champagne was bubbling trickily in the veins of the mercurial statesmen. It was not the custom of the

grave governors of Anchuria to enliven their sessions with a beverage so apt to cast a veil of disparagement

over sober affairs. The wine had been a thoughtful compliment tendered by the agent of the Vesuvius Fruit

Company as a token of amicable relationsand certain consummated dealsbetween that company and the

The jest was carried to its end. A formidable, official document was prepared, encrusted with chromatic seals

and jaunty with fluttering ribbons, bearing the florid signatures of state. This commission conferred upon el

Senor Don Felipe Carrera the title of Flag Admiral of the Republic of Anchuria. Thus within the space of a

few minutes and the dominion of a dozen "extra dry" the country took its place among the naval powers of

the world, and Felipe Carrera became entitled to a salute of nineteen guns whenever he might enter port.

The southern races are lacking in that particular kind of humor that finds entertainment in the defects and

misfortunes bestowed by Nature. Owing to this defect in their constitution they are not moved to laughter (as

are their northern brothers) by the spectacle of the deformed, the feebleminded or the insane.

Felipe Carrera was sent upon earth with but half his wits. Therefore, the people of Coralio called him "~El

pobrecito loco~" the poor little crazed one"saying that God had sent but half of him to earth, retaining the

A sombre youth, glowering, and speaking only at the rarest times, Felipe was but negatively "loco." On shore

he generally refused all conversation. He seemed to know that he was badly handicapped on land, where so

many kinds of understanding are needed; but on the water his one talent set him equal with most men. Few

sailors whom God had carefully and completely made could handle a sailboat as well. Five points nearer the

wind than the best of them he could sail his sloop. When the elements raged and set other men to cowering,

the deficiencies of Felipe seemed of little importance. He was a perfect sailor, if an imperfect man. He owned

no boat, but worked among the crews of the schooners and sloops that skimmed the coast, trading and

freighting fruit out to the steamers where there was no harbor. It was through his famous skill and boldness

on the sea, as well as for the pity felt for his mental imperfections, that he was recommended by the collector

When the outcome of Don Sabas' little pleasantry arrived in the form of the imposing and preposterous

commission, the collector smiled. He had not expected such prompt and overwhelming response to his

The collector waited in his official quarters. His office was in the Calle Grande, and the sea breezes hummed

through its windows all day. The collector, in white linen and canvas shoes, philandered with papers on an

antique desk. A parrot, perched on a pen rack, seasoned the official tedium with a fire of choice Castilian

imprecations. Two rooms opened into the Collector's. In one the clerical force of young men of variegated

complexions transacted with glitter and parade their several duties. Through the open door of the other room

could be seen a bronze babe, guiltless of clothing, that rollicked upon the floor. In a grass hammock a thin

woman, tinted a pale lemon, played a guitar and swung contentedly in the breeze. Thus surrounded by the

routine of his high duties and the visible tokens of agreeable domesticity, the collector's heart was further

made happy by the power placed in his hands to brighten the fortunes of the "innocent" Felipe.

Felipe came and stood before the collector. He was a lad of twenty, not illfavored in looks, but with an

expression of distant and pondering vacuity. He wore white cotton trousers, down the seams of which he had

sewed red stripes with some vague aim at military decoration. A flimsy blue shirt fell open at his throat; his

"Senor Carrera," said the collector, gravely, producing the showy commission, "I have sent for you at the

president's bidding. This document that I present to you confers upon you the title of Admiral of this great

republic, and gives you absolute command of the naval forces and fleet of our country. You may think, friend

Felipe, that we have no navybut yes! The sloop the ~Estrella del Noche~, that my brave men captured

from the coast smugglers, is to be placed under your command. The boat is to be devoted to the services of

your country. You will be ready at all times to convey officials of the government to points along the coast

where they may be obliged to visit. You will also act as a coastguard to prevent, as far as you may be able,

the crime of smuggling. You will uphold the honor and prestige of your country at sea, and endeavor to place

Anchuria among the proudest naval powers of the world. These are your instructions as the Minister of War

desires me to convey them to you. ~Por Dios!~ I do not know how all this is to be accomplished, for not one

word did his letter contain in respect to a crew or to the expenses of this navy. Perhaps you are to provide a

crew yourself, Senor AdmiralI do not knowbut it is a very high honor that has descended upon you. I

now hand you your commission. When you are ready for the boat I will give orders that she shall be made

Felipe took the commission that the collector handed to him. He gazed through the open window at the sea

for a moment, with his customary expression of deep but vain pondering. Then he turned without having

"~Pobrecito loco!~" sighed the collector; and the parrot on the pen racks screeched "Loco!�loco!�loco!"

The next morning a strange procession filed through the streets to the collector's office. At its head was the

admiral of the navy. Somewhere Felipe had raked together a pitiful semblance of a military uniforma pair

of red trousers, a dingy blue short jacket heavily ornamented with gold braid, and an old fatigue cap that must

have been cast away by one of the British soldiers in Belize and brought away by Felipe on one of his

coasting voyages. Buckled around his waist was an ancient ship's cutlass contributed to his equipment by

Pedro Lafitte, the baker, who proudly asserted its inheritance from his ancestor, the illustrious buccaneer. At

the admiral's heels tagged his newly shipped crewthree grinning, glossy, black Caribs, bare to the waist,

Briefly and with dignity Felipe demanded his vessel of the collector. And now a fresh honor awaited him.

The collector's wife, who played the guitar and read novels in the hammock all day, had more than a little

romance in her placid, yellow bosom. She had found in an old book an engraving of a flag that purported to

be the naval flag of Anchuria. Perhaps it had so been designed by the founders of the nation; but, as no navy

had ever been established, oblivion had claimed the flag. Laboriously with her own hands she had made a

flag after the patterna red cross upon a blueandwhite ground. he presented it to Felipe with these words:

"Brave sailor, this flag is of your country. Be true, and defend it with your life. Go you with God."

For the first time since his appointment the admiral showed a flicker of emotion. He took the silken emblem,

and passed his hand reverently over its surface, "I am the admiral," he said to the collector's lady. Being on

land he could bring himself to no more exuberant expression of sentiment. At sea with the flag at the

masthead of his navy, some more eloquent exposition of feelings might be forthcoming.

Abruptly the admiral departed with his crew. For the next three days they were busy giving the ~Estrella del

Noche~ a new coat of white paint trimmed with blue. And then Felipe further adorned himself by fastening a

handful of brilliant parrot's plumes in his cap. Again he tramped with his faithful crew to the collector's office

and formally notified him that the sloop's name had been changed to ~El Nacional~.

During the next few months the navy had its troubles. Even an admiral is perplexed to know what to do

without any orders. But none came. Neither did any salaries. ~El Nacional~ swung idly at anchor.

When Felipe's little store of money was exhausted he went to the collector and raised the question of

"Salaries!" exclaimed the collector, with hands raised; "~Valgame Dios~! not one ~centavo~ of my own pay

have I received for the last seven months. The pay of an admiral, do you ask? ~Quien sabe~? Should it be

less than three thousand ~pesos~? ~Mira~! you will see a revolution in this country very soon. A good sign of

it is when the government calls all the time for ~pesos, pesos, pesos~, and pays none out."

Felipe left the collector's office with a look almost of content on his sombre face. A revolution would mean

fighting, and then the government would need his services. It was rather humiliating to be an admiral without

anything to do, and have a hungry crew at your heels begging for ~reales~ to buy plantains and tobacco with.

When he returned to where his happygolucky Caribs were waiting they sprang up and saluted, as he had

drilled them to do. "Come, ~muchachos~," said the admiral; "it seems that the government is poor. It has no

money to give us. We will earn what we need to live upon. Thus will we serve our country. Soon"his

Thereafter ~El Nacional~ turned out with the other coast craft and became a wageearner. She worked with

the lighters freighting bananas and oranges out to the fruit steamers that could not approach nearer than a

mile from the shore. Surely a selfsupporting navy deserves red letters in the budget of any nation.

After earning enough at freighting to keep himself and his crew in provisions for a week Felipe would anchor

the navy and hang about the little telegraph office, looking like one of the chorus of an insolvent comic opera

troupe besieging the manager's den. A hope for orders from the capital was always in his heart. That his

services as admiral had never been called into requirement hurt his pride and patriotism. At every call he

would inquire, gravely and expectantly, for despatches. The operator would pretend to make a search, and

Outside in the shade of the limetrees the crew chewed sugar cane or slumbered, well content to serve a

One day in the early summer the revolution predicted by the collector flamed out suddenly. It had long been

smoldering. At the first note of alarm the admiral of the navy force and fleet made all sail for a larger port on

the coast of a neighboring republic, where he traded a hastily collected cargo of fruit for its value in

cartridges for the five Martini rifles, the only guns that the navy could boast. Then to the telegraph office sped

the admiral. Sprawling in his favorite corner, in his fastdecaying uniform, with his prodigious sabre

distributed between his red legs, he waited for the longdelayed, but now soon expected, orders.

"Not yet, ~Senor el Almirante~" the telegraph clerk would call to him "~poco tiempo~!"

At the answer the admiral would plump himself down with a great rattling of scabbard to await the infrequent

At the head of the insurgent party appeared that Hector and learned Theban of the southern republics, Don

Sabas Placido. A traveller, a soldier, a poet, a scientist, a statesman and a connoisseurthe wonder was that

"It is a whim of Placido's," said a friend who knew him well, "to take up political intrigue. It is not otherwise

than as if he had come upon a new tempo in music, a new bacillus in the air, a new scent, or rhyme, or

explosive. He will squeeze this revolution dry of sensations, and a week afterward will forget it, skimming

the seas of the world in his brigantine to add to his already worldfamous collections. Collections of what?

But, for a mere dilettante, the aesthetic Placido seemed to be creating a lively row. The people admired him;

they were fascinated by his brilliancy and flattered by his taking an interest in so small a thing as his native

country. They rallied to the call of his lieutenants in the capital, where (somewhat contrary to arrangements)

the army remained faithful to the government. There was also lively skirmishing in the coast towns. It was

rumored that the revolution was aided by the Vesuvius Fruit Company, the power that forever stood with

chiding smile and uplifted finger to keep Anchuria in the class of good children. Two of its steamers, the

~Traveler~ and the ~Salvador~, were known to have conveyed insurgent troops from point to point along the

As yet there had been no actual uprising in Coralio. Military law prevailed, and the ferment was bottled for

the time. And then came the word that everywhere the revolutionists were encountering defeat. In the capital

the president's forces triumphed; and there was a rumor that the leaders of the revolt had been forced to fly,

In the little telegraph office at Coralio there was always a gathering of officials and loyal citizens, awaiting

news from the seat of government. One morning the telegraph key began clicking, and presently the operator

There was a shuffling sound, a great rattling of tin scabbard, and the admiral, prompt at his spot of waiting,

The message was handed to him. Slowly spelling it out, he found it to be his first official orderthus

"Proceed immediately with your vessel to mouth of Rio Ruiz; transport beef and provisions to barracks at

Small glory, to be sure, in this, his country's first call. But it had called, and joy surged in the admiral's breast.

He drew his cutlass belt to another buckle hole, roused his dozing crew, and in a quarter of an hour ~El

The Rio Ruiz is a small river, emptying into the sea ten miles below Coralio. That portion of the coast is wild

and solitary. Through a gorge in the Cordilleras rushes the Rio Ruiz, cold and bubbling, to glide at last, with

In two hours ~El Nacional~ entered the river's mouth. The banks were crowded with a disposition of

formidable trees. The sumptuous undergrowth of the tropics overflowed the land, and drowned itself in the

Silently the sloop entered there, and met a deeper silence. Brilliant with greens and ochres and floral, scarlets,

the umbrageous mouth of the Rio Ruiz furnished no sound or movement save of the seagoing water as it

purled against the prow of the vessel. Small chance there seemed of wresting beef or provisions from that

The admiral decided to cast anchor, and, at the chain's rattle, the forest was stimulated to instant and

resounding uproar. The mouth of the Rio Ruiz had only been taking a morning nap. Parrots and baboons

screeched and barked in the trees; a whirring and a hissing and a booming marked the awakening of animal

life; a dark blue bulk was visible for an instant, as a startled tapir fought his way through the vines.

The navy, under orders, hung in the mouth of the little river for hours. The crew served the dinner of shark's

fin soup, plantains, crab gumbo and sour wine. The admiral, with a threefoot telescope, closely scanned the

It was nearly sunset when a reverberating "hallooo!" came from the forest to their left. It was answered;

and three men, mounted upon mules, crashed through the tropic tangle to within a dozen yards of the river's

bank. There they dismounted; and one, unbuckling his belt, struck each mule a violent blow with his sword

scabbard, so that they, with a fling of heels, dashed back again into the forest.

Those were strangelooking men to be conveying beef and provisions. One was a large and exceedingly

active man, of striking presence. He was of the purest Spanish type, with curling, graybesprinkled, dark

hair, blue, sparkling eyes, and the pronounced air of a ~caballero grande~. The other two were small,

brownfaced men, wearing white military uniforms, high riding boots and swords. The clothes of all were

drenched, bespattered and rent by the thicket. Some stress of circumstance must have driven them, ~diable a

The dory was lowered, and Felipe, with one of the Caribs, rowed toward the left bank.

The large man stood near the water's brink, waist deep in the curling vines. As he gazed upon the scarecrow

figure in the stern of the dory a sprightly interest beamed upon his mobile face.

Months of wageless and thankless service had dimmed the admiral's splendor. His red trousers were patched

and ragged. Most of the bright buttons and yellow braid were gone from his jacket. The visor of his cap was

"Dear Admiral," cried the large man, and his voice was like a blast from a horn, "I kiss your hands. I knew

we could build upon your fidelity. You had our despatchfrom General Martinez. A little nearer with your

boat, dear Admiral. Upon these devils of shifting vines we stand with the smallest security."

"No fault of the butchers, ~Almirante mio~, that the beef awaits you not. But you are come in time to save

the cattle. Get us aboard your vessel, senor, at once. You first, ~caballerosa priesa!~ Come back for me.

The dory conveyed the two officers to the sloop, and returned for the large man.

"Have you so gross a thing as food, good Admiral?" he cried, when aboard. "And, perhaps, coffee? Beef and

provisions! ~Nombre de Dios!~ a little longer and we could have eaten one of those mules that you, Colonel

Rafael, saluted so feelingly with your sword scabbard at parting. Let us have food; and then we will sailfor

The Caribs prepared a meal, to which the three passengers of ~El Nacional~ set themselves with famished

delight. About sunset, as was its custom, the breeze veered and swept back from the mountains, cool and

steady, bringing a taste of the stagnant lagoons and mangrove swamps that guttered the lowlands. The

mainsail of the sloop was hoisted and swelled to it, and at that moment they heard shouts and a waxing

"The butchers, my dear Admiral," said the large man, smiling, "too late for the slaughter."

Further than his orders to his crew, the admiral was saying nothing. The topsail and jib were spread, and the

sloop elided out of the estuary. The large man and his companions had bestowed themselves with what

comfort they could about the bare deck. Belike, the thing big in their minds had been their departure from that

critical shore; and now that the hazard was so far reduced their thoughts were loosed to the consideration of

further deliverance. But when they saw the sloop turn and fly up coast again they relaxed, satisfied with the

The large man sat at ease, his spirited blue eye engaged in the contemplation of the navy's commander. He

was trying to estimate this sombre and fantastic lad, whose impenetrable stolidity puzzled him. Himself a

fugitive, his life sought, and chafing under the smart of defeat and failure, it was characteristic of him to

transfer instantly his interest to the study of a thing new to him. It was like him, too, to have conceived and

risked all upon this last desperate and madcap schemethis message to a poor, crazed ~fanatico~ cruising

about with his grotesque uniform and his farcical title. But his companions had been at their wits' end; escape

had seemed incredible; and now he was pleased with the success of the plan they had called crackbrained

The brief, tropic twilight seemed to slide swiftly into the pearly splendor of a moonlit night. And now the

lights of Coralio appeared, distributed against the darkening shore to their right. The admiral stood, silent, at

the tiller; the Caribs, like black panthers, held the sheets, leaping noiselessly at his short commands. The

three passengers were watching intently the sea before them, and when at length they came in sight of the

bulk of a steamer lying a mile out from the town, with her lights radiating deep into the water, they held a

sudden voluble and closeheaded converse. The sloop was speeding as if to strike midway between ship and

The large man suddenly separated from his companions and approached the scarecrow at the helm.

"My dear Admiral," he said, "the government has been exceedingly remiss. I feel all the shame for it that only

its ignorance of your devoted service has prevented it from sustaining. An inexcusable oversight has been

made. A vessel, a uniform and a crew worthy of your fidelity shall be furnished you. But just now, dear

Admiral, there is business of moment afoot. The steamer lying there is the ~Salvador~. I and my friends

desire to be conveyed to her, where we are sent on the government's business. Do us the favor to shape your

Without replying, the admiral gave a sharp command, and put the tiller hard to port. ~El Nacional~ swerved,

"Do me the favor," said the large man, a trifle restively, "to acknowledge, at least, that you catch the sound of

my words." It was possible that the fellow might be lacking in senses as well as intellect.

"They will stand you," he said, "with your face to a wall and shoot you dead. That is the way they kill traitors.

I knew you when you stepped into my boat. I have seen your picture in a book. You are Sabas Placido, traitor

to your country. With your face to a wall. So, you will die. I am the admiral, and I will take you to them.

Don Sabas half turned and waved his hand, with a ringing laugh, toward his fellow fugitives. "To you,

~caballeros~, I have related the history of that session when we issued that 0! so ridiculous commission. Of a

truth our jest has been turned against us. Behold the Frankenstein's monster we have created!"

Don Sabas glanced toward the shore. The lights of Coralio were drawing near. He could see the beach, the

warehouse of the ~Bodega Nacional~, the long, low ~cuartel~ occupied by the soldiers, and behind that,

gleaming in the moonlight, a stretch of high adobe wall. He had seen men stood with their faces to that wall

"It is true," he said, "that I am fleeing the country. But, receive the assurance that I care very little for that.

Courts and camps everywhere are open to Sabas Placido. ~Vaya!~ what is this molehill of a republicthis

pig's head of a countryto a man like me? I am a ~paisano~ of everywhere. In Rome, in London, in Paris, in

Vienna, you will hear them say: 'Welcome back, Don Sabas.' Come!~tonto~ baboon of a boyadmiral,

whatever you call yourself, turn your boat. Put us on board the ~Salvador~, and here is your payfive

hundred pesos in money of the ~Estados Unidos~more than your lying government will pay you in twenty

Don Sabas pressed a plump purse against the youth's hand. The admiral gave no heed to the words or the

movement. Braced against the helm, he was holding the sloop dead on her shoreward course. His dull face

was lit almost to intelligence by some inward conceit that seemed to afford him joy, and found utterance in

"That is why they do it," he said"so that you will not see the guns. They fireboom!and you fall dead.

The admiral called a sudden order to his crew. The lithe, silent Caribs made fast the sheets they held, and

slipped down the hatchway into the hold of the sloop. When the last one had disappeared, Don Sabas, like a

big, brown leopard, leaped forward, closed and fastened the hatch and stood, smiling.

"No rifles, if you please, dear admiral," he said. "It was a whimsey of mine once to compile a dictionary of

He cut short his words, for he heard the dull "swish" of iron scraping along tin. The admiral had drawn the

cutlass of Pedro Lafitte, and was darting upon him. The blade descended, and it was only by a display of

surprising agility that the large man escaped, with only a bruised shoulder, the glancing weapon. He was

Colonel Rafael sprang to the helm, and the other officer hastened to loose the mainsail sheets. The boom

swung round; ~El Nacional~ veered and began to tack industriously for the ~Salvador~.

"Strike that flag, senor," called Colonel Rafael. "Our friends on the steamer will wonder why we are sailing

"Well said," cried Don Sabas. Advancing to the mast he lowered the flag to the deck, where lay its too loyal

supporter. Thus ended the Minister of War's little piece of afterdinner drollery, and by the same hand that

Suddenly Don Sabas gave a great cry of joy, and ran down the slanting deck to the side of Colonel Rafael.

"~Mire! mire! senor. Ah, ~Dios!~ Already can I hear that great bear of an Oestreicher~ shout, ~'Du hast mein

herz gebrochen!' Mire!~ Of my friend, Herr Grunitz, of Vienna, you have heard me relate. That man has

travelled to Ceylon for an orchidto Patagonia for a headdress to Benares for a slipperto Mozambique

for a spearhead to add to his famous collections. Thou knowest, also, ~amigo~ Rafael, that I have been a

gatherer of curios. My collection of battle flags of the world's navies was the most complete in existence until

last year. Then Herr Grunitz secured two, 0! such rare specimens. One of a Barberry state, and one of the

Makarooroos, a tribe on the west coast of Africa. I have not those, but they can be procured. But this flag,

senordo you know what it is? Name of God! do you know? See that red cross upon the blue and white

ground! You never saw it before? ~Seguramente no~. It is the naval flag of your country. ~Mire!~ This rotten

tub we stand upon is its navythat dead cockatoo lying there was its commanderthat stroke of cutlass and

single pistol shot a sea battle. All a piece of absurd foolery, I grant you but authentic. There has never been

another flag like this, and there never will be another. No. It is unique in the whole world. Yes. Think of what

that means to a collector of flags! Do you know, ~Coronel mio~, how many golden crowns Herr Grunitz

would give for this flag? Ten thousand, likely. Well, a hundred thousand would not buy it. Beautiful flag!

Only flag! Little devil of a most heavenborn flag! ~O'he!~ old grumbler beyond the ocean. Wait till Don

Sabas comes again to the Konigin Strasse. He will let you kneel and touch the folds of it with one finger.

Forgotten was the impotent revolution, the danger, the loss, the gall of defeat. Possessed solely by the

inordinate and unparalleled passion of the collector, he strode up and down the little deck, clasping to his

breast with one hand the paragon of a flag. He snapped his fingers triumphantly toward the east. He shouted

the paean to his prize in trumpet tones, as though he would make old Grunitz hear in his musty den beyond

They were waiting, on the ~Salvador~, to welcome them. The sloop came close alongside the steamer where

her sides were sliced almost to the lower deck for the loading of fruit. The sailors of the ~Salvador~ grappled

"The jig is up?" Don Sabas looked perplexed for a moment. "That revolutionah, yes!" With a shrug of his

"Caribs!" he said; "no harm in them." He slipped down into the sloop and kicked loose the hasp of the hatch.

"Hey! black boys!" said the captain, in a dialect of his own; "you sabe, catchy boat and vamos back same

They saw him point to themselves, the sloop and Coralio. "Yas, yas!" they cried, with broader grins and

The fourDon Sabas, the two officers and the captainmoved to quit the sloop. Don Sabas lagged a little

behind, looking at the still form of the late admiral, sprawled in his paltry trappings.

He was a brilliant cosmopolite and a ~cognoscente~ of high rank; but, after all, he was of the same race and

blood and instinct as this people. Even as the simple ~paisanos~ of Coralio had said it, so said Don Sabas.

Stooping he raised the limp shoulders, drew the priceless and induplicable flag under them and over the

breast, pinning it there with the diamond star of the Order of San Carlos that he took from the collar of his

He followed after the others, and stood with them upon the deck of the ~Salvador~. The sailors that steadied

~El Nacional~ shoved her off. The jabbering Caribs hauled away at the rigging; the sloop headed for the

One night when there was no breeze, and Coralio seemed closer than ever to the gratings of Avernus, five

men were grouped about the door of the photograph establishment of Keogh and Clancy. Thus, in all the

scorched and exotic places of the earth, Caucasians meet when the day's work is done to preserve the fulness

Johnny Atwood lay stretched upon the grass in the undress uniform of a Carib, and prated feebly of cool

water to be had in the cucumber wood pumps of Dalesburg. Doctor Gregg, through the prestige of his

whiskers and as a bribe against the relation of his imminent professional tales, was conceded the hammock

that was swung between the door jamb and a calabashtree. Keogh had moved out upon the grass a little

table that held the instrument for burnishing completed photographs. He was the only busy one of the group.

Industriously from between the cylinders of the burnisher rolled the finished depictments of Coralio's

citizens. Blanchard, the French mining engineer, in his cool linen viewed the smoke of his cigarette through

his calm glasses, impervious to the heat. Clancy sat on the steps, smoking his short pipe. His mood was the

gossip's; the others were reduced, by the humidity, to the state of disability desirable in an audience.

Clancy was an American with an Irish diathesis and cosmopolitan proclivities. Many businesses had claimed

him, but not for long. The roadster's blood was in his veins. The voice of the tintype was but one of the many

callings that had wooed him upon so many roads. Sometimes he could be persuaded to oral construction of

his voyages into the informal and egregious. Tonight there were symptoms of divulgement in him.

"'Tis elegant weather for filibustering'," he volunteered. "It reminds me of the time I struggled to liberate a

nation from the poisonous breath of a tyrant's clutch. 'Twas hard work. 'Tis straining to the back and makes

"I didn't know you had ever lent your sword to an oppressed people," murmured Atwood, from the grass.

"What country was so fortunate as to secure your aid?" airily inquired Blanchard.

"Why, off Siberia somewhere in the Arctic regions," somebody answered, doubtfully.

"I thought that was the cold one," said Clancy, with a satisfied nod. "I'm always gettin' the two names mixed.

'Twas Guatemala, thenthe hot oneI've been filibusterin' with. Ye'll find that country on the map. 'Tis in

the district known as the tropics. By the foresight of Providence, it lies on the coast so the geography men

could run the names of the towns off into the water. They're an inch long, small type, composed of Spanish

dialects, and, 'tis my opinion, of the same system of syntax that blew up the ~Maine~. Yes, 'twas that country

I sailed against, singlehanded, and endeavored to liberate it from a tyrannical government with a

singlebarrelled pickaxe, unloaded at that. Ye don't understand, of course. 'Tis a statement demandin'

"'Twas in New Orleans one morning about the first ofJune; I was standing down on the wharf, looking about

at the ships in the river. There was a little steamer moored right opposite me that seemed about ready to sail.

The funnels of it were throwing out smoke, and a gang of roustabouts were carrying aboard a pile of boxes

that was stacked up on the wharf. The boxes were about two feet square, and something like four feet long,

"I walked over, careless, to the stack of boxes. I saw one of them had been broken in handlin'. 'Twas curiosity

made me pull up the loose top and look inside. The box was packed full of Winchester rifles. 'So, so,' says I

to myself; 'somebody's gettin' a twist on the neutrality laws. Somebody's aidin' with munitions of war. I

"I heard somebody cough, and I turned around. There stood a little, round, fat man with a brown face and

white clothes, a firstclass looking little man, with a fourkarat diamond on his finger and his eye full of

interrogations and respects. I judged he was a kind of foreignermay be from Russia or Japan or the

"'Hist!' says the round man, full of concealments and confidences. 'Will the senor respect the discoveryments

he has made, that the mans on the ship shall not be acquaint? The senor will be a gentleman that shall not

"'Monseer,' says Ifor I judged him to be a kind of Frenchman 'receive my most exasperated assurances

that your secret is safe with James Clancy. Furthermore, I will go so far as to remark, Veev la Libertyveev

it good and strong. Whenever you hear of a Clancy obstructin' the abolishment of existin' governments you

"'The senor is good,' says the dark, fat man, smilin' under his black mustache. 'Wish you to come aboard my

"Bein' a Clancy, in two minutes me and the foreigner man were seated at a table in the cabin of the steamer,

with a bottle between us. I could hear the heavy boxes bein' dumped into the hold. I judged that cargo must

consist of at least 2,000 Winchesters. Me and the brown man drank the bottle of stuff, and he called the

steward to bring another. When you amalgamate a Clancy with the contents of a bottle you practically

instigate secession. I had heard a good deal about these revolutions in them tropical localities, and I begun to

"'You goin' to stir things up in your country, ain't you, monseer?' says I, with a wink to let him know I was

"'Yes, yes,' said the little man, pounding his fist on the table. 'A change of the greatest will occur. Too long

have the people been oppressed with the promises and the nevertohappen things to become. The great

work it shall be carry on. Yes. Our forces shall in the capital city strike of the soonest. ~Carrambos!~'

"'~Carrambos~ is the word,' says I, beginning to invest myself with enthusiasm and more wine, 'likewise

veeva, as I said before. May the shamrock of oldI mean the bananavine or the pieplant, or whatever the

"'A thousand thankyous,' says the round man, 'for your emission of amicable utterances. What our cause

needs of the very most is mans who will the work do, to lift it along. Oh, for one thousands strong, good

mans to aid the General De Vega that he shall to his country bring those success and glory! It is hardoh, so

"'Monseer,' says I, leanin' over the table and graspin' his hand, I don't know where your country is, but me

heart bleeds for it. The heart of a Clancy was never deaf to the sight of an oppressed people. The family is

filibusterers by birth, and foreigners by trade. If you can use James Clancy's arms and his blood in denuding

"General De Vega was overcome with joy to confiscate my condolence of his conspiracies and predicaments.

He tried to embrace me across the table, but his fatness, and the wine that had been in the bottles, prevented.

Thus was I welcomed into the ranks of filibustery. Then the general man told me his country had the name of

Guatemala, and was the greatest nation laved by any ocean whatever anywhere. He looked at me with tears in

his eyes, and from time to time he would emit the remark, 'Ah! big, strong, brave mans! That is what my

"General De Vega, as was the name by which he denounced himself, brought out a document for me to sign,

"'Your passagemoney,' says the general, businesslike, 'shall from your pay be deduct.'

"''Twill not,' says I, haughty. I'll pay my own passage.' A hundred and eighty dollars I had in my inside

pocket, and 'twas no common filibuster I was goin' to be, filibusterin' for me board and clothes.

"The steamer was to sail in two hours, and I went ashore to get some things together I'd need. When I came

aboard I showed the general with pride the outfit. 'Twas a fine Chinchilla overcoat, Arctic overshoes, fur cap

"~'Carrambos!~ says the little general. 'What clothes are these that shall go to the tropic?' And then the little

spalpeen laughs, and he calls the captain, and the captain calls the purser, and they pipe up the chief engineer,

and the whole gang leans against the cabin and laughs at Clancy's wardrobe for Guatemala.

"I reflects a bit, serious, and asks the general again to denominate the terms by which his country is called.

He tells me, and I see then that 'twas the t'other one, Kamchatka, I had in mind. Since then I've had difficulty

"I paid my passagetwentyfour dollars, first cabinand ate at table with the officer crowd. Down on the

lower deck was a gang of secondclass passengers, about forty of them, seemin' to be Dagoes and the like. I

"Well, then, in three days we sailed alongside that Guatemala. 'Twas a blue country, and not yellow as 'tis

miscolored on the map. We landed at a town on the coast, where a train of cars was waitin' for us on a dinky

little railroad. The boxes on the steamer were brought ashore and loaded on the cars. The gang of Dagoes got

aboard, too, the general and me in the front car. Yes, me and General De Vega headed the revolution, as it

pulled out of the seaport town. That train travelled about as fast as a policeman goin' to a riot. It penetrated

the most conspicuous lot of fuzzy scenery ever seen outside a geography. We run some forty miles in seven

hours, and the train stopped. There was no more railroad. 'Twas a sort of camp in a damp gorge full of

wildness and melancholies. They was grading and choppin' out the forests ahead to continue the road. 'Here,'

says I to myself, 'is the romantic haunt of the revolutionists. Here will Clancy, by the virtue that is in a

superior race and the inculcation of Fenian tactics, strike a tremendous blow for liberty.'

"They unloaded the boxes from the train and begun to knock the tops off. From the first one that was open I

saw General De Vega take the Winchester rifles and pass them around to a squad of morbid soldiery. The

other boxes was opened next, and, believe me or not, divil another gun was to be seen. Every other box in the

"And thensorrow be upon them tropicsthe proud Clancy and the dishonored Dagoes, each one of them,

had to shoulder a pick or a spade, and march away to work on that dirty little railroad. Yes; 'twas that the

Dagoes shipped for, and 'twas that the filibusterin' Clancy signed for, though unbeknownst to himself at the

time. In after days I found out about it. It seems 'twas hard to get hands to work on that road. The intelligent

natives of the country was too lazy to work. Indeed, the saints know, 'twas unnecessary. By stretchin' out one

hand, they could seize the most delicate and costly fruits of the earth, and, by stretchin' out the other, they

could sleep for days at a time without hearin' a seven o'clock whistle or the footsteps of the rent man upon the

stairs. So, regular, the steamers travelled to the United States to seduce labor. Usually the imported

spadeslingers died in two or three months from eatin' the overripe water and breathing the violent tropical

scenery. Wherefore they made them sign contracts for a year, when they hired them, and put an armed guard

"'Twas thus I was doublecrossed by the tropics through a family failing of goin' out of the way to hunt

"They gave me a pick, and I took it, meditating an insurrection on the spot; but there was the guards handling

the Winchesters careless, and I come to the conclusion that discretion was the best part of filibusterin'. There

was about a hundred of us in the gang starting out to work, and the word was given to move. I steps out of the

ranks and goes up to that General De Vega man, who was smokin' a cigar and gazin' upon the scene with

satisfactions and glory. He smiles at me polite and devilish. 'Plenty work,' says he, 'for big, strong mans in

Guatemala. Yes. Thirty dollars in the month. Good pay. Ah, yes. You strong, brave man. Bimeby we push

those railroad in the capital very quick. They want you go work now. ~Adios~, strong mans.'

"'Monseer,' says I, lingerin', 'will you tell a poor little Irishman this: When I set foot on your cockroachy

steamer, and breathed liberal and revolutionary sentiments into your sour wine, did you think I was conspirin'

to sling a pick on your contemptuous little railroad? And when you answered me with patriotic recitations,

humping up the starspangled cause of liberty, did you have meditations of reducin' me to the ranks of the

'The general man expanded his rotundity and laughed considerable. Yes, he laughed very long and loud, and

"'Comical mans!' he shouts, at last. 'So you will kill me from the laughing. Yes; it is hard to find the brave,

strong mans to aid my country. Revolutions? Did I speak of rrrevolutions? Not one word. I say, big, strong

man is need in Guatemala. So. The mistake is of you. You have looked in those one box containing those gun

"'There is not war in Guatemala. But work? Yes. Good. Thirty dollar in the month. You shall shoulder one

pickaxe, senor, and dig for the liberty and prosperity of Guatemala. Off to your work. The guard waits for

"'Little, fat, poodle dog of a brown man,' says I, quiet, but full of indignations and discomforts, 'things shall

happen to you. Maybe not right away, but as soon as J. Clancy can formulate somethin' in the way of

"The boss of the gang orders us to work. I tramps off with the Dagoes, and I hears the distinguished patriot

"Tis a sorrowful fact, for eight weeks I built railroads for that misbehavin' country. I filibustered twelve hours

a day with a heavy pick and a spade, choppin' away the luxurious landscape that grew upon the right of way.

We worked in swamps that smelled like there was a leak in the gas mains, trampin' down a fine assortment of

the most expensive hothouse plants and vegetables. The scene was tropical beyond the wildest imagination of

the geography man. The trees was all skyscrapers; the underbrush was full of needles and pins; there was

monkeys jumpin' around and crocodiles and pinktailed mockin'birds, and ye stood kneedeep in the rotten

water and grabbled roots for the liberation of Guatemala. Of nights we would build smudges in camp to

discourage the mosquitoes, and sit in the smoke, with the guards pacin' all around us. There was two hundred

men working on the roadmostly Dagoes, niggermen, Spanishmen and Swedes. Three or four were Irish.

"One old man named Hallorana man of Hibernian entitlements and discretions, explained it to me. He had

been working on the road a year. Most of them died in less than six months. He was dried up to gristle and

bone, and shook with chills every third night. "'When you first come,' says he, 'ye think ye'll leave right away.

But they hold out your first month's pay for your passage over, and by that time the tropics has its grip on ye.

Ye're surrounded by a ragin' forest full of disreputable beastslions and baboons and anacondas waiting

to devour ye. The sun strikes ye hard, and melts the marrow in your bones. Ye get similar to the

lettuceeaters the poetrybooks speaks about. Ye forget the elevated sintiments of life, such as patriotism,

revenge, disturbances of the peace and the dacint love of a clane shirt. Ye do your work, and ye swallow the

kerosene ile and rubber pipestems dished up to ye by the Dago cook for food. Ye light your pipeful, and say

to yourself, "Nixt week I'll break away," and ye go to sleep and call yersilf a liar, for ye know yell never do

"'Tis the man,' says Halloran, 'who is tryin' to complete the finishin' of the railroad. 'Twas the project of a

private corporation, but it busted, and then the government took it up. De Vegy is a big politician, and wants

to be president. The people want the railroad completed, as they're taxed mighty on account of it. The De

"''Tis not my way,' says I, 'to make threats against any man, but there's an account to be settled between the

"''Twas that way I thought, mesilf, at first,' Halloran says, with a big sigh, 'until I got to be a lettuceeater.

The fault's wid these tropics. They rejuices a man's system. 'Tis a land, as the poet says, "Where it always

seems to be after dinner." I does me work and smokes me pipe and sleeps. There's little else in life, anyway.

Ye'll get that way yersilf, mighty soon. Don't be harborin' any sentiments at all, Clancy.'

"'I can't help it,' says I; I'm full of 'em. I enlisted in the revolutionary army of this dark country in good faith

to fight for its liberty, honors, and silver candlesticks; instead of which I am set to amputatin' its scenery and

"Two months I worked on that railroad before I found a chance to get away. One day a gang of us was sent

back to the end of the completed line to fetch some picks that had been sent down to Port Barrios to be

sharpened. They were brought on a handcar, and I noticed, when I started away, that the car was left there

"'Run away?' says Halloran. 'Good Lord, Clancy, do ye mean it? Why, I ain't got the nerve. It's too chilly, and

I ain't slept enough. Run away? I told you, Clancy, I've eat the lettuce. I've lost my grip. 'Tis the tropics that's

done it. 'Tis like the poet says: "Forgotten are our friends that we have left behind; in the hollow lettuceland

we will live and lay reclined." You better go on, Clancy. I'll stay, I guess. It's too early and cold, and I'm

"So I had to leave Halloran. I dressed quiet, and slipped out of the tent we were in. When the guard came

along I knocked him over, like a ninepin, with a green coconut I had, and made for the railroad. I got on that

handcar and made it fly. 'Twas yet a while before daybreak when I saw the lights of Port Barrios about a

mile away. I stopped the handcar there and walked to the town. I stepped inside the corporations of that

town with care and hesitations. I was not afraid of the army of Guatemala, but me soul quaked at the prospect

of a handtohand struggle with its employment bureau. 'Tis a country that hires its help easy and keeps 'em

long. Sure I can fancy Missis America and Missis Guatemala passin' a bit of gossip some fine, still night

across the mountains. 'Oh, dear,' says Missis America, 'and it's a lot of trouble I'm havin' ag'in with the help,

senora, ma'am.' 'Laws, now!' says Missis Guatemala, 'you don't say so, ma'am! now, mine never think

"I was wonderin' how I was goin' to move away from them tropics without bein' hired again. Dark as it was, I

could see a steamer ridin' in the harbor, with smoke emergin' from her stacks. I turned down a little grass

street that run down to the water. On the beach I found a little brown niggerman just about to shove off in a

"'What steamer is that?' I asks him, 'and where is it going? And what's the news, and the good word and the

" 'That steamer the ~Conchita~,' said the brown man, affable and easy, rollin' a cigarette. 'Him come from

New Orleans for load banana. Him got load last night. I think him sail in one, two hour. Verree nice day we

shall be goin' have. You hear some talkee 'bout big battle, maybe so? You think catchee General De Vega,

"'How's that, Sambo?' says I. 'Big battle? What battle? Who wants catchee General De Vega? I've been up at

my old gold mines in the interior for a couple of months, and haven't heard any news.'

"'Oh,' says the niggerman, proud to speak the English, 'verree great revolution in Guatemala one week ago.

General De Vega, him try be president. Him raise armeeonefiveten thousand mans for fight at the

government. Those one government send fivefortyhundred thousand soldier to suppress revolution.

They fight big battle yesterday at Lomagrandethat about nineteen or fifty mile in the mountain. That

government soldier wheep General De Vegaoh, most bad. Five hundrednine hundredtwo thousand of

his mans is kill. That revolution is smash suppressbustvery quick. General De Vega, him rrrun away

fast on one big mule. Yes, ~carrambos!~ The general, him rrrun away, and his armee is kill. That

government soldier, they try find General De Vega verree much. They want catchee him for shoot. You think

"'Saints grant it!' says I. ''Twould be the judgment of Providence for settin' the warlike talent of a Clancy to

gradin' the tropics with a pick and shovel. But 'tis not so much a question of insurrections now, me little man,

as 'tis of the hiredman problem. 'Tis anxious I am to resign a situation of responsibility and trust with the

white wings department of your great and degraded country. Row me in your little boat out to that steamer,

and I'll give ye five dollarssinker pacerssinker pacers,' says I, reducing the offer to the language and

"'Twas not such a bad little man. He had hesitations at first, sayin' that passengers leavin' the country had to

"Day was just breakin' as we struck her, and there wasn't a soul to be seen on board. The water was very still,

and the niggerman gave me a lift from the boat, and I climbed onto the steamer where her side was sliced to

the deck for loadin' fruit. The hatches was open, and I looked down and saw the cargo of bananas that filled

the hold to within six feet of the top. I thinks to myself, 'Clancy, you better go as a stowaway. It's safer. The

steamer men might hand you back to the employment bureau. The tropic'll get you, Clancy, if you don't

"So I jumps down easy among the bananas, and digs out a hole to hide in among the bunches. In an hour or

so I could hear the engines goin', and feel the steamer rockin', and I knew we were off to sea. They left the

hatches open for ventilation, and pretty soon it was light enough in the hold to see fairly well. I got to feelin' a

bit hungry, and thought I'd have a light fruit lunch, by way of refreshment. I creeped out of the hole I'd made

and stood up straight. Just then I saw another man crawl up about ten feet away and reach out and skin a

banana and stuff it into his mouth. 'Twas a dirty man, blackfaced and ragged and disgraceful of aspect. Yes,

the man was a ringer for the pictures of the fat Weary Willie in the funny papers. I looked again, and saw it

was my general manDe Vega, the great revolutionist, mulerider and pickaxe importer. When he saw me

the general hesitated with his mouth filled with banana and his eyes the size of coconuts.

"'Hist!' I says. 'Not a word, or they'll put us off and make us walk. "Veev la Liberty!"' I adds, copperin' the

sentiment by shovin' a banana into the source of it. I was certain the general wouldn't recognize me. The

nefarious work of the tropics had left me lookin' different. There was half an inch of roan whiskers coverin'

"'How you come in the ship, senor?' asked the general as soon as he could speak.

"'By the back doorwhist!' says I. ''Twas a glorious blow for liberty we struck,' I continues; 'but we was

overpowered by numbers. Let us accept our defeat like brave men and eat another banana.'

"'Were you in the cause of liberty fightin', senor?' says the general, sheddin' tears on the cargo.

"'To the last,' says I. ''Twas I led the last desperate charge against the minions of the tyrant. But it made them

mad, and we was forced to retreat. 'Twas I, general, procured the mule upon which you escaped. Could you

give that ripe bunch a little boost this way, general? It's a bit out of my reach. Thanks.'

"'Say you so, brave patriot?' said the general, again weepin'. 'Ah, ~Dios!~ And I have not the means to reward

your devotion. Barely did I my life bring away. ~Carrambos!~ what a devil's animal was that mule, senor!

Like ships in one storm was I dashed about. The skin on myself was ripped away with the thorns and vines.

Upon the bark of a hundred trees did that beast of the infernal bump, and cause outrage to the legs of mine. In

the night to Port Barrios I came. I dispossess myself of that mountain of mule and hasten along the water

shore. I find a little boat to be tied. I launch myself and row to the steamer. I cannot see any mans on board,

so I climbed one rope which hang at the side. I then myself hide in the bananas. Surely, I say, if the ship

captains view me, they shall throw me again to those Guatemala. Those things are not good. Guatemala will

shoot General De Vega. Therefore, I am hide and remain silent. Life itself is glorious. Liberty, it is pretty

"Three days, as I said, was the trip to New Orleans. The general man and me got to be cronies of the deepest

dye. Bananas we ate until they were distasteful to the sight and an eyesore to the palate, but to bananas alone

was the bill of fare reduced. At night I crawls out, careful, on the lower deck, and gets a bucketful of fresh

"That General De Vega was a man inhabited by an engorgement of words and sentences. He added to the

monotony of the voyage by divestin' himself of conversation. He believed I was a revolutionist of his own

party, there bein' as he told me, a good many Americans and other foreigners in its ranks. 'Twas a braggart

and a conceited little gabbler it was, though he considered himself a hero. 'Twas on himself he wasted all his

regrets at the failing of his plot. Not a word did the little balloon have to say about the other misbehaving

"The second day out he was feelin' pretty braggy and uppish for a stowedaway conspirator that owed his

existence to a mule and stolen bananas. He was tellin' me about the great railroad he had been buildin', and he

relates what he calls a comic incident about a fool Irishman he inveigled from New Orleans to sling a pick on

his little morgue of a narrowgauge line. 'Twas sorrowful to hear the little, dirty general tell the opprobrious

story of how he put salt upon the tail of that reckless and silly bird, Clancy. Laugh, he did, hearty and long.

He shook with laughin', the blackfaced rebel and outcast, standing neckdeep in bananas, without friends or

"'Ah, senor,' he snickers, 'to death you would have laughed at that drollest Irish. I say to him: "Strong, big

mans is need very much in Guatemala." "I will blows strike for your downpressed country," he say. "That

shall you do," I tell him. Ah! it was an Irish so comic. He sees one box break upon the wharf that contain for

the guard a few gun. He think there is gun in all the box. But that is all pickaxe. Yes. Ah! senor, could you the

"'Twas thus the exboss of the employment bureau contributed to the tedium of the trip with merry jests and

anecdote. But now and then he would weep upon the bananas and make oration about the lost cause of liberty

"'Twas a pleasant sound when the steamer bumped against the pier in New Orleans. Pretty soon we heard the

patapat of hundreds of bare feet, and the Dago gang that unloads the fruit jumped on the deck and down

into the hold. Me and the general worked a while at passing up the bunches, and they thought we were part of

the gang. After about an hour we managed to slip off the steamer onto the wharf.

"'Twas a great honor on the hands of an obscure Clancy, havin' the entertainment of the representative of a

great foreign filibustering power. I first bought for the general and myself many long drinks and things to eat

that were not bananas. The general man trotted along at my side, leaving all the arrangements to me. I led him

up to Lafayette Square and set him on a bench in the little park. Cigarettes I had bought for him, and he

humped himself down on the seat like a little, fat, contented hobo. I look him over as he sets there, and what I

see pleases me. Brown by nature and instinct, he is now brindled with dirt and dust. Praise to the mule, his

clothes is mostly strings and flaps. Yes, the looks of the general man is agreeable to Clancy.

"I asks him, delicate, if, by any chance, he brought away anybody's money with him from Guatemala. He

sighs and humps his shoulders against the bench. Not a cent. All right. Maybe, he tells me, some of his

friends in the tropic outfit will send him funds later. The general was as clear a case of no visible means as I

"I told him not to move from the bench, and then I went up to the corner of Poydras and Carondelet. Along

there is O'Hara's beat. In five minutes along comes O'Hara, a big, fine man, redfaced, with shinin' buttons,

swinging his club. 'Twould be a fine thing for Guatemala to move into O'Hara's precinct. 'Twould be a fine

bit of recreation for Danny to suppress revolutions and uprisins once or twice a week with his club.

"Fiftyfortysix is the celebrated city ordinance authorizing arrest, conviction and imprisonment of persons

"'Don't ye know Jimmy Clancy?' says I. 'Ye pinkgilled monster.' So, when O'Hara recognized me beneath

the scandalous exterior bestowed upon me by the tropics, I backed him into a doorway and told him what I

wanted, and why I wanted it. 'All right, Jimmy,' says O'Hara. 'Go back and hold the bench. I'll be along in ten

"In that time O'Hara strolled through Lafayette Square and spied two Weary Willies disgracin' one of the

benches. In ten minutes more J. Clancy and General De Vega, late candidate for the presidency of Guatemala,

was in the station house. The general is badly frightened, and calls upon me to proclaim his distinguishments

"'The man,' says I to the police, 'used to be a railroad man. He's on the bum now. 'Tis a little bughouse he is,

"'~Carrambos!~' says the general, fizzin' like a little sodafountain, 'you fought, senor, with my forces in my

native country. Why do you say the lies? You shall say I am the General De Vega, one soldier, one

"'Railroader,' says I again. 'On the hog. No good. Been livin' for three days on stolen bananas. Look at him.

"Twentyfive dollars or sixty days, was what the recorder gave the general. He didn't have a cent, so he took

the time. They let me go, as I knew they would, for I had money to show, and O'Hara spoke for me. Yes;

sixty days he got. 'Twas just so long as I slung a pick for the great country of KamGuatemala."

Clancy paused. The bright starlight showed a reminiscent look of happy content on his seasoned features.

Keogh leaned in his chair and gave his partner a slap on his thinly clad back that sounded like the crack of the

"Tell 'em, ye divil," he chuckled, "how you got even with the tropical general in the way of agricultural

"'Having no money," concluded Clancy, with unction, "they set him to work his fine out with a gang from the

parish prison clearing Ursulines Street. Around the corner was a saloon decorated genially with electric fans

and cool merchandise. I made that me headquarters, and every fifteen minutes I'd walk around and take a

look at the little man filibusterin' with a rake and shovel. 'Twas just such a hot broth of a day as this has been.

And I'd call at him 'Hey, monseer!' and he'd look at me black, with the damp showin' through his shirt in

"'Fat, strong mans,' says I to General De Vega, 'is needed in New Orleans. Yes. To carry on the good work.

Breakfast in Coralio was at eleven. Therefore the people did not go to market early. The little wooden

markethouse stood on a patch of shorttrimmed grass, under the vivid green foliage of a breadfruit tree.

Thither one morning the venders leisurely convened, bringing their wares with them. A porch or platform six

feet wide encircled the building, shaded from the midmorning sun by the projecting, grass thatched roof.

Upon this platform the venders were wont to display their goodsnewly killed beef, fish, crabs, fruit of the

country, cassava, eggs, ~dulces~ and high, tottering stacks of native tortillas as large around as the sombrero

But on this morning they whose stations lay on the seaward side of the markethouse, instead of spreading

their merchandise formed themselves into a softly jabbering and gesticulating group. For there upon their

space of the platform was sprawled, asleep, the unbeautiful figure of "Beelzebub" Blythe. He lay upon a

ragged strip of cocoa matting, more than ever a fallen angel in appearance. His suit of coarse flax, soiled,

bursting at the seams, crumpled into a thousand diversified wrinkles and creases, inclosed him absurdly, like

the garb of some effigy that had been stuffed in sport and thrown there after indignity had been wrought upon

it. But firmly upon the high bridge of his nose reposed his goldrimmed glasses, the surviving badge of his

The sun's rays, reflecting quiveringly from the rippling sea upon his face, and the voices of the marketmen

woke "Beelzebub" Blythe. He sat up, blinking, and leaned his back against the wall of the market. Drawing a

blighted silk handkerchief from his pocket, he assiduously rubbed and burnished his glasses. And while doing

this he became aware that his bedroom had been invaded, and that polite brown and yellow men were

If the senor would have the goodnessa thousand pardons for bringing to him molestationbut soon would

come the ~compradores~ for the day's provisionssurely they had ten thousand regrets at disturbing him!

In this manner they expanded to him the intimation that he must clear out and cease to clog the wheels of

Blythe stepped from the platform with the air of a prince leaving his canopied couch. He never quite lost that

air, even at the lowest point of his fall. It is clear that the college of good breeding does not necessarily

Blythe shook out his wry clothing, and moved slowly up the Calle Grande through the hot sand. He moved

without a destination in his mind. The little town was languidly stirring to its daily life. Goldenskinned

babies tumbled over one another in the grass. The sea breeze brought him appetite, but nothing to satisfy it.

Throughout Coralio were its morning odorsthose from the heavily fragrant tropical flowers and from the

bread baking in the outdoor ovens of clay and the pervading smoke of their fires. Where the smoke cleared,

the crystal air, with some of the efficacy of faith, seemed to remove the mountains almost to the sea, bringing

them so near that one might count the scarred glades on their wooded sides. The lightfooted Caribs were

swiftly gliding to their tasks at the waterside. Already along the bosky trails from the banana groves files of

horses were slowly moving, concealed, except for their nodding heads and plodding legs, by the bunches of

greengolden fruit heaped upon their backs. On doorsills sat women combing their long, black hair and

calling, one to another, across the narrow thoroughfares. Peace reigned in Coralio arid and bald peace; but

On that bright morning when Nature seemed to be offering the lotus on the Dawn's golden platter

"Beelzebub" Blythe had reached rock bottom. Further descent seemed impossible. That last night's slumber in

a public place had done for him. As long as he had had a roof to cover him there had remained, unbridged,

the space that separates a gentleman from the beasts of the jungle and the fowls of the air. But now he was

little more than a whimpering oyster led to be devoured on the sands of a Southern sea by the artful walrus,

To Blythe money was now but a memory. He had drained his friends of all that their goodfellowship had to

offer; then he had squeezed them to the last drop of their generosity; and at last, Aaronlike, he had smitten

the rock of their hardening bosoms for the scattering, ignoble drops of Charity itself.

He had exhausted his credit to the last real. With the minute keenness of the shameless sponger he was aware

of every source in Coralio from which a glass of rum, a meal or a piece of silver could be wheedled.

Marshalling each such source in his mind, he considered it with all the thoroughness and penetration that

hunger and thirst lent him for the task. All his optimism failed to thresh a grain of hope from the chaff of his

postulations. He had played out the game. That one night in the open had shaken his nerves. Until then there

had been left to him at least a few grounds upon which he could base his unblushing demands upon his

neighbors' stores. Now he must beg instead of borrowing. The most brazen sophistry could not dignify by the

name of "loan" the coin contemptuously flung to a beachcomber who slept on the bare boards of the public

But on this morning no beggar would have more thankfully received a charitable coin, for the demon thirst

had him by the throatthe drunkard's matutinal thirst that requires to be slaked at each morning station on

Blythe walked slowly up the street, keeping a watchful eye for any miracle that might drop manna upon him

in his wilderness. As he passed the popular eating house of Madama Vasquez, Madama's boarders were just

sitting down to freshly baked bread, ~aguacates~, pines and delicious coffee that sent forth odorous guarantee

of its quality upon the breeze. Madama was serving; she turned her shy, stolid, melancholy gaze for a

moment out the window; she saw Blythe, and her expression turned more shy and embarrassed. "Beelzebub"

owed her twenty pesos. He bowed as he had once bowed to less embarrassed dames to whom he owed

Merchants and their clerks were throwing open the solid wooden doors of their shops. Polite but cool were

the glances they cast upon Blythe as he lounged tentatively by with the remains of his old jaunty air; for they

At the little fountain in the ~plaza~ he made an apology for a toilet with his wetted handkerchief. Across the

open square filed the dolorous line of friends to the prisoners in the calaboza, bearing the morning meal of the

It was drink that his soul craved, or money to buy it. In the streets he met many with whom he had been

friends and equals, and whose patience and liberality he had gradually exhausted. Willard Geddie and Paula

cantered past him with the coolest of nods, returning from their daily horseback ride along the old Indian

road. Keogh passed him at another corner, whistling cheerfully and bearing a prize of newly laid eggs for the

breakfast of himself and Clancy. The jovial scout of Fortune was one of Blythe's victims who had plunged his

hand oftenest into his pocket to aid him. But now it seemed that Keogh, too, had fortified himself against

further invasions. His curt greeting and the ominous light in his full, gray eye quickened the steps of

"Beelzebub," whom desperation had almost incited to attempt an additional "loan."

Three drinking shops the forlorn one next visited in succession. In all of these his money, his credit and his

welcome had long since been spent; but Blythe felt that he would have fawned in the dust at the feet of an

enemy that morning for one draught of ~aguardiente~. In two of the ~pulperias~ his courageous petition for

drink was met with a refusal so polite that it stung worse than abuse. The third establishment had acquired

something of American methods; and here he was seized bodily and cast out upon his hands and knees.

This physical indignity caused a singular change in the man. As he picked himself up and walked away, an

expression of absolute relief came upon his features. The specious and conciliatory smile that had been

graven there was succeeded by a look of calm and sinister resolve. "Beelzebub" had been floundering in the

sea of improbability, holding by a slender lifeline to the respectable world that had cast him overboard. He

must have felt that with this ultimate shock the line had snapped, and have experienced the welcome ease of

Blythe walked to the next corner and stood there while he brushed the sand from his garments and repolished

"I've got to do itoh, I've got to do it," he told himself, aloud. "If I had a quart of rum I believe I could stave

it off yetfor a little while. But there's no more rum for'Beelzebub,' as they call me. By the flames of

Tartarus! if I'm to sit at the right hand of Satan somebody has got to pay the court expenses. You'll have to

pony up, Mr. Frank Goodwin. You're a good fellow; but a gentleman must draw the line at being kicked into

the gutter. Blackmail isn't a pretty word, but it's the next station on the road I'm travelling."

With purpose in his steps Blythe now moved rapidly through the town by way of its landward environs. He

passed through the squalid quarters of the improvident negroes and on beyond the picturesque shacks of the

poorer mestizos. From many points along his course he could see, through the umbrageous glades, the house

of Frank Goodwin on its wooded hill. And as he crossed the little bridge over the lagoon he saw the old

Indian, Galvez, scrubbing at the wooden slab that bore the name of Miraflores. Beyond the lagoon the lands

of Goodwin began to slope gently upward. A grassy road, shaded by a munificent and diverse array of

tropical flora wound from the edge of an outlying banana grove to the dwelling. Blythe took this road with

Goodwin was seated on his coolest gallery, dictating letters to his secretary, a sallow and capable native

youth. The household adhered to the American plan of breakfast; and that meal had been a thing of the past

"Good morning, Blythe, said Goodwin, looking up. "Come in and have a chair. Anything I can do for you?"

Goodwin nodded at his secretary, who strolled out under a mango tree and lit a cigarette. Blythe took the

"I'm sorry," said Goodwin, with equal directness, "but you can't have any. You're drinking yourself to death,

Blythe. Your friends have done all they could to help you to brace up. You won't help yourself. There's no

"Dear man," said Blythe, tilting back his chair, "it isn't a question of social economy now. It's past that. I like

you, Goodwin; and I've come to stick a knife between your ribs. I was kicked out of Espada's saloon this

"Nobut in a general way you represent Society; and in a particular way you represent my last chance. I've

had to come down to it, old manI tried to do it a month ago when Losada's man was here turning things

over; but I couldn't do it then. Now it's different. I want a thousand dollars, Goodwin; and you'll have to give

"Only last week," said Goodwin, with a smile, "a silver dollar was all you were asking for."

"An evidence," said Blythe, flippantly, "that I was still virtuous though under heavy pressure. The wages

of sin should be something higher than a peso worth fortyeight cents. Let's talk business. I am the villain in

the third act; and I must have my merited, if only temporary, triumph. I saw you collar the late president's

valiseful of boodle. Oh, I know it's blackmail; but I'm liberal about the price. I know I'm a cheap villainone

of the regular sawmilldrama kindbut you're one of my particular friends, and I don't want to stick you

"Suppose you go into the details," suggested Goodwin, calmly arranging his letters on the table.

"All right," said "Beelzebub." "I like the way you take it. I despise histrionics; so you will please prepare

yourself for the facts without any red fire, calcium or grace notes on the saxophone.

"On the night that His Flybynight Excellency arrived in town I was very drunk. You will excuse the pride

with which I state that fact; but it was quite a feat for me to attain that desirable state. Somebody had left a

cot out under the orange trees in the yard of Madama Ortiz's hotel. I stepped over the wall, laid down upon it,

and fell asleep. I was awakened by an orange that dropped from the tree upon my nose; and I laid there for a

while cursing Sir Isaac Newton, or whoever it was that invented gravitation, for not confining his theory to

"And then along came Mr. Miraflores and his truelove with the treasury in a valise, and went into the hotel.

Next you hove in sight, and held a powwow with the tonsorial artist who insisted upon talking shop after

hours. I tried to slumber again; but once more my rest was disturbedthis time by the noise of the popgun

that went off upstairs. Then that valise came crashing down into an orange tree just above my head; and I

arose from my couch, not knowing when it might begin to rain Saratoga trunks. When the army and the

constabulary began to arrive, with their medals and decorations hastily pinned to their pajamas, and their

snickersnees drawn, I crawled into the welcome shadow of a banana plant. I remained there for an hour, by

which time the excitement and the people had cleared away. And then, my dear Goodwinexcuse meI

saw you sneak back and pluck that ripe and juicy valise from the orange tree. I followed you, and saw you

take it to your own house. A hundredthousanddollar crop from one orange tree in a season about breaks

"Being a gentleman at that time, of course I never mentioned the incident to any one. But this morning I was

kicked out of a saloon, my code of honor is all out at the elbows, and I'd sell my mother's prayerbook for

three fingers of ~aguardiente~. I'm not putting on the screws hard. It ought to be worth a thousand to you for

me to have slept on that cot through the whole business without waking up and seeing anything."

Goodwin opened two more letters, and made memoranda in pencil on them. Then he called "Manuel!" to his

"The ~Ariel~when does she sail?" asked Goodwin. "Senor," answered the youth, "at three this afternoon.

She drops downcoast to Punta Soledad to complete her cargo of fruit. From there she sails for New Orleans

In round numbers," said Goodwin, facing Blythe squarely, "how much money do you owe in this town, not

"Go somewhere in the town and draw up a schedule of your debts," said Goodwin. "Come back here in two

hours, and I will send Manuel with the money to pay them. I will also have a decent outfit of clothing ready

for you. You will sail on the ~Ariel~ at three. Manuel will accompany you as far as the deck of the steamer.

There he will hand you one thousand dollars in cash. I suppose that we needn't discuss what you will be

"Oh, I understand," piped Blythe, cheerily. "I was asleep all the time on the cot under Madama Ortiz's orange

trees; and I shake off the dust of Coralio forever. I'll play fair. No more of the lotus for me. Your proposition

is 0. K. Youre a good fellow, Goodwin; and I let you off light. I'll agree to everything. But in the meantime

"Not a ~centavo~," said Goodwin, firmly, "until you are on board the ~Ariel~. You would be drunk in thirty

But he noticed the bloodstreaked eyeballs, the relaxed form and the shaking hands of "Beelzebub"; and he

stepped into the dining room through the low window, and brought out a glass and a decanter of brandy.

"Take a bracer, anyway, before you go," he proposed, even as a man to the friend whom he entertains.

"Beelzebub" Blythe's eyes glistened at the sight of the solace for which his soul burned. Today for the first

time his poisoned nerves had been denied their steadying dose; and their retort was a mounting torment. He

grasped the decanter and rattled its crystal mouth against the glass in his trembling hand. He flushed the

glass, and then stood erect, holding it aloft for an instant. For one fleeting moment he held his head above the

drowning waves of his abyss. He nodded easily at Goodwin, raised his brimming glass and murmured a

"health" that men had used in his ancient Paradise Lost. And then so suddenly that he spilled the brandy over

"In two hours," his dry lips muttered to Goodwin, as he marched down the steps and turned his face toward

In the edge of the cool banana grove "Beelzebub" halted, and snapped the tongue of his belt buckle into

"I couldn't do it," he explained, feverishly, to the waving banana fronds. "I wanted to, but I couldn't. A

John De Graffenreid Atwood ate of the lotus, root, stem, and flower. The tropics gobbled him up. He plunged

Now, they who dine on the lotus rarely consume it plain. There is a sauce ~au diable~ that goes with it; and

the distillers are the chefs who prepare it. And on Johnny's menu card it read "brandy." With a bottle between

them, he and Billy Keogh would sit on the porch of the little consulate at night and roar out great, indecorous

songs, until the natives, slipping hastily past, would shrug a shoulder and mutter things to themselves about

One day Johnny's ~mozo~ brought the mail and dumped it on the table. Johnny leaned from his hammock,

and fingered the four or five letters dejectedly. Keogh was sitting on the edge of the table chopping lazily

with a paper knife at the legs of a centipede that was crawling among the stationery. Johnny was in that phase

"Same old thing!" he complained. "Fool people writing for information about the country. They want to know

all about raising fruit, and how to make a fortune without work. Half of 'em don't even send stamps for a

reply. They think a consul hasn't anything to do but write letters. Slit those envelopes for me, old man, and

Keogh, acclimated beyond all possibility of illhumor, drew his chair to the table with smiling compliance on

his rosepink countenance, and began to slit open the letters. Four of them were from citizens in various parts

of the United States who seemed to regard the consul at Coralio as a cyclopedia of information. They asked

long lists of questions, numerically arranged, about the climate, products, possibilities, laws, business

chances, and statistics of the country in which the consul had the honor of representing his own government.

"Write 'em, please, Billy," said that inert official, "just a line, referring them to the latest consular report. Tell

'em the State Department will be delighted to furnish the literary gems. Sign my name. Don't let your pen

"Don't snore," said Keogh, amiably, "and I'll do your work for you. You need a corps of assistants, anyhow.

Don't see how you ever get out a report. Wake up a minutehere's one more letterit's from your own

"That so?" murmured Johnny showing a mild and obligatory interest. "What's it about?"

"Postmaster writes," explained Keogh. "Says a citizen of the town wants some facts and advice from you.

Says the citizen has an idea in his head of coming down where you are and opening a shoe store. Wants to

know if you think the business would pay. Says he's heard of the boom along this coast, and wants to get in

In spite of the heat and his bad temper, Johnny's hammock swayed with his laughter. Keogh laughed too; and

the pet monkey on the top shelf of the bookcase chattered in shrill sympathy with the ironical reception of the

"Great bunions!" exclaimed the consul. "Shoe store! What'll they ask about next, I wonder? Overcoat factory,

I reckon. Say, Billyof our 3,000 citizens, how many do you suppose ever had on a pair of shoes?"

"Not me," said Johnny, promptly and incorrectly, holding up a foot encased in a disreputable deerskin

"But you've got 'em, though," went on Keogh. "And there's Goodwin and Blanchard and Geddie and old Lutz

and Doc Gregg and that Italian that's agent for the banana company, and there's old Delgadono; he wears

sandals. And, oh, yes; there's Madama Ortiz, 'what kapes the hotel'she had on a pair of red kid slippers at

the ~baile~ the other night. And Miss Pasa, her daughter, that went to school in the States she brought

back some civilized notions in the way of footgear. And there's the ~comandante's~ sister that dresses up her

feet on feast daysand Mrs. Geddie, who wears a two with a Castilian instepand that's about all the

ladies. Let's seedon't some of the soldiers at the ~cuartel~no: that's so; they're allowed shoes only when

"'Bout right," agreed the consul. "Not over twenty out of the three thousand ever felt leather on their walking

arrangements. Oh, yes; Coralio is just the town for an enterprising shoe storethat doesn't want to part with

its goods. Wonder if old Patterson is trying to jolly me! He always was full of things he called jokes. Write

Keogh dipped his pen, and wrote at Johnny's dictation. With many pauses, filled in with smoke and sundry

travellings of the bottle and glasses, the following reply to the Dalesburg communication was perpetrated:

~Dear Sir~: in reply to your favor of July 2d. I have the honor to inform you that, according to my opinion,

there is no place on the habitable globe that presents to the eye stronger evidence of the need of a firstclass

shoe store than does the town of Coralio. There are 3,000 inhabitants in the place, and not a single shoe store!

The situation speaks for itself. This coast is rapidly becoming the goal of enterprising business men, but the

shoe business is one that has been sadly overlooked or neglected. In fact, there are a considerable number of

Besides the want above mentioned, there is also a crying need for a brewery, a college of higher mathematics,

a coal yard, and a clean and intellectual Punch and Judy show. I have the honor to be,

P.S.Hello! Uncle Obadiah. How's the old burg racking along? What would the government do without you

and me? Look out for a greenheaded parrot and a bunch of bananas soon, from your old friend

"I throw in that postscript," explained the consul, "so Uncle Obadiah won't take offense at the official tone of

the letter! Now, Billy, you get that correspondence fixed up, and send Pancho to the post office with it. The

~Ariadne~ takes the mail out tomorrow if they make up that load of fruit today."

The night programme in Coralio never varied. The recreations of the people were soporific and flat. They

wandered about, barefoot and aimless, speaking lowly and smoking cigar or cigarette. Looking down on the

dimly lighted ways one seemed to see a threading maze of brunette ghosts tangled with a procession of insane

fireflies. In some houses the thrumming of lugubrious guitars added to the depression of the ~triste~ night.

Giant treefrogs rattled in the foliage as loudly as the end man's "bones" in a minstrel troupe. By nine o'clock

Not at the consulate was there often a change of bill. Keogh would come there nightly, for Coralio's one cool

place was the little porch of that official residence. The brandy would be kept moving; and before midnight

sentiment would begin to stir in the heart of the selfexiled consul. Then he would relate to Keogh the story

of his ended romance. Each night Keogh would listen patiently to the tale, and be ready with untiring

"But don't you think for a minute"thus Johnny would always conclude his woeful narrative"that I'm

grieving about that girl, Billy. I've forgotten her. She never enters my mind. If she were to enter that door

"Don't I know it?" Keogh would answer. "Of course you've forgotten her. Proper thing to do. Wasn't quite 0.

"Pink Dawson!"a word of contempt would be in Johnny's tones"Poor white trash! That's what he was.

Had five hundred acres of farming land, though; and that counted. Maybe I'll have a chance to get back at

him some day. The Dawsons weren't anybody. Everybody in Alabama knows the Atwoods. Say, Billydid

"Why, no," Keogh would say; "is that so?" He had heard it some three hundred times.

"Fact. The De Graffenreids of Hancock County. But I never think of that girl any more, do I, Billy?"

"Not for a minute, my boy," would be the last sounds heard by the conqueror of Cupid.

At this point Johnny would fall into a gentle slumber, and Keogh would saunter out to his own shack under

In a day or two the letter from the Dalesburg postmaster and its answer had been forgotten by the Coralio

exiles. But on the 26th day of July the fruit of the reply appeared upon the tree of events.

The ~Andador~, a fruit steamer that visited Coralio regularly, drew into the offing and anchored. The beach

was lined with spectators while the quarantine doctor and the customhouse crew rowed out to attend to their

An hour later Billy Keogh lounged into the consulate, clean and cool in his linen clothes, and grinning like a

"Your shoestore man's come," said Keogh, rolling the sweet morsel on his tongue, "with a stock of goods

big enough to supply the continent as far down as Tierra del Fuego. They're carting his cases over to the

customhouse now. Six barges full they brought ashore and have paddled back for the rest. Oh, ye saints in

glory! won't there be regalements in the air when he gets onto the joke and has an interview with Mr. Consul?

It'll be worth nine years in the tropics just to witness that one joyful moment."

Keogh loved to take his mirth easily. He selected a clean place on the matting and lay upon the floor. The

"Didn't tell me," he said, "that anybody was fool enough to take that letter seriously."

"Fourthousanddollar stock of goods!" gasped Keogh, in ecstasy. "Talk about coals to Newcastle! Why

didn't he take a shipload of palmleaf fans to Spitzenbergen while he was about it? Saw the old codger on

the beach. You ought to have been there when he put on his specs and squinted at the five hundred or so

"Am I? You ought to see the buncoed gentleman's daughter he brought along. Looks! She makes the

"Go on," said Johnny, "if you can stop that asinine giggling. I hate to see a grown man make a laughing

Johnny's moccasined feet struck the floor with a thud as he wriggled out of his hammock.

"Get up, you idiot," he said, sternly, "or I'll brain you with this inkstand. That's Rosine and her father. Gad!

what a drivelling idiot old Patterson is! Get up, here, Billy Keogh, and help me. What the devil are we going

"Situation has got to be met, Johnny," he said, with some success at seriousness. "I didn't think about its

being your girl until you spoke. First thing to do is to get them comfortable quarters. You go down and face

the music, and I'll trot out to Goodwin's and see if Mrs. Goodwin won't take them in. They've got the

"Bless you, Billy!" said the consul. "I knew you wouldn't desert me. The world's bound to come to an end,

Keogh hoisted his umbrella and set out for Goodwin's house. Johnny put on his coat and hat. He picked up

the brandy bottle, but set it down again without drinking, and marched bravely down to the beach.

In the shade of the customhouse walls he found Mr. Hemstetter and Rosine surrounded by a mass of gaping

citizens. The customs officers were ducking and scraping, while the captain of the Andador interpreted the

business of the new arrivals. Rosine looked healthy and very much alive. She was gazing at the strange

scenes around her with amused interest. There was a faint blush upon her round cheek as she greeted her old

admirer. Mr. Hemstetter shook hands with Johnny in a very friendly way. He was an oldish, impractical man

one of that numerous class of erratic business men who are forever dissatisfied, and seeking a change.

"I am very glad to see you, Johnmay I call you John?" he said. "Let me thank you for your prompt answer

to our postmaster's letter of inquiry. He volunteered to write to you on my behalf. I was looking about for

something different in the way of a business in which the profits would be greater. I had noticed in the papers

that this coast was receiving much attention from investors. I am extremely grateful for your advice to come.

I sold out everything that I possess, and invested the proceeds in as fine a stock of shoes as could be bought in

the North. You have a picturesque town here, John. I hope business will be as good as your letter justifies me

Johnny's agony was abbreviated by the arrival of Keogh, who hurried up with the news that Mrs. Goodwin

would be much pleased to place rooms at the disposal of Mr. Hemstetter and his daughter. So there Mr.

Hemstetter and Rosine were at once conducted and left to recuperate from the fatigue of the voyage, while

Johnny went down to see that the cases of shoes were safely stored in the customs warehouse pending their

examination by the officials. Keogh, grinning like a shark, skirmished about to find Goodwin, to instruct him

not to expose to Mr. Hemstetter the true state of Coralio as a shoe market until Johnny had been given a

That night the consul and Keogh held a desperate consultation on the breezy porch of the consulate.

"I would," said Johnny, after a little silence; "but I've been lying to you, Billy."

"I've told you hundreds of times," said Johnny, slowly, "that I had forgotten that girl, haven't I?"

"I lied," repeated the consul, "every time. I never forgot her for one moment. I was an obstinate ass for

running away just because she said 'No' once. And I was too proud a fool to go back. I talked with Rosine a

few minutes this evening up at Goodwin's. I found out one thing. You remember that farmer fellow who was

"Pink Dawson. Well, he wasn't a hill of beans to her. She says she didn't believe a word of the things be told

her about me. But I'm sewed up now, Billy. That tomfool letter we sent ruined whatever chance I had left.

She'll despise me when she finds out that her old father has been made the victim of a joke that a decent

schoolboy wouldn't have been guilty of. Shoes! Why he couldn't sell twenty pairs of shoes in Coralio if he

kept store here for twenty years. You put a pair of shoes on one of these Caribs or Spanish brown boys and

what'd he do? Stand on his head and squeal until he'd kicked 'em off. None of 'em ever wore shoes and they

never will. If I send 'em back home I'll have to tell the whole story, and what'll she think of me? I want that

girl worse than ever, Billy, and now when she's in reach I've lost her forever because I tried to be funny when

"Keep cheerful," said the optimistic Keogh. "And let 'em open the store. I've been busy myself this afternoon.

We can stir up a temporary boom in footgear anyhow. I'll buy six pairs when the doors open. I've been

around and seen all the fellows and explained the catastrophe. They'll all buy shoes like they was centipedes.

Frank Goodwin will take cases of 'em. The Geddies want about eleven pairs between 'em. Clancy is going to

invest the savings of weeks, and even old Doc Gregg wants three pairs of alligatorhide slippers if they've

got any tens. Blanchard got a look at Miss Hemstetter; and as he's a Frenchman, no less than a dozen pairs

"A dozen customers," said Johnny, "for a $4,000 stock of shoes! It won't work. There's a big problem here to

figure out. You go home, Billy, and leave me alone. I've got to work at it all by myself. Take that bottle of

Threestar along with youno, sir; not another ounce of booze for the United States consul. I'll sit here

tonight and pull out the think stop. If there's a soft place on this proposition anywhere I'll land on it. If there

Keogh left, feeling that he could be of no use. Johnny laid a handful of cigars on a table and stretched himself

in a steamer chair. When the sudden daylight broke, silvering the harbor ripples, he was still sitting there.

At nine o'clock he walked down to the dingy little cable office and hung for half an hour over a blank. The

result of his application was the following message, which he signed and had transmitted at a cost of $33:

Draft for $100 comes to you next mail. Ship me immediately 500 pounds stiff, dry cockleburrs. New use here

Within a week a suitable building had been secured in the Calle Grande, and Mr. Hemstetter's stock of shoes

arranged upon their shelves. The rent of the store was moderate; and the stock made a fine showing of neat

Johnny's friends stood by him loyally. On the first day Keogh strolled into the store in a casual kind of way

about once every hour, and bought shoes. After he had purchased a pair each of extension soles, congress

gaiters, button kids, lowquartered calfs, dancing pumps, rubber boots, tans of various hues, tennis shoes and

flowered slippers, he sought out Johnny to be prompted as to the names of other kinds that he might inquire

for. The other Englishspeaking residents also played their parts nobly by buying often and liberally. Keogh

was grand marshal, and made them distribute their patronage, thus keeping up a fair run of custom for several

Mr. Hemstetter was gratified by the amount of business done thus far; but expressed surprise that the natives

"Oh, they're awfully shy," explained Johnny, as he wiped his forehead nervously. "They'll get the habit pretty

One afternoon Keogh dropped into the consul's office, chewing an unlighted cigar thoughtfully.

"Got anything up your sleeve?" he inquired of Johnny. "If you have it's about time to show it. If you can

borrow some gent's hat in the audience, and make a lot of customers for an idle stock of shoes come out of it

you'd better spiel. The boys have all laid in enough footwear to last 'em ten years; and there's nothing doing in

the shoe store but dolcy far nienty. I just came by there. Your venerable victim was standing in the door,

gazing through his specs at the bare toes passing by his emporium. The natives here have got the true artistic

temperament. Me and Clancy took eighteen tintypes this morning in two hours. There's been but one pair of

shoes sold all day. Blanchard went in and bought a pair of furlined houseslippers because he thought he saw

Miss Hemstetter go into the store. I saw him throw the slippers into the lagoon afterwards."

"There's a Mobile fruit steamer coming in tomorrow or next day," said Johnny. We can't do anything until

"Political economy isn't your strong point," said the consul, impudently. "You can't create a demand. But you

Two weeks after the consul sent his cable, a fruit steamer brought him a huge, mysterious brown bale of some

unknown commodity. Johnny's influence with the customhouse people was sufficiently strong for him to get

the goods turned over to him without the usual inspection. He had the bale taken to the consulate and snugly

stowed in the back room. That night he ripped open a corner of it and took out a handful of the cockleburrs.

He examined them with the care with which a warrior examines his arms before he goes forth to battle for his

ladylove and life. The burrs were the ripe August product, as hard as filberts, and bristling with spines as

tough and sharp as needles. Johnny whistled softly a little tune, and went out to find Billy Keogh.

Later in the night, when Coralio was steeped in slumber, he and Billy went forth into the deserted streets with

their coats bulging like balloons. All up and down the Calle Grande they went, sowing the sharp burrs

carefully in the sand, along the narrow sidewalks, in every foot of grass between the silent houses. And then

they took the side streets and byways, missing none. No place where the foot of man, woman or child might

fall was slighted. Many trips they made to and from the prickly hoard. And then, nearly at the dawn, they laid

themselves down to rest calmly, as great generals do after planning a victory according to the revised tactics,

and slept, knowing that they had sowed with the accuracy of Satan sowing tares and the perseverance of Paul

With the rising sun came the purveyors of fruits and meats, and arranged their wares in and around the little

markethouse. At one end of the town near the seashore the markethouse stood; and the sowing of the burrs

had not been carried that far. The dealers waited long past the hour when their sales usually began. None

came to buy. "!Que hay?~" they began to exclaim, one to another. At their accustomed time, from every

'dobe and palm hut and grass thatched shack and dim ~patio~ glided womenblack women, brown

women, lemoncolored women, women dun and yellow and tawny. They were the marketers starting to

purchase the family supply of cassava, plantains, meat, fowls, and tortillas. Decollete they were and

barearmed and barefooted, with a single skirt reaching below the knee. Stolid and oxeyed, they stepped

from their doorways into the narrow paths or upon the soft grass of the streets.

The first to emerge uttered ambiguous squeals, and raised one foot quickly. Another step and they sat down,

with shrill cries of alarm, to pick at the new and painful insects that had stung them upon the feet. "~Que

picadores diablos!~" they screeched to one another across the narrow ways. Some tried the grass instead of

the paths, but there they were also stung and bitten by the strange little prickly balls. They plumped down in

the grass, and added their lamentations to those of their sisters in the sandy paths. All through the town was

heard the plaint of the feminine jabber. The venders in the market still wondered why no customers came.

Then men, lords of the earth, came forth. They, too, began to hop, to dance, to limp, and to curse. They stood

stranded and foolish, or stopped to pluck at the scourge that attacked their feet and ankles. Some loudly

And then the children ran out for their morning romp. And now to the uproar was added the howls of limping

infants and cockleburred childhood. Every minute the advancing day brought forth fresh victims.

Dona Maria Castillas y Buenventura de las Casas stepped from her honored doorway, as was her daily

custom, to procure fresh bread from the ~panaderia~ across the street. She was clad in a skirt of flowered,

yellow satin, a chemise of ruffled linen, and wore a purple mantilla from the looms of Spain. Her

lemontinted feet, alas! were bare. Her progress was majestic, for were not her ancestors hidalgos of Aragon?

Three steps she made across the velvety grass, and set her aristocratic sole upon a bunch of Johnny's burrs.

Dona Maria Castillas y Buenventura de las Casas emitted a yowl even as a wildcat. Turning about, she fell

upon hands and knees, and crawled ay, like a beast of the field she crawled back to her honorable

Don Senor Ildefonso Federico Valdazar, ~Juez de la Paz~, weighing twenty stone, attempted to convey his

bulk to the ~pulperia~ at the corner of the plaza in order to assuage his matutinal thirst. The first plunge of his

unshod foot into the cool grass struck a concealed mine. Don Ildefonso fell like a crumpled cathedral, crying

out that he had been fatally bitten by a deadly scorpion. Everywhere were the shoeless citizens hopping,

stumbling, limping, and picking from their feet the venomous insects that had come in a single night to harass

The first to perceive the remedy was Esteban Delgado, the barber, a man of travel and education. Sitting upon

"Behold, my friends, these bugs of the devil! I know them well. They soar through the skies in swarms like

pigeons. These are dead ones that fell during the night. In Yucatan I have seen them as large as oranges. Yes!

There they hiss like serpents, and have wings like bats. It is the shoesthe shoes that one needs!

Esteban hobbled to Mr. Hemstetter's store, and bought shoes. Coming out, he swaggered down the street with

impunity, reviling loudly the bugs of the devil. The suffering ones sat up or stood upon one foot and beheld

the immune barber. Men, women and children took up the cry: "~Zapatos! zapatos!~"

The necessity for the demand had been created. The demand followed. That day Mr. Hemstetter sold three

"It is really surprising," he said to Johnny, who came up in the evening to help him straighten out the stock,

"I think I shall order a dozen more cases of goods, to keep the stock up," said Mr. Hemstetter, beaming

"I wouldn't send in any orders yet," advised Johnny. "Wait till you see how the trade holds up."

Each night Johnny and Keogh sowed the crop that grew dollars by day. At the end of ten days twothirds of

the stock of shoes had been sold; and the stock of cockleburrs was exhausted. Johnny cabled to Pink Dawson

for another 500 pounds, paying twenty cents per pound as before. Mr. Hemstetter carefully made up an order

for $1500 worth of shoes from Northern firms. Johnny hung about the store until this order was ready for the

That night he took Rosine under the mango tree by Godwin's porch, and confessed everything. She looked

him in the eye, and said: "You are a very wicked man. Father and I will go back home. You say it was a joke?

But at the end of half an hour's argument the conversation had been turned upon a different subject. The two

were considering the respective merits of pale blue and pink wallpaper with which the old colonial mansion

On the next morning Johnny confessed to Mr. Hemstetter. The shoe merchant put on his spectacles, and said

through them: "You strike me as being a most extraordinary young scamp. If I had not managed this

enterprise with good business judgment my entire stock of goods might have been a complete loss. Now, how

When the second invoice of cockleburrs arrived Johnny loaded them and the remainder of the shoes into

schooner, and sailed down the coast to Alazan. There, in the same dark and diabolical manner, he repeated

And then he besought his great Uncle of the waving goatee and starred vest to accept his resignation, for the

The services of Mr. William Terence Keogh as acting consul, pro term., were suggested and accepted, and

Keogh slipped into the sinecure of the American consulship with the ease that never left him even in such

high places. The tintype establishment was soon to become a thing of the past, although its deadly work along

the peaceful and helpless Spanish Main was never effaced. The restless partners were about to be off again,

scouting ahead of the slow ranks of Fortune. But now they would take different ways. There were rumors of a

promising uprising in Peru; and thither the martial Clancy would turn his adventurous steps. As for Keogh, he

was figuring in his mind and on quires of Government letterheads a scheme that dwarfed the art of

"What suits me," Keogh used to say, "in the way of a business proposition is something diversified that looks

like a longer shot than it issomething in the way of a genteel graft that isn't worked enough for the

correspondence schools to be teaching it by mail. I take the long end; but I like to have at least as good a

chance to win as a man learning to play poker on an ocean steamer, or running for governor of Texas on the

Republican ticket. And when I cash in my winnings I don't want to find any widows' and orphans' chips in

The grassgrown globe was the green table on which Keogh gambled. The games he played were of his own

invention. He was no grubber after the diffident dollar. Nor did he care to follow it with horn and hounds.

Rather he loved to coax it with egregious and brilliant flies from its habitat in the waters of strange streams.

Yet Keogh was a business man; and his schemes, in spite of their singularity, were as solidly set as the plans

of a building contractor. In Arthur's time Sir William Keogh would have been a Knight of the Round Table.

Three days after Johnny's departure, two small schooners appeared off Coralio. After some delay a boat put

off from one of them, and brought a sunburned young man ashore. This young man had a shrewd and

calculating eye; and he gazed with amazement at the strange things that he saw. He found on the beach some

one who directed him to the consul's office; and thither he made his way at a nervous gait.

Keogh was sprawled in the official chair, drawing caricatures of his Uncle's head on an official pad of paper.

"That's just like him," remarked the nutbrown one, leaning against the table. "He always was a fellow to

"Don't think so," said Keogh, after a fair amount of deliberation. "I s'pose he's out at some of his tomfoolery,"

conjectured the visitor, in a tone of virtuous conviction. "Johnny never would stick to anything long enough

to succeed. I wonder how he manages to run his business here, and never be 'round to look after it."

"Why, the factory where they use them cockleburrs. Lord knows what they use 'em for, anyway! I've got the

basements of both them ships out there loaded with 'em. I'll give you a bargain in this lot. I've had every man,

woman and child around Dalesburg that wasn't busy pickin' 'em for a month. I hired these ships to bring 'em

over. Everybody thought I was crazy. Now, you can have this lot for fifteen cents a pound, delivered on land.

And if you want more I guess old Alabam' can come up to the demand. Johnny told me when he left home

that if he struck anything down here that there was any money in he'd let me in on it. Shall I drive the ships in

A look of supreme, almost incredulous, delight dawned in Keogh's ruddy countenance. He dropped his

pencil. His eyes turned upon the sunburned young man with joy in them mingled with fear lest his ecstasy

Billy Keogh slid rapturously and gently from his chair to his favorite strip of matting on the floor.

There were not many sounds in Coralio on that sultry afternoon. Among those that were may be mentioned a

noise of enraptured and unrighteous laughter from a prostrate IrishAmerican, while a sunburned young man,

with a shrewd eye, looked on him with wonder and amazement. Also the "tramp, tramp, tramp" of many

wellshod feet in the streets outside. Also the lonesome wash of the waves that beat along the historic shores

A twoinch stub of a blue pencil was the wand with which Keogh performed the preliminary acts of his

magic. So, with this he covered paper with diagrams and figures while he waited for the United States of

The new scheme that his mind had conceived, his stout heart indorsed, and his blue pencil corroborated, was

laid around the characteristics and human frailties of the new president ofAnchuria. These characteristics, and

the situation out of which Keogh hoped to wrest a golden tribute, deserve chronicling contributive to the clear

President Losadamany called him Dictatorwas a man whose genius would have made him conspicuous

even among AngloSaxons, had not that genius been intermixed with other traits that were petty and

subversive. He had some of the lofty patriotism of Washington (the man he most admired), the force of

Napoleon, and much of the wisdom of the sages. These characteristics might have justified him the

assumption of the title of "The Illustrious Liberator," had they not been accompanied by a stupendous and

Yet he did his country great service. With a mighty grasp he shook it nearly free from the shackles of

ignorance and sloth and the vermin that fed upon it, and all but made it a power in the council of nations. He

established schools and hospitals, built roads, bridges, railroads and palaces, and bestowed generous subsidies

upon the arts and sciences. He was the absolute despot and the idol of his people. The wealth of the country

poured into his hands. Other presidents had been rapacious without reason. Losada amassed enormous

The joint in his armor was his insatiate passion for monuments and tokens commemorating his glory. In

every town he caused to be erected statues of himself bearing legends in praise of his greatness. In the walls

of every public edifice, tablets were fixed reciting his splendor and the gratitude of his subjects. His statuettes

and portraits were scattered throughout the land in every house and hut. One of the sycophants in his court

painted him as St. John, with a halo and a train of attendants in full uniform. Losada saw nothing incongruous

in this picture, and had it hung in a church in the capital. He ordered from a French sculptor a marble group

including himself with Napoleon, Alexander the Great, and one or two others whom he deemed worthy of the

He ransacked Europe for decorations, employing policy, money and intrigue to cajole the orders he coveted

from kings and rulers. On state occasions his breast was covered from shoulder to shoulder with crosses,

stars, golden roses, medals and ribbons. It was said that the man who could contrive for him a new

decoration, or invent some new method of extolling his greatness, might plunge a hand deep into the treasury.

This was the man upon whom Billy Keogh had his eye. The gentle buccaneer had observed the rain of favors

that fell upon those who ministered to the president's vanities, and he did not deem it his duty to hoist his

In a few weeks the new consul arrived, releasing Keogh from his temporary duties. He was a young man

fresh from college, who lived for botany alone. The consulate at Coralio gave him the opportunity to study

tropical flora. He wore smoked glasses, and carried a green umbrella. He filled the cool, back porch of the

consulate with plants and specimens so that space for a bottle and chair was not to be found. Keogh gazed on

him sadly, but without rancor, and began to pack his gripsack. For his new plot against stagnation along the

Soon came the ~Karlsefin~ againshe of the trampish habitsgleaning a cargo of coconuts for a

speculative descent upon the New York market. Keogh was booked for a passage on the return trip.

"Yes, I'm going to New York," he explained to the group of his countrymen that had gathered on the beach to

see him off. "But I'll be back before you miss me. I've undertaken the art education of this piebald country,

With this mysterious declaration of his intentions Keogh boarded the ~Karlsefin~.

Ten days later, shivering, with the collar of his thin coat turned high, he burst into the studio of Carolus

Carolus White was smoking a cigarette and frying sausages over an oil stove. He was only twentythree, and

"Billy Knight!" exclaimed White, extending the hand that was not busy with the frying pan. "From what part

"Hello, Carry," said Keogh, dragging forward a stool, and holding his fingers close to the stove. "I'm glad I

found you so soon. I've been looking for you all day in the directories and art galleries. The freelunch man

on the corner told me where you were, quick. I was sure you'd be painting pictures yet."

Keogh glanced about the studio with the shrewd eye of a connoisseur in business.

"Yes, you can do it," he declared, with many gentle nods of his head. "That big one in the corner with the

angels and greeh clouds and bandwagon is just the sort of thing we want. What would you call that,

'That," said White, "I had intended to call The Translation of Elijah,' but you may be nearer right than I am."

"Name doesn't matter," said Keogh, largely; "it's the frame and the varieties of paint that does the trick. Now,

I can tell you in a minute what I want. I've come on a little voyage of two thousand miles to take you in with

me on a scheme. I thought of you as soon as the scheme showed itself to me. How would you like to go back

with me and paint a picture? Ninety days for the trip, and five thousand dollars for the job."

"Go ahead with it. If you don't mind, while you talk I'll just keep my eye on these sausages. Let 'em get one

Keogh explained his project. They were to return to Coralio, where White was to pose as a distinguished

American portrait painter who was touring in the tropics as a relaxation from his arduous and remunerative

professional labors. It was not an unreasonable hope, even to those who trod in the beaten paths of business,

that an artist with so much prestige might secure a commission to perpetuate upon canvas the lineaments of

the president, and secure a share of the ~pesos~ that were raining upon the caterers to his weaknesses.

Keogh had set his price at ten thousand dollars. Artists had been paid more for portraits. He and White were

to share the expenses of the trip, and divide the possible profits. Thus he laid the scheme before White, whom

he had known in the West before one declared for Art and the other became a Bedouin.

Before long the two machinators abandoned the rigor of the bare studio for a snug corner of a cafe. There

they sat far into the night, with old envelopes and Keogh's stub of blue pencil between them.

At twelve o'clock White doubled up in his chair, with his chin on his fist, and shut his eyes at the unbeautiful

"I'll go you, Billy," he said, in the quiet tones of decision. "I've got two or three hundred saved up for

sausages and rent; and I'll take the chance with you. Five thousand! It will give me two years in Paris and one

"You'll begin in ten minutes," said Keogh. "It's tomorrow now. The ~Karlsefin~ starts back at four P.M.

For five months in the year Coralio is the Newport of Anchuria. Then only does the town possess life. From

November to March it is practically the seat of government. The president with his official family sojourns

there; and society follows him. The pleasureloving people make the season one long holiday of amusement

and rejoicing. ~Fiestas~, balls, games, sea bathing, processions and small theatres contribute to their

enjoyment. The famous Swiss band from the capital plays in the little plaza every evening, while the fourteen

carriages and vehicles in the town circle in funereal but complacent procession. Indians from the interior

mountains, looking like prehistoric stone idols, come down to peddle their handiwork in the streets. The

people throng the narrow ways, a chattering, happy, careless stream of buoyant humanity. Preposterous

children rigged out with the shortest of ballet skirts and gilt wings, howl, underfoot, among the effervescent

crowds. Especially is the arrival of the presidential party, at the opening of the season, attended with pomp,

When Keogh and White reached their destination, on the return trip of the ~Karlsefin~, the gay winter season

was well begun. As they stepped upon the beach they could hear the band playing in the plaza. The village

maidens, with fireflies already fixed in their dark locks, were gliding, barefoot and coyeyed, along the paths.

Dandies in white linen, swinging their canes, were beginning their seductive strolls. The air was full of

human essence, of artificial enticement, of coquetry, indolence, pleasurethe manmade sense of existence.

The first two or three days after their arrival were spent in preliminaries. Keogh escorted the artist about

town, introducing him to the little circle of Englishspeaking residents and pulling whatever wires he could

to effect the spreading of White's fame as a painter. And then Keogh planned a more spectacular

He and White engaged rooms in the Hotel de los Extranjeros. The two were clad in new suits of immaculate

duck, with American straw hats, and carried canes of remarkable uniqueness and inutility. Few caballeros in

Coralioeven the gorgeously uniformed officers of the Anchurian armywere as conspicuous for ease and

elegance of demeanor as Keogh and his friend, the great American painter, Senor White.

White set up his easel on the beach and made striking sketches of the mountain and sea views. The native

population formed at his rear in a vast, chattering semicircle to watch his work. Keogh, with his care for

details, had arranged for himself a pose which he carried out with fidelity. His ro1e was that of friend to the

great artist, a man of affairs and leisure. The visible emblem of his position was a pocket camera.

"For branding the man who owns it," said he, "a genteel dilettante with a bank account and an easy

conscience, a steamyacht ain't in it with a camera. You see a man doing nothing but loafing around making

snapshots, and you know right away he reads up well in 'Bradstreet.' You notice these old millionaire

boyssoon as they get through taking everything else in sight they go to taking photographs. People are

more impressed by a kodak than they are by a title or a fourkarat scarfpin." So Keogh strolled blandly

about Coralio, snapping the scenery and the shrinking senoritas, while White posed conspicuously in the

Two weeks after their arrival, the scheme began to bear fruit. An aidedecamp of the president drove to the

hotel in a dashing victoria. The president desired that Senor White come to the Casa Morena for an informal

Keogh gripped his pipe tightly between his teeth. "Not a cent less than ten thousand," he said to the

artist"remember the price. And in gold or its equivalentdon't let him stick you with this bargaincounter

"Get out!" said Keogh, with splendid confidence. "I know what he wants. He wants his picture painted by the

celebrated young American painter and filibuster now sojourning in his downtrodden country. Off you go."

The victoria sped away with the artist. Keogh walked up and down, puffing great clouds of smoke from his

pipe, and waited. In an hour the victoria swept again to the door of the hotel, deposited White, and vanished.

The artist dashed up the stairs, three at a step. Keogh stopped smoking, and became a silent interrogation

"Landed," exclaimed White, with his boyish face flushed with elation. "Billy, you are a wonder. He wants a

picture. I'll tell you all about it. By Heavens! that dictator chap is a corker! He's a dictator clear down to his

fingerends. He's a kind of combination of Julius Caesar, Lucifer and Chauncey Depew done in sepia. Polite

and grimthat's his way. The room I saw him in was about ten acres big, and looked like a Mississippi

steamboat with its gilding and mirrors and white paint. He talks English better than I can ever hope to. The

matter of the price came up. I mentioned ten thousand. I expected him to call the guard and have me taken out

and shot. He didn't move an eyelash. He just waved one of his chestnut hands in a careless way, and said,

'Whatever you say.' I am to go back tomorrow and discuss with him the details of the picture."

Keogh hung his head. Selfabasement was easy to read in his downcast countenance.

"I'm failing, Carry," he said, sorrowfully. "I'm not fit to handle these man'ssize schemes any longer.

Peddling oranges in a pushcart is about the suitable graft for me. When I said ten thousand, I swear I

thought I had sized up that brown man's limit to within two cents. He'd have melted down for fifteen

thousand just as easy. SayCarry you'll see old man Keogh safe in some nice, quiet idiot asylum, won't

The Casa Morena, although only one story in height, was a building of brown stone, luxurious as a palace in

its interior. It stood on a low hill in a walled garden of splendid tropical flora at the upper edge of Coralio.

The next day the president's carriage came again for the artist. Keogh went out for a walk along the beach,

where he and his "picture box" were now familiar sights. When he returned to the hotel White was sitting in a

"Well," said Keogh, "did you and His Nibs decide on the kind of a chromo he wants?"

White got up and walked back and forth on the balcony a few times. Then he stopped, and laughed strangely.

"Look here, Billy," he said, somewhat roughly, "when you first came to me in my studio and mentioned a

picture, I thought you wanted a Smashed Oats or a Hair Tonic poster painted on a range of mountains or the

side of a continent. Well, either of those jobs would have been Art in its highest form compared to the one

you've steered me against. I can't paint that picture, Billy. You've got to let me out. Let me try to tell you

what that barbarian wants. He had it all planned out and even a sketch made of his idea. The old boy doesn't

draw badly at all. But, ye goddesses of Art! listen to the monstrosity he expects me to paint. He wants himself

in the center of the canvas, of course. He is to be painted as Jupiter sitting on Olympus, with the clouds at his

feet. At one side of him stands George Washington, in full regimentals, with his hand on the president's

shoulder. An angel with outstretched wings hovers overhead, and is placing a laurel wreath on the president's

head, crowning himQueen of the May, I suppose. In the background is to be cannon, more angels and

soldiers. The man who would paint that picture would have to have the soul of a dog, and would deserve to

go down into oblivion without even a tin can tied to his tail to sound his memory."

Little beads of moisture crept out all over Billy Keogh's brow. The stub of his blue pencil had not figured out

a contingency like this. The machinery of his plan had run with flattering smoothness until now. He dragged

another chair upon the balcony, and got White back to his seat. He lit his pipe with apparent calm.

"Now, sonny," he said, with gentle grimness, "you and me will have an Art to Art talk. You've got your art

and I've got mine. Yours is the real Pierian stuff that turns up its nose at bockbeer signs and oleographs of

the Old Mill. Mine's the art of Business. This was my scheme, and it worked out like twoandtwo. Paint

that president man as Old King Cole, or Venus, or a landscape, or a fresco, or a bunch of lilies, or anything he

thinks he looks like. But get the paint on the canvas and collect the spoils. You wouldn't throw me down,

"I can't help thinking of it," said White, "and that's what hurts. I'm tempted to throw every ideal I ever had

down in the mire, and steep my soul in infamy by painting that picture. That five thousand meant three years

"Now it ain't as bad as that," said Keogh, soothingly. "It's a business proposition. It's so much paint and time

against money. I don't fall in with your idea that that picture would so everlastingly jolt the art side of the

question. George Washington was all right, you know, and nobody could say a word against the angel. I don't

think so bad of that group. If you was to give Jupiter a pair of epaulets and a sword, and kind of work the

clouds around to look like a blackberry patch, it wouldn't make such a bad battle scene. Why, if we hadn't

already settled on the price, he ought to pay an extra thousand for Washington, and the angel ought to raise it

"You don't understand, Billy," said White, with an uneasy laugh. "Some of us fellows who try to paint have

big notions about Art. I wanted to paint a picture some day that people would stand before and forget that it

was made of paint. I wanted it to creep into them like a bar of music and mushroom there like a soft bullet.

And I wanted 'em to go away and ask, 'What else has he done?' And I didn't want 'em to find a thing; not a

portrait nor a magazine cover nor an illustration nor a drawing of a girlnothing but the picture. That's why

I've lived on fried sausages, and tried to keep true to myself. I persuaded myself to do this portrait for the

chance it might give me to study abroad. But this howling, screaming caricature! Good Lord! can't you see

"Sure," said Keogh, as tenderly as he would have spoken to a child, and he laid a long forefinger on White's

knee. "I see. It's bad to have your art all slugged up like that. I know. You wanted to paint a big thing like the

panorama of the battle of Gettysburg. But let me kalsomine you a little mental sketch to consider. Up to date

we're out $385.50 on this scheme. Our capital took every cent both of us could raise. We've got about enough

left to get back to New York on. I need my share of that ten thousand. I want to work a copper deal in Idaho,

and make a hundred thousand. That's the business end of the thing. Come down off your art perch, Carry, and

"Billy," said White, with an effort, "I'll try. I won't say I'll do it, but I'll try. I'll go at it, and put it through if I

"That's business," said Keogh, heartily. "Good boy! Now, here's another thingrush that picturecrowd it

through as quick as you can. Get a couple of boys to help you mix the paint if necessary. I've picked up some

pointers around town. The people here are beginning to get sick of Mr. President. They say he's been too free

with concessions; and they accuse him of trying to make a dicker with England to sell out the country. We

In the great patio of Casa Morena, the president caused to be stretched a huge canvas. Under this White set up

White worked faithfully. But, as the work progressed, he had seasons of bitter scorn, of infinite

selfcontempt, of sullen gloom and sardonic gaiety. Keogh, with the patience of a great general, soothed,

At the end of a month White announced that the picture was completed Jupiter, Washington, angels,

clouds, cannon and all. His face was pale and his mouth drawn straight when he told Keogh. He said the

president was much pleased with it. It was to be hung in the National Gallery of Statesmen and Heroes. The

artist had been requested to return to Casa Morena on the following day to receive payment. At the appointed

An hour later he walked into the room where Keogh was waiting, threw his hat on the floor, and sat upon the

"Billy," he said, in strained and laboring tones, "I've a little money out West in a small business that my

brother is running. It's what I've been living on while I've been studying art. I'll draw out my share and pay

"Yes, I got paid," said White. "But just now there isn't any picture, and there isn't any pay. If you care to hear

about it, here are the edifying details. The president and I were looking at the painting. His secretary brought

a bank draft on New York for ten thousand dollars and handed it to me. The moment I touched it I went wild.

I tore it into little pieces and threw them on the floor. A workman was repainting the pillars inside the

~patio~. A bucket of his paint happened to be convenient. I picked up his brush and slapped a quart of blue

paint all over that tenthousanddollar nightmare. I bowed, and walked out. The president didn't move or

speak. That was one time he was taken by surprise. It's tough on you, Billy, but I couldn't help it."

There seemed to be excitement in Coralio. Outside there was a confused, rising murmur pierced by

highpitched cries. "~Bajo el traidorMuerte el traidor!~" were the words they seemed to form.

"Listen to that!" exclaimed White, bitterly; "I know that much Spanish. They're shouting, 'Down with the

traitor!' I heard them before. I felt that they meant me. I was a traitor to Art. The picture had to go."

"'Down with the blank fool' would have suited your case better," said Keogh, with fiery emphasis. "You tear

up ten thousand dollars like an old rag because the way you've spread on five dollars' worth of paint hurts

your conscience. Next time I pick a sidepartner in a scheme the man has got to go before a notary and swear

Keogh strode from the room, whitehot. White paid little attention to his resentment. The scorn of Billy

In Coralio the excitement waxed. An outburst was imminent. The cause of this demonstration of displeasure

was,the presence in the town of a big, pinkcheeked Englishman, who, it was said, was an agent of his

government come to clinch the bargain by which the president placed his people in the hands of a foreign

power. It was charged that not only had he given away priceless concessions, but that the public debt was to

be transferred into the hands of the English, and the custom houses turned over to them as a guarantee. The

On that night, in Coralio and in other towns, their ire found vent. Veiling mobs, mercurial but dangerous,

roamed the streets. They overthrew the great bronze statue of the president that stood in the center of the

plaza, and hacked it to shapeless pieces. They tore from public buildings the tablets set there proclaiming the

glory of the "Illustrious Liberator." His pictures in the government offices were demolished. The mobs even

attacked the Casa Morena, but were driven away by the military, which remained faithful to the executive.

The greatness of Losada was shown by the fact that by noon the next day order was restored and he was still

absolute. He issued proclamations denying positively that any negotiation of any kind had been entered into

with England. Sir Stafford Vaughn, the pinkcheeked Englishman, also declared in placards and in public

print that his presence there had no international significance. He was a traveller without guile. In fact (so he

stated), he had not even spoken with the president or been in his presence since his arrival.

During this disturbance, White was preparing for his homeward voyage in the steamship that was to sail

within two or three days. About noon, Keogh, the restless, took his camera out with the hope of speeding the

lagging hours. The town was now as quiet as if peace had never departed from her perch on the redtiled

About the middle of the afternoon, Keogh hurried back to the hotel with something decidedly special in his

Later on he came out to White on the balcony, with a luminous, grim predatory smile on his face.

"Do you know what that is?" he asked, holding up a 4 x 5 photograph mounted on cardboard.

"Snapshot of a senorita sitting in the sandalliteration unintentional," guessed White, lazily.

VVVV "Wrong," saidKeogh with shining eyes. "It's a slungshot. It's a can of dynamite. It's a gold mine. It's

a sightdraft on your president man for twenty thousand dollarsyes, sirtwenty thousand this time, and

no spoiling the picture. No ethics of art in the way. Art! You with your smelly little tubes! I've got you

"Jove!" he exclaimed, "but wouldn't that stir up a row in town if you let it be seen. How in the world did you

"You know that high wall around the president man's back garden? I was up there trying to get a bird's eye of

the town. I happened to notice a chink in the wall where a stone and a lot of plaster had slid out. Thinks I, I'll

take a peep through to see how Mr. President's cabbages are growing. The first thing I saw was him and this

Sir Englishman sitting at a little table about twenty feet away. They had the table all spread over with

documents, and they were hobnobbing over them as thick as two pirates. 'Twas a nice corner of the garden,

all private and shady with palms and orange trees, and they had a pail of champagne set by handy in the

grass. I knew then was the time for me to make my big hit in Art. So I raised the machine up to the crack, and

pressed the button. Just as I did so them old boys shook hands on the dealyou see they took that way in the

"Me," said Keogh in a hurt tone, "why, I'm going to tie a pink ribbon to it and hang it on the whatnot, of

course. I'm surprised at you. But while I'm out you just try to figure out what gingercake potentate would be

most likely to want to buy this work of art for his private collectionjust to keep it out of circulation."

The sunset was reddening the tops of the coconut palms when Billy Keogh came back from Casa Morena. He

nodded to the artist's questioning gaze; and lay down on a cot with his hands under the back of his head.

"I saw him. He paid the money like a little man. They didn't want to let me in at first. I told 'em it was

important. Yes, that president man is on the plentyable list. He's got a beautiful business system about the

way he uses his brains. All I had to do was to hold up the photograph so he could see it, and name the price.

He just smiled, and walked over to a safe and got the cash. Twenty onethousanddollar brandnew United

States Treasury notes he laid on the table, like I'd pay out a dollar and a quarter. Fine notes, too they

"Let's try the feel of one," said White, curiously. "I never saw a thousanddollar bill." Keogh did not

"Carry," he said, in an absentminded way, "you think a heap of your art, don't you?

"More," said White, frankly, "than has been for the financial good of my self and my friends."

"I thought you were a fool the other day," went on Keogh, quietly, "and I'm not sure now that you wasn't. But

if you was, so am I. I've been in some funny deals, Carry, but I've always managed to scramble fair, and

match my brains and capital against the other fellow's. But when it comes towell, when you've got the

other fellow cinched, and the screws on him, and he's got to put upwhy, it don't strike me as being a man's

game. They've got a name for it, you know; it's confound you, don't you understand. A fellow feelsit's

some thing like that blamed art of yourshewell, I tore that photograph up and laid the pieces on that

stack of money and shoved the whole business back across the table. 'Excuse me, Mr. Losada,' I said, 'but I

guess I've made a mistake in the price. You get the photo for nothing. Now, Carry, you get out the pencil, and

we'll do some more figuring. I'd like to save enough out of our capital for you to have some fried sausages in

There is little consecutiveness along the Spanish Main. Things happen there intermittently. Even Time seems

hang his scythe daily on the branch of an orange tree while he takes a siesta and a cigarette.

After the ineffectual revolt against the administration of President Losada, the country settled again into quiet

toleration of the abuses with which he had been charged. In Coralio old political enemies went arminarm,

The failure of the art expedition did not stretch the catfooted Keogh upon his back. The ups and downs of

Fortune made smooth travelling for his nimble steps. His blue pencil stub was at work again before the

smoke of the steamer on which White sailed had cleared away from the horizon. He had but to speak a word

to Geddie to find his credit negotiable for whatever goods he wanted from the store of Brannigan Company.

On the same day on which White arrived in New York Keogh, at the rear of a train of five pack mules loaded

with hardware and cutlery, set his face toward the grim, interior mountains. There the Indian tribes wash gold

dust from the auriferous streams; and when a market is brought to them trading is brisk and ~muy bueno~ in

In Coralio Time folded his wings and paced wearily along his drowsy path. They who had most cheered the

torpid hours were gone. Clancy had sailed on a Spanish barque for Colon, contemplating a cut across the

isthmus and then a further voyage to end at Callao, where the fighting was said to be on. Geddie, whose quiet

and genial nature had once served to mitigate the frequent dull reaction of lotus eating, was now a

homeman, happy with his bright orchid, Paula, and never even dreaming of or regretting the unsolved,

sealed and monogramed Bottle whose contents, now inconsiderable, were held safely in the keeping of the

Well may the Walrus, most discerning and eclectic of beasts, place sealingwax midway on his program of

topics that fall pertinent and diverting upon the ear. Atwood was gonehe of the hospitable back porch and

ingenuous cunning. Doctor Gregg, with his trepanning story smoldering within him, was a whiskered

volcano, always showing signs of imminent eruption, and was not to be considered in the ranks of those who

might contribute to the amelioration of ennui. The new consul's note chimed with the sad sea waves and the

violent tropical greenshe had not a bar of Scheherezade or of the Round Table in his lute. Goodwin was

employed with large projects: what time he was loosed from them found him at his home, where he loved to

be. Therefore it will be seen that there was a dearth of fellowship and entertainment among the foreign

And then Dicky Maloney dropped down from the clouds upon the town, and amused it.

Nobody knew where Dicky Maloney hailed from or how he reached Coralio. He appeared there one day; and

that was all. He afterward said that he came on the fruit steamer ~Thor~, but an inspection of the ~Thor's~

passenger list of that date was found to be Maloneyless. Curiosity, however, soon perished; and Dicky took

He was an active, devilmaycare, rollicking fellow with an engaging gray eye, the most irresistible grin, a

rather dark or much sunburned complexion, and a head of the fieriest red hair ever seen in that country.

Speaking the Spanish language as well as he spoke English, and seeming always to have plenty of silver in

his pockets, it was not long before he was a welcome companion whithersoever he went. He had an extreme

fondness for ~vino blanco~, and gained the reputation of being able to drink more of it than any three men in

town. Everybody called him "Dicky"; everybody cheered up at the sight of him especially the natives, to

whom his marvellous red hair and his free andeasy style were a constant delight and envy. Wherever you

went in the town you would soon see Dicky or hear his genial laugh, and find around him a group of admirers

who appreciated him both for his good nature and the white wine he was always so ready to buy.

A considerable amount of speculation was had concerning the object of his sojourn there, until one day he

silenced this by opening a small shop for the sale of tobacco, ~dulces~ and the handiwork of the interior

Indiansfibreandsilkwoven goods, deerskin ~zapatos~ and basketwork of tule reeds. Even then he did

not change his habits; for he was drinking and playing cards half the day and night with the ~comandante~,

the collector of customs, the ~jefe politico~ and other gay dogs among the native officials.

One day Dicky saw Pasa, the daughter of Madama Ortiz, sitting in the sidedoor of the Hotel de los

Extranjeros. He stopped in his tracks, still, for the first time in Coralio; and then he sped, swift as a deer, to

The young men had named Pasa ~La Santita Naranjadita~." ~Naranjadita~ is a Spanish word for a certain

color that you must go to more trouble to describe in English. By saying "The little saint, tinted the most

beautifuldelicateslightlyorangegolden," you will approximate the description of Madama Ortiz's

La Madama Ortiz sold rum in addition to other liquors. Now, you must know that the rum expiates whatever

opprobrium attends upon the other commodities. For rummaking, mind you, is a government monopoly;

and to keep a government dispensary assures respectability if not preeminence. Moreover, the saddest of

precisians could find no fault with the conduct of the shop. Customers drank there in the lowest of spirits and

fearsomely, as in the shadow of the dead for Madama's ancient and vaunted lineage counteracted even the

rum's behest to be merry. For, was she not of the ~Iglesias~, who landed with Pizarro? And had not her

In the evenings Pasa sat by the window in the room next to the one where they drank, and strummed dreamily

upon her guitar. And then, by twos and threes, would come visiting young caballeros and occupy the prim

line of chairs set against the wall of this room. They were there to besiege the heart of ~La Santita~." Their

method (which is not proof against intelligent competition) consisted of expanding the chest, looking

valorous, and consuming a gross or two of cigarettes. Even saints delicately oranged prefer to be wooed

Dona Pasa would tide over the vast chasms of nicotinized silence with music from her guitar, while she

wondered if the romances she had read about gallant and moremore contiguous cavaliers were all lies. At

somewhat regular intervals Madama would glide in from the dispensary with a sort of droughtsuggesting

gleam in her eye, and there would be a rustling of stiffly starched white trousers as one of the caballeros

That Dicky Maloney would, sooner or later, explore this field was a thing to be foreseen. There were few

In an incredibly short space of time after his first sight of her he was there, seated close beside her rocking

chair. There was no backagainstthewall poses in Dicky's theory of wooing. His plan of subjection was an

attack at close range. To carry the fortress with one concentrated, ardent, eloquent, irresistible ~escalade~

Pasa was descended from the proudest Spanish families in the country. Moreover, she had had unusual

advantages. Two years in a New Orleans school had elevated her ambitions and fitted her for a fate above the

ordinary maidens of her native land. And yet here she succumbed to the first redhaired scamp with a glib

Very soon Dicky took her to the little church on the corner of the plaza, and "Mrs. Maloney" was added to

And it was her fate to sit, with her patient, saintly eyes and figure like a bisque Psyche, behind the

sequestered counter of the little shop, while Dicky drank and philandered with is frivolous acquaintances.

The women, with their naturally fine instinct, saw a chance for vivisection, and delicately taunted her with his

habits. She turned upon them in a beautiful, steady blaze of sorrowful contempt.

"You meatcows," she said, in her level, crystalclear tones; "you know nothing of a man. Your men are

~maromeros~. They are fit only to roll cigarettes in the shade until the sun strikes and shrivels them up. They

drone in your hammocks and you comb their hair and feed them with fresh fruit. My man is of no such blood.

Let him drink of the wine. When he has taken sufficient of it to drown one of your ~flaccitos~ he will come

home to me more of a man than one thousand of your ~pobrecitos~. My hair he smooths and braids; to me he

sings; he himself removes my zapatos, and there, there, upon each instep leaves a kiss. He holdsOh, you

Sometimes mysterious things happened at night about Dicky's shop. While the front of it was dark, in the

little room back of it Dicky and a few of his friends would sit about a table carrying on some kind of very

quiet ~negocios~ until quite late. Finally he would let them out the front door very carefully, and go upstairs

to his little saint. These visitors were generally conspiratorlike men with dark clothes and hats. Of course,

Dicky seemed to care nothing at all for the society of the alien residents of the town. He avoided Goodwin,

and his skilful escape from the trepanning story of Doctor Gregg is still referred to, in Coralio, as a

Many letters arrived, addressed to "Mr. Dicky Maloney," or "Senor Dickee Maloney," to the considerable

pride of Pasa. That so many people should desire to write to him only confirmed her own suspicion that the

light from his red head shone around the world. As to their contents she never felt curiosity. There was a wife

The one mistake Dicky made in Coralio was to run out of money at the wrong time. Where his money came

from was a puzzle, for the sales of his shop were next to nothing, but that source failed, and at a peculiarly

unfortunate time. It was when the ~comandante~, Don Senor el Coronel Encarnacion Rios, looked upon the

The ~comandante~, who was versed in all the intricate art of gallantry, first delicately hinted at his sentiments

by donning his dress uniform and strutting up and down fiercely before her window. Pasa, glancing demurely

with her saintly eyes, instantly perceived his resemblance to her parrot, Chichi, and was diverted to the extent

of smile. The ~comandante~ saw the smile, which was not intended for him. Convinced of an impression

made, he entered the shop, confidently, and advanced to open compliment. Pasa froze; he pranced; she

flamed royally; he was charmed to injudicious persistence; she commanded him to leave the shop; he tried to

capture her hand and Dicky entered, smiling broadly, full of white wine and the devil.

He spent five minutes in punishing the comandante scientifically and carefully, so that the pain might be

prolonged as far as possible. At the end of that time he pitched the rash wooer out the door upon the stones of

A barefooted policeman who had been watching the affair from across the street blew a whistle. A squad of

four soldiers came running from the cuartel around the corner. When they saw that the offender was Dicky,

they stopped, and blew more whistles, which brought out reinforcements of eight. Deeming the odds against

Dicky, being thoroughly imbued with the martial spirit, stooped and drew the ~comandante's~ sword, which

was girded about him, and charged his foe. He chased the standing army four squares, playfully prodding its

But he was not so successful with the civic authorities. Six muscular, nimble policemen overpowered him

and conveyed him, triumphantly but warily, to jail. "~El Diablo Colorado~" they dubbed him, and derided the

Dicky, with the rest of the prisoners, could look out through the barred door at the grass of the little plaza, at a

row of orange trees and the red tile roofs and 'dobe walls of a line of insignificant stores.

At sunset along a path across this plaza came a melancholy procession of sadfaced women bearing

plantains, cassava, bread and fruiteach coming with food to some wretch behind those bars to whom she

still clung and furnished the means of life. Twice a daymorning and eveningthey were permitted to

come. Water was furnished to her compulsory guests by the republic, but no food.

That evening Dicky's name was called by the sentry, and he stepped before the bars of the door. There stood

his little saint, a black mantilla draped about her head and shoulders, her face like glorified melancholy, her

clear eyes gazing longingly at him as if they might draw him between the bars to her. She brought a chicken,

some oranges, dulces and a loaf of white bread. A soldier inspected the food, and passed it in to Dicky. Pasa

spoke calmly, as she always did, briefly, in her thrilling, flutelike tones. "Angel of my life," she said, "let it

not be long that thou art away from me. Thou knowest that life is not a thing to be endured with thou not at

my side. Tell me if I can do aught in this matter. If not, I will waita little while. I come again in the

Dicky, with his shoes removed so as not to disturb his fellow prisoners, tramped the floor of the jail half the

night condemning his lack of money and the cause of itwhatever that might have been. He knew very well

For two days succeeding Pasa came at the appointed times and brought him food. He eagerly inquired each

time if a letter or package had come for him, and she mournfully shook her head.

On the morning of the third day she brought only a small loaf of bread. There were dark circles under her

"By jingo," said Dicky, who seemed to speak in English or Spanish as the whim seized him, "this is dry

"Think better of it," she said, in a low voice; "since for the next meal there will be nothing. The last

"Have I not tried? Did I not offer them for onetenth their cost? Not even one ~peso~ would any one give.

Dick clenched his teeth grimly. 'That's the ~comandante~," he growled. "He's responsible for that sentiment.

Pasa lowered her voice to almost a whisper. "And, listen, heart of my heart," she said, "I have endeavored to

Dicky caught a faint gleam of steel from the folds of her mantilla. For once she looked in his face and saw it

without a smile, stern, menacing and purposeful. Then he suddenly raised his hand and his smile came back

like a gleam of sunshine. The hoarse signal of an incoming steamer's siren sounded in the harbor. Dicky

"Go you, ~picarilla~, "said Dicky joyously to Pasa, "to the American consul. Tell him I wish to speak with

him. See that he comes at once. And look you! let me see a different look in those eyes, for I promise your

It was an hour before the consul came. He held his green umbrella under his arm, and mopped his forehead

"Now, see here, Maloney, "he began, captiously, "you fellows seem to think you can cut up any kind of row,

and expect me to pull you out of it. I'm neither the War Department nor a gold mine. This country has its

laws, you know, and there's one against pounding the senses out of the regular army. You Irish are forever

getting into trouble. I don't see what I can do. Anything like tobacco, now, to make you comfortableor

"Son of Eli," interrupted Dicky, gravely, "you haven't changed an iota. That is almost a duplicate of the

speech you made when old Koen's donkeys and geese got into the chapel loft, and the culprits wanted to hide

"Oh, heavens!" exclaimed the consul, hurriedly adjusting his spectacles. "Are you a Yale man, too? Were you

in that crowd? I don't seem to remember any one with redany one named Maloney. Such a lot of college

men seem to have misused their advantages. One of the best mathematicians of the class of '91 is selling

lottery tickets in Belize. A Cornell man dropped off here last month. He was second steward on a guano boat.

I'll write to the department if you like, Maloney. Or if there's any tobacco, or newspa"

'There's nothing," interrupted Dicky, shortly, "but this. You go tell the captain of the ~Catarina~ that Dicky

Maloney wants to see him as soon as he can conveniently come. Tell him where I am. Hurry. That's all."

The consul, glad to be let off so easily, hurried away. The captain of the ~Catarina~, a stout man, Sicilian

born, soon appeared, shoving, with little ceremony, through the guards to the jail door. The Vesuvius Fruit

"I am exceeding sorryexceeding sorry," said the captain, "to see this occur. I place myself at your service,

Dicky looked at him unsmilingly. His red hair could not detract from his attitude of severe dignity as he

"Captain De Lucco, I believe I still have funds in the hands of your companyample and personal funds. I

ordered a remittance last week. The money has not arrived. You know what is needed in this game. Money

"By the ~Cristobal~," replied De Lucco, gesticulating, "it was despatched. Where is the ~Cristobal~? Off

Cape Antonio I spoke her with a broken shaft. A tramp coaster was towing her back to New Orleans. I

brought money ashore thinking your need for it might not withstand delay. In this envelope is one thousand

"For the present it will suffice," said Dicky, softening as he crinkled the envelope and looked down at the

"The long green!" he said, gently, with a new reverence in his gaze. "Is there anything it will not buy,

"I had three friends," replied De Lucco, who was a bit of a philosopher, "who had money. One of them

speculated in stocks and made ten million; another is in heaven, and the third married a poor girl whom he

"The answer, then," said Dicky, "is held by the Almighty, Wall Street, and Cupid. So, the question remains."

"This," queried the captain, including Dicky's surroundings in a significant gesture of his hand, "is itit is

notiit is not connected with the business of your little shop? There is no failure in your plans?"

"No, no," said Dicky. "This is merely the result of a little private affair of mine, a digression from the regular

line of business. They say for a complete life a man must know poverty, love, and war. But they don't go well

together, ~capitan mio~. No; there is no failure in my business. The little shop is doing very well."

When the captain had departed Dicky called the sergeant of the jail squad and asked:

"~Bueno~. Now go or send to the ~alcalde~, the ~Juez de la Paz~ and the ~Jefe de los Policios~. Tell them I

am prepared at once to satisfy the demands of justice." A folded bill of the "long green" slid into the

Then Dicky's smile came back again, for he knew that the hours of his captivity were numbered; and he

So, that night Dicky sat by the window of the room over his shop an his little saint sat close by, working at

something silken and dainty. Dicky was thoughtful and grave. His red hair was in an unusual state of

disorder. Pasa's fingers often ached to smooth and arrange it, but Dicky would never allow it. He was poring,

tonight, over a great litter of maps and books and papers on his table until that perpendicular line came

between his brows that always distressed Pasa. Presently she went and brought his hat, and stood with it until

"It is sad for you here," she explained. "Go out and drink ~vino blanco~. Come back when you get that smile

Dicky laughed and threw down his papers. "The ~vino blanco~ stage is past. It has served its turn. Perhaps,

after all, there was less entered my mouth and more my ears than people thought. But, there will be no more

They sat upon a reed ~silleta~ at the window and watched the quivering gleams from the lights of the

"I was thinking," she began, anticipating Dicky's question, "of the foolish things girls have in their minds.

Because I went to school in the States I used to have ambitions. Nothing less than to be the president's wife

would satisfy me. And, look, thou red picaroon, to what obscure fate thou hast stolen me!"

"Don't give up hope," said Dicky, smiling. "More than one Irishman has been the ruler of a South American

country. There was a dictator of Chili named O'Higgins. Why not a President Maloney, of Anchuria? Say the

"No, no, no, thou redhaired, reckless one!" sighed Pasa; "I am content"she laid her head against his

It has been indicated that disaffection followed the elevation of Losada to the presidency. This feeling

continued to grow. Throughout the entire republic there seemed to be a spirit of silent, sullen discontent.

Even the old Liberal party to which Goodwin, Zavalla and other patriots had lent their aid was disappointed.

Losada had failed to become a popular idol. Fresh taxes, fresh import duties and, more than all, his tolerance

of the outrageous oppression of citizens by the military had rendered him the most obnoxious president since

the despicable Alforan. The majority of his own cabinet were out of sympathy with him. The army, which he

had courted by giving it license to tyrannize, had been his main, and thus far adequate, support.

But the most impolitic of the administration's moves had been when it antagonized the Vesuvius Fruit

Company, an organization plying twelve steamers with a cash capital somewhat larger than Anchuria's

Reasonably, an established concern like the Vesuvius would become irritated at having a small, retail

republic with no rating at all attempt to squeeze it. So, when the government proxies applied for a subsidy

they encountered a polite refusal. The president at once retaliated by clapping an export duty of one ~real~

per bunch on bananasa thing unprecedented in fruitgrowing countries. The Vesuvius Company had

invested large sums in wharves and plantations along the Anchurian coast, their agents had erected fine

homes in the towns where they had their headquarters, and heretofore had worked with the republic in

goodwill and with advantage to both. It would lose an immense sum if compelled to move out. The selling

price of bananas from Vera Cruz to Trinidad was three ~reales~ per bunch. This new duty of one ~real~

would have ruined the fruit growers in Anchuria and have seriously discommoded the Vesuvius Company

had it declined to pay it. But for some reason, the Vesuvius continued to buy Anchurian fruit, paying four

This apparent victory deceived His Excellency; and he began to hunger for more of it. He sent an emissary to

request a conference with a representative of the fruit company. The Vesuvius sent Mr. Franzoni, a little,

stout, cheerful man, always cool, and whistling airs from Verdi's operas. Senor Espirition, of the office of the

Minister of Finance, attempted the sandbagging in behalf of Anchuria. The meeting took place in the cabin of

Senor Espirition opened negotiations by announcing that the government contemplated the building of a

railroad to skirt the alluvial coast lands. After touching upon the benefits such a road would confer upon the

interests of the Vesuvius, he reached the definite suggestion that a contribution to the road's expenses of, say,

fifty thousand ~pesos~ would not be more than an equivalent to benefits received.

Mr. Franzoni denied that his company would receive any benefits from a contemplated road. As its

representative he must decline to contribute fifty thousand ~pesos~. But he would assume the responsibility

Did Senor Espirition understand Senor Franzoni to mean twentyfive thousand ~pesos~?

"Your offer insults my government," cried Senor Espirition, rising, with indignation.

This was the state of affairs in Anchuria when the winter season opened at Coralio at the end of the second

year of Losada's administration. So, when the government and society made its annual exodus to the seashore

it was evident that the presidential advent would not be celebrated by unlimited rejoicing. The tenth of

November was the day set for the entrance into Coralio of the gay company from the capital. A

narrowgauge railroad runs twenty miles into the interior from Solitas. The government party travels by

carriage from San Mateo to this road's terminal point, and proceeds by train to Solitas. From here they march

in grand procession to Coralio where, on the day of their coming, festivities and ceremonies abound. But this

Although the rainy season was over, the day seemed to hark back to reeking June. A fine drizzle of rain fell

President Losada was an elderly man, grizzly bearded, with a considerable ratio of Indian blood revealed in

his cinnamon complexion. His carriage headed the procession, surrounded and guarded by Captain Cruz and

his famous troop of one hundred light horse "~El Ciento Huilando~." Colonel Rocas followed, with a

The president's sharp, beady eyes glanced about him for the expected demonstration of welcome; but he

faced a stolid, indifferent array of citizens. Sightseers the Anchurians are by birth and habit, and they turned

out to their last ablebodied unit to witness the scene; but they maintained an accusive silence. They crowded

the streets to the very wheel ruts; they covered the red tile roofs to the eaves, but there was never a "~viva~"

from them. No wreaths of palm and lemon branches or gorgeous strings of paper roses hung from the

windows and balconies as was the custom. There was an apathy, a dull, dissenting disapprobation, that was

the more ominous because it puzzled. No one feared an outburst, a revolt of the discontents, for they had no

leader. The president and those loyal to him had never even heard whispered a name among them capable of

crystallizing the dissatisfaction into opposition. No, there could be no danger. The people always procured a

At length, after a prodigious galloping and curvetting of redsashed majors, goldlaced colonels and

epauletted generals, the procession formed for its annual progress down the Calle Grande to the Casa

Morena, where the ceremony of welcome to the visiting president always took place.

The Swiss band led the line of march. After it pranced the local ~comandante~, mounted, and a detachment

of his troops. Next came a carriage with four members of the cabinet, conspicuous among them the Minister

of War, old General Pilar, with his white moustache and his soldierly bearing. Then the president's vehicle,

containing also the Ministers of Finance and State; and surrounded by Captain Cruz's light horse formed in a

close double file of fours. Following them, the rest of the officials of state, the judges and distinguished

As the band struck up, and the movement began, like a bird of illomen the ~Valhalla~, the swiftest

steamship of the Vesuvius line, glided into the harbor in plain view of the president and his train. Of course,

there was nothing menacing about its arrivala business firm does not go to war with a nationbut it

reminded Senor Espirition and others in those carriages that the Vesuvius Fruit Company was undoubtedly

By the time the van of the procession had reached the government building, Captain Cronin, of the

~Valhalla~, and Mr. Vincenti, member of the Vesuvius Company, had landed and were pushing their way,

bluff, hearty and nonchalant, through the crowd on the narrow sidewalk. Clad in white linen, big, debonair,

with an air of goodhumored authority, they made conspicuous figures among the dark mass of unimposing

Anchurians, as they penetrated to within a few yards of the steps of the Casa Morena. Looking easily above

the heads of the crowd, they perceived another that towered above the undersized natives. It was the fiery poll

of Dicky Maloney against the wall close by the lower step; and his broad, seductive grin showed that he

Dicky had attired himself becomingly for the festive occasion in a wellfitting black suit. Pasa was close by

his side, her head covered with the ubiquitous black mantilla. Mr. Vincenti looked at her attentively.

"Botticelli's Madonna, he remarked, gravely. "I wonder when she got into the game. I don't like his getting

"With that head of hair! Keep away from the women! And a Maloney! Hasn't he got a license? But, nonsense

aside, what do you think of the prospects? It's a species of filibustering out of my line."

Vincenti glanced again at Dicky's head and smiled. "~Rouge et noir~," he said. "There you have it. Make

"The lad's game," said Cronin, with a commending look at the tall, easy figure by the steps. "But 'tis all like

flybynight theatricals to me. The talk's bigger than the stage; there's a smell of gasoline in the air, and

They ceased talking, for General Pilar had descended from the first carriage and had taken his stand upon the

top step of Casa Morena. As the oldest member of the cabinet, custom had decreed that he should make the

address of welcome, presenting the keys of the official residence to the president at its close.

General Pilar was one of the most distinguished citizens of the republic. Hero of three wars and innumerable

revolutions, he was an honored guest at European courts and camps. An eloquent speaker and a friend to the

Holding in his hand the gilt keys of Casa Morena, he began his address in a historical form, touching upon

each administration and the advance of civilization and prosperity from the first dim striving after liberty

down to present times. Arriving at the regime of President Losada, at which point, according to precedent, he

should have delivered a eulogy upon its wise conduct and the happiness of the people, General Pilar paused.

Then he silently held up the bunch of keys high above his head, with his eyes closely regarding it. The ribbon

"It still blows," cried the speaker, exultantly. "Citizens of Anchuria, give thanks to the saints this night that

Thus disposing of Losada's administration, he abruptly reverted to that of Olivarra, Anchuria's most popular

ruler. Olivarra had been assassinated nine years before while in the prime of life and usefulness. A faction of

the Liberal party led by Losada himself had been accused of the deed. Whether guilty or not, it was eight

Upon this theme General Pilar's eloquence was loosed. He drew the picture of the beneficent Olivarra with a

loving hand. He reminded the people of the peace, the security and the happiness they had enjoyed during

that period. He recalled in vivid detail and with significant contrast the last winter sojourn of President

Olivarra in Coralio, when his appearance at their fiestas was the signal for thundering vivas of love and

The first public expression of sentiment from the people that day followed. A low, sustained murmur went

"Ten dollars to a dinner at the Saint Charles," remarked Mr. Vincenti, "that rouge wins."

"I never bet against my own interests," said Captain Cronin, lighting a cigar. "Longwinded old boy for his

"My Spanish," replied Vincenti, "runs about ten words to the minute; his is something around two hundred.

"Friends and brothers," General Pilar was saying, "could I reach out my hand this day across the lamentable

silence of the grave to Olivarra the Good, to the ruler who was one of you, whose tears fell when you

sorrowed and whose smile followed your joyI would bring him back to you, butOlivarra is deaddead

The speaker turned and gazed boldly into the carriage of the president. His arm remained extended aloft as if

to sustain his peroration. The president was listening aghast, at this remarkable address of welcome. He was

sunk back upon his seat, trembling with rage and dumb surprise, his dark hands tightly gripping the carriage

Half rising, he extended one arm toward the speaker and shouted a harsh command at Captain Cruz. The

leader of the "Flying Hundred" sat his horse, immovable, with folded arms, giving no sign of having heard.

Who says that Olivarra is dead?" suddenly cried the speaker, his voice, old as he was, sounding like a battle

trumpet. His body lies in the grave, but to the people he loved he has bequeathed his spirityes, morehis

learning, his courage, his kindnessyes, morehis youth, his imagepeople of Anchuria, have you

Cronin and Vincenti, watching closely, saw Dicky Maloney suddenly raise his hat, tear off his shock of red

hair, leap up the steps and stand at the side of General Pilar. The Minister of War laid his arm across the

young man's shoulders. All who had known President Olivarra saw again his same lionlike pose, the same

frank, undaunted expression, the same high forehead with the peculiar line of the clustering, crisp black hair.

General Pilar was an experienced orator. He seized the moment of breathless silence that preceded the storm.

"Citizens of Anchuria," he trumpeted, holding aloft the keys of Casa Morena, "I am here to deliver these

keysthe keys to your homes and libertyto your chosen president. Shall I deliver them to Enrico

"Olivarra! Olivarra!" the crowd shrieked and howled. All vociferated the magic namemen, women,

And the enthusiasm was not confined to the blood of the plebs. Colonel Rocas ascended the steps and laid his

sword theatrically at young Ramon Olivarra's feet. Four members of the cabinet embraced him. Captain Cruz

gave a command, and twenty of ~El Ciento Huilando~ dismounted and arranged themselves in a cordon

But Ramon Olivarra seized that moment to prove himself a born genius and politician. He waved those

soldiers aside, and descended the steps to the street. There, without losing his dignity or the distinguished

elegance that the loss of his red hair brought him, betook the proletariat to his bosomthe barefooted, the

dirty, Indians, Caribs, babies, beggars, old, young, saints, soldiers and sinnershe missed none of them.

While this act of the drama was being presented, the scene shifters had been busy at the duties that had been

assigned to them. Two of Cruz's dragoons had seized the bridle reins of Losada's horses; others formed a

close guard around the carriage; and they galloped off with the tyrant and his two unpopular Ministers. No

doubt a place had been prepared for them. There are a number of wellbarred stone apartments in Coralio.

Captain Cronin had been intently watching the vicinity of the stone steps for some time.

"Good boy!" he exclaimed suddenly, as if relieved. "I wondered if he was going to forget his Kathleen

Young Olivarra had reascended the steps and spoken a few words to General Pilar. Then that distinguished

veteran descended to the ground and approached Pasa, who still stood, wondereyed, where Dicky had left

her. With his plumed hat in his hand, and his medals and decorations shining on his breast, the general spoke

to her and gave her his arm, and they went up the stone steps of the Casa Morena together. And then Ramon

And while the cheering was breaking out afresh everywhere, Captain Cronin and Mr. Vincenti turned and

"There'll be another '~presidente proclamada~' in the morning," said Mr. Vincenti, musingly. "As a rule they

are not as reliable as the elected ones, but this youngster seems to have some good stuff in him. He planned

and maneuvered the entire campaign. Olivarra's widow, you know, was wealthy. After her husband was

assassinated she went to the States, and educated her son at Yale. The Vesuvius Company hunted him up, and

"It's a glorious thing," said Cronin, half jestingly, "to be able to discharge a government, and insert one of

"Oh, it is only amatter of business," said Vincenti, stopping and offering the stump of his cigar to a monkey

that swung down from a lime tree; "and that is what moves the world of today. That extra real on the price of

There remains three duties to be performed before the curtain falls upon the patched comedy. Two have been

It was set forth in the program of this tropic vaudeville that it would be made known why Shorty 0'Day, of

the Columbia Detective Agency, lost his position. Also that Smith should come again to tell us what mystery

he followed that night on the shores of Anchuria when he strewed so many cigar stumps around the coconut

palm during his lonely night vigil on the beach. These things were promised; but a bigger thing yet remains to

be accomplishedthe clearing up of a seeming wrong that has been done according to the array of

chronicled facts (truthfully set forth) that have been presented. And one voice, speaking, shall do these three

Two men sat on a stringer of a North River pier in the City of New York. A steamer from the tropics had

begun to unload bananas and oranges on the pier. Now and then a banana or two would fall from an overripe

bunch, and one of the two men would shamble forward, seize the fruit and return to share it with his

One of the men was in the ultimate stage of deterioration. As far as rain and wind and sun could wreck the

garments he wore, it had been done. In his person the ravages of drink were as plainly visible. And yet, upon

his highbridged, rubicund nose was jauntily perched a pair of shining and flawless goldrimmed glasses.

The other man was not so far gone upon the descending Highway of the Incompetents. Truly, the flower of

his manhood had gone to seedseed that, perhaps, no soil might sprout. But there were still crosscuts along

where he travelled through which he might yet regain the pathway of usefulness without disturbing the

slumbering Miracles. This man was short and compactly built. He had an oblique, dead eye, like that of a

stingray, and the moustache of a cocktail mixer. We know the eye and the moustache; we know that Smith

of the luxurious yacht, the gorgeous raiment, the mysterious mission, the magic disappearance, has come

At his third banana, the man with the nose glasses spat it from him with a shudder.

"Deuce take all fruit!" he remarked, in a patrician tone of disgust. "I lived for two years where these things

grow. The memory of their taste lingers with you. The oranges are not so bad. Just see if you can gather a

Did you live down with the monkeys?" asked the other, made tepidly garrulous by the sunshine and the

alleviating meal of juicy fruit. "I was down there, once myself. But only for a few hours. That was when I

was with the Columbia Detective Agency. The monkey people did me up. I'd have my job yet if it hadn't been

"One day the chief sent a note around to the office that read: 'Send O'Day here at once for a big piece of

business.' I was the crack detective of the agency at that time. They always handed me the big jobs. The

"When I got there I found him in a private office with a lot of directors who were looking pretty fuzzy. They

stated the case. The president of the Republic Insurance Company had skipped with about a tenth of a million

dollars in cash. The directors wanted him back pretty bad, but they wanted the money worse. They said they

needed it. They had traced the old gent's movements to where he boarded a tramp fruit steamer bound for

South America that same morning with his daughter and a big gripsackall the family he had.

"One of the directors had his steam yacht coaled and with steam up, ready for a trip; and he turned her over to

me, cart blongsh. In four hours I was on board of her, and hot on the trail of the fruit tub. I had a pretty good

idea where old Wahrfieldthat was his name, J. Churchill Wahrfieldwould head for. At that time we had

a treaty with about every foreign country except Belgium and that banana republic, Anchuria. There wasn't a

photo of old Wahrfield to be had in New Yorkhe had been foxy therebut I had his description. And

besides, the lady with him would be a deadgiveaway anywhere. She was one of the highflyers in

Societynot the kind that have their pictures in the Sunday papersbut the real sort that open

"Well, sir, we never got a sight of that fruit tub on the road. The ocean is a pretty big place; and I guess we

took different paths across it. But we kept going toward this Anchuria, where the fruiter was bound for.

"We struck the monkey coast one afternoon about four. There was a rattylooking steamer off shore taking

on bananas. The monkeys were loading her up with big barges. It might be the one the old man had taken,

and it might not. I went ashore to look around. The scenery was pretty good. I never saw any finer on the

New York stage. I struck an American on shore, a big, cool chap, standing around with the monkeys. He

showed me the consul's office. The consul was a nice young fellow. He said the fruiter was the ~Karlsefin~,

running generally to New Orleans, but took her last cargo to New York. Then I was sure my people were on

board, although everybody told me that no passengers had landed. I didn't think they would land until after

dark, for they might have been shy about it on account of seeing that yacht of mine hanging around. So, all I

had to do was to wait and nab 'em when they came ashore. I couldn't arrest old Wahrfield without extradition

papers, but my play was to get the cash. They generally give up if you strike 'em when they're tired and

"After dark I sat under a coconut tree on the beach for a while, and then I walked around and investigated that

town some, and it was enough to give you the lions. If a man could stay in New York and be honest, he'd

"Dinky little mud houses; grass over your shoe tops in the streets; ladies in lowneckandshortsleeves

walking around smoking cigars; treefrogs rattling like a hose cart going to a ten blow; big mountains

dropping gravel in the back yards, and the sea licking the paint off in frontno, sira man had better be in

"The main street ran along the beach, and I walked down it, and then turned up a kind of lane where the

houses were made of poles and straw. I wanted to see what the monkeys did when they weren't climbing

coconut trees. The very first shack I looked in I saw my people. They must have come ashore while I was

promenading. A man about fifty, smooth face, heavy eyebrows, dressed in black broadcloth, looking like he

was just about to say, "Can any little boy in the Sunday school answer that?' He was freezing on to a grip that

weighed like a dozen gold bricks, and a swell girla regular peach, with a Fifth Avenue cutwas sitting on

a wooden chair. An old black woman was fixing some coffee and beans on a table. The light they had come

from a lantern hung on a nail. I went and stood in the door, and they looked at me, and I said:

"Mr. Wahrfield, you are my prisoner. I hope, for the lady's sake, you will take the matter sensibly. You know

"'O'Day,' says I, 'of the Columbia Detective Agency. And now, sir, let me give you a piece of good advice.

You go back and take your medicine like a man. Hand 'em back the boodle; and maybe they'll let you off

light. Go back easy, and I'll put in a word for you. I'll give you five minutes to decide." I pulled out my watch

"Then the young lady chipped in. She was one of the genuine highsteppers. You could tell by the way her

"'Come inside,' she says. 'Don't stand in the door and disturb the whole street with that suit of clothes. Now,

"'Three minutes gone,' I said. 'I'll tell you again while the other two tick off.'

'Well, then,' says I, 'it ought to be plain to you. Wanted, in New York, J. Churchill Wahrfield, president of the

"'Also the funds belonging to said company, now in that grip, in the unlawful possession of said J. Churchill

"'Ohhhh!' says the young lady, as if she was thinking, 'you want to take us back to New York?'

"'To take Mr. Wahrfield. There's no charge against you, miss. There'll be no objection, of course, to your

"Of a sudden the girl gave a tiny scream and grabbed the old boy around the neck. 'Oh, father, father!' she

says, kind of contralto, 'can this be true? Have you taken money that is not yours? Speak, father!' It made you

"The old boy looked pretty bughouse when she first grappled him, but she went on, whispering in his ear and

"She got him to one side and they talked together a minute, and then he put on some gold eyeglasses and

"'Mr. Detective,' he says, talking a little broken, 'I conclude to return with you. I have finished to discover that

life on this desolate and displeased coast would be worse than to die, itself. I will go back and hurl myself

"'Ship,' cut in the young lady. 'Don't get funny. Father is of German birth, and doesn't speak perfect English.

"The girl was all broke up. She had a handkerchief to her face, and kept saying every little bit, '0h, father,

father!' She walked up to me and laid her lilywhite hand on the clothes that had pained her at first. I smelt a

"'Mr. O'Day,' she says. 'Oh, take us away from this horrid country at once. Can you! Will you! Say you will.'

"'I'll try,' I said, concealing the fact that I was dying to get them on salt water before they could change their

"One thing they both kicked against was going through the town to the boat landing. Said they dreaded

publicity, and now that they were going to return, they had a hope that the thing might yet be kept out of the

papers. They swore they wouldn't go unless I got them out to the yacht without any one knowing it, so I

"The sailors who rowed me ashore were playing billiards in a barroom near the water, waiting for orders,

and I proposed to have them take the boat down the beach half a mile or so, and take us up there. How to get

them word was the question, for I couldn't leave the grip with the prisoner, and I couldn't take it with me, not

"The young lady says the old colored woman would take them a note. I sat down and wrote it, and gave it to

the dame with plain directions what to do, and she grins like a baboon and shakes her head.

"Then Mr. Wahrfield handed her a string of foreign dialect, and she nods her head and says, 'See, senor'

"'0ld Augusta only understands German,' said Miss Wahrfield, smiling at me. 'We stopped in her house to ask

where we could find lodging, and she insisted upon our having coffee. She tells us she was raised in a

"'Very likely,' I said. 'But you can search me for German words, except ~nix verstay~ and ~noch einst~, I

"Well, we three made a sneak around the edge of town so as not to be seen. We got tangled in vines and ferns

and the banana bushes and tropical scenery a good deal. The monkey suburbs was as wild as places in Central

Park. We came out on the beach a good half mile below. A brown chap was lying asleep under a coconut

tree, with a tenfoot musket beside him. Mr. Wahrfield takes up the gun and pitches it into the sea. 'The coast

is guarded,' he says. 'Rebellion and plots ripen like fruit.' He pointed to the sleeping man, who never stirred.

"I saw our boat coming, and I struck a match and lit a piece of newspaper to show them where we were. In

"The first thing, Mr. Wahrfield and his daughter and I took the grip into the owner's cabin, opened it up, and

took an inventory. There was one hundred and five thousand dollars. United States treasury notes in it,

besides a lot of diamond jewelry and a couple of hundred Havana cigars. I gave the old man the cigars and a

receipt for the rest of the lot, as agent for the company, and locked the stuff up in my private quarters.

"I never had a pleasanter trip than that one. After we got to sea the young lady turned out to be the jolliest

ever. The very first time we sat down to dinner, and the steward filled her glass with champagnethat

director's yacht was a regular floating Waldorf Astoriashe winks at me and says, 'What's the use to

borrow trouble, Mr. Fly Cop? Here's hoping you may live to eat the hen that scratches on your grave.' There

was a piano on board, and she sat down to it and sung better than you give up two cases to hear plenty times.

She knew about nine operas clean through. She was sure enough ~bon ton~ and swell. She wasn't one of the

"The old man, too, perked up amazingly on the way. He passed the cigars, and says to me once, quite chipper,

out of a cloud of smoke, 'Mr. O'Day, somehow I think the Republic Company will not give me the much

trouble. Guard well the gripvalise of the money, Mr. O'Day, for that it must be returned to them that it

"When we landed in New York I 'phoned to the chief to meet us in that director's office. We got in a cab and

went there. I carried the grip, and we walked in, and I was pleased to see that the chief had got together that

same old crowd of moneybugs with pink faces and white vests to see us march in. I set the grip on the table.

"He and the chief went into another room and stayed ten minutes. When they came back the chief looked as

"'Did this gentleman,' he says to me, 'have this valise in his possession when you first saw him?'

"The chief took up the grip and handed it to the prisoner with a bow, and says to the director crowd: 'Do any

"'Allow me to present,' he goes on, 'Senor Miraflores, president of the republic of Anchuria. The senor has

generously consented to overlook this outrageous blunder, on condition that we undertake to secure him

against the annoyance of public comment. It is a concession on his part to overlook an insult for which he

might claim international redress. I think we can gratefully promise him secrecy in the matter.'

"'O'Day,' he says to me. 'As a private detective you're wasted. In a war, where kidnapping governments is in

"'So that's the president of the monkeys,' says I. 'Well, why couldn't he have said so?'

Vaudeville is intrinsically episodic and discontinuous. Its audiences do not demand denouements. Sufficient

unto each "turn" is the evil thereof. No one cares how many romances the singing comedienne may have had

if she can capably sustain the limelight and a high note or two. The audiences reck not if the performing dogs

get to the pound the moment they have jumped through their last hoop. They do not desire bulletins about the

possible injuries received by the comic cyclist who retires headfirst from the stage in a crash of (property)

chinaware. Neither do they consider that their seat coupons entitle them to be instructed whether or no there

Therefore let us have no lifting of the curtain upon a tableau of the united lovers, backgrounded by defeated

villainy and derogated by the comic, osculating maid and butler, thrown in as a sop to the Cerberi of the

But our program ends with a brief "turn" or two; and then to the exits. Whoever sits the show out may find, if

he will, the slender thread that binds together, though ever so slightly, the story that, perhaps, only the Walrus

~Extracts from a letter from the first vicepresident of the Republic Insurance Company, of New York City,

~My Dear Mr. Goodwin:~Your communication per Messrs. Howland and Fourchet, of New Orleans, has

reached us. Also their draft on N.Y. for $100,000, the amount abstracted from the funds of this company by

the late J. Churchill Wahrfield, its former president.... The officers and directors unite in requesting me to

express to you their sincere esteem and thanks for your prompt and much appreciated return of the entire

missing sum within two weeks from the time of its disappearance.... Can assure you that the matter will not

be allowed to receive the least publicity.... Regret exceedingly the distressing death of Mr. Wahrfield by his

own hand, but... Congratulations on your marriage to Miss Wahrfield... many charms, winning manners,

noble and womanly nature and envied position in the best metropolitan society....

SCENEAn Artist's Studio. The artist, a young man of prepossessing appearance, sits in a dejected attitude,

amid a litter of sketches, with his head resting upon his hand. An oil stove stands on a pine box in the center

of the studio. The artist rises, tightens his waist belt to another hole, and lights the stove. He goes to a tin

bread box, halfhidden by a screen, takes out a solitary link of sausage, turns the box upsidedown to show

that there is no more, and chucks the sausage into a fryingpan, which he sets upon the stove. The flame of

the stove goes out, showing that there is no more oil. The artist, in evident despair, seizes the sausage, in a

sudden access of rage, and hurls it violently from him. At the same time a door opens, and a man who enters

receives the sausage forcibly against his nose. He seems to cry out; and is observed to make a dance step or

two, vigorously. The newcomer is a ruddyfaced, active, keen looking man, apparently of Irish ancestry.

Next he is observed to laugh immoderately; he kicks over the stove; he claps the artist (who is vainly striving

to grasp his hand) vehemently upon the back. Then he goes through a pantomime which to the sufficiently

intelligent spectator reveals that he has acquired large sums of money by trading potmetal hatchets and

razors to the Indians of the Cordillera Mountains for gold dust. He draws a roll of money as large as a small

loaf of bread from his pocket, and waves it above his head, while at the same time he makes pantomime of

drinking from a glass. The artist hurriedly secures his hat, and the two leave the studio together.

SCENEThe Beach at Nice. A woman, beautiful, still young, exquisitely clothed, complacent, poised,

reclines near the water, idly scrawling letters in the sand with the staff of her silken parasol. The beauty of her

face is audacious; her languid pose is one that you feel to be impermanentyou wait, expectant, for her to

spring or glide or crawl, like a panther that has unaccountably become stockstill. She idly scrawls in the

sand; and the word that she always writes is "Isabel." A man sits a few yards away. You can see that they are

companions, ever if no longer comrades. His face is dark and smooth, and almost inscrutablebut not quite.

The two speak little together. The man also scratches on the sand with his cane. And the word that he writes

is "Anchuria." And then he looks out where the Mediterranean and the sky intermingle with death in his gaze.

SCENE~The Borders of a Gentleman's Estate in a Tropical Land.~ An old Indian, with a

mahoganycolored face, is trimming the grass on a grave by a mangrove swamp. Presently he rises to his feet

and walks slowly toward a grove that is shaded by the gathering, brief twilight. In the edge of the grove

stands a man who is stalwart, with a kind and courteous air, and a woman of a serene and clearcut

loveliness. When the old Indian comes up to them the man drops money in his hand. The gravetender, with

the stolid pride of his race, takes it as his due, and goes his way. The two in the edge of the grove turn back

along the dim pathway, and walk close, close for, after all, what is the world at its best but a little round