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diff --git a/2777-0.txt b/2777-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b45831d --- /dev/null +++ b/2777-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7365 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Cabbages and Kings, by O. Henry + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Cabbages and Kings + +Author: O. Henry + +Release Date: July 23, 2000 [eBook #2777] +[Most recently updated: February 2, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Earle C. Beach and Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D. + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CABBAGES AND KINGS *** + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] +“A little saint with a color more lightful than orange” + + + + +CABBAGES AND KINGS + +by O. HENRY + + +_Author of “The Four Million,” “The Voice of the +City,” “The Trimmed Lamp,” “Strictly Business,” +“Whirligigs,” Etc._ + + + + + “The time has come,” the Walrus said, + “To talk of many things; + Of shoes and ships and sealing-wax, + And cabbages and kings.” + + THE WALRUS AND THE CARPENTER + + +Contents + + THE PROEM BY THE CARPENTER + I. “FOX-IN-THE-MORNING” + II. THE LOTUS AND THE BOTTLE + III. SMITH + IV. CAUGHT + V. CUPID’S EXILE NUMBER TWO + VI. THE PHONOGRAPH AND THE GRAFT + VII. MONEY MAZE + VIII. THE ADMIRAL + IX. THE FLAG PARAMOUNT + X. THE SHAMROCK AND THE PALM + XI. THE REMNANTS OF THE CODE + XII. SHOES + XIII. SHIPS + XIV. MASTERS OF ARTS + XV. DICKY + XVI. ROUGE ET NOIR + XVII. TWO RECALLS + XVIII. THE VITAGRAPHOSCOPE + + + + +THE PROEM +BY THE CARPENTER + + +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 inscription: + +RAMON ANGEL DE LAS CRUZES +Y MIRAFLORES +PRESIDENTE DE LA REPUBLICA +DE ANCHURIA +QUE SEA SU JUEZ DIOS + + +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 greatly coveted, the hue and cry went no +further than that. + +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 public funds and also with Doña 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 Señorita Guilbert. They will relate further that Doña Isabel, her +adventurous bark of fortune shoaled by the simultaneous loss of her +distinguished admirer and the souvenir hundred thousand, dropped anchor +on this stagnant coast, awaiting a rising tide. + +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 +country—a banana king, a rubber prince, a sarsaparilla, indigo, and +mahogany baron. The Señorita Guilbert, you will be told, married Señor +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 honoured to unfold her napkin with +olive-hued, ringed hands at the table of Señora 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 Señora Goodwin seemed now to be in her favour, whatever they +had been in the past. + +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 close threads that underlie the ingenuous web +of circumstances. + +The headpiece bearing the name of President Miraflores is daily +scrubbed with soap-bark and sand. An old half-breed Indian tends the +grave with fidelity and the dawdling minuteness of inherited sloth. He +chops down the weeds and ever-springing 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 so well kept and ordered. + +Only by following out the underlying threads will it be made clear why +the old Indian, Galvez, 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 sadness upon that unhonoured +mound. + +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 happily living a life of dull +and dreamy inaction? + +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 frowning crags where +formerly rang the cries of pirates’ 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 Romance—this were pleasant to do in the +shade of the lemon-trees on that coast that is curved like lips set for +smiling. + +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 tropical 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 +swash-bucklers bombarded and pounded it in the name of Abaddon. + +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 its +small change across their counters. Gentleman adventurers throng the +waiting-rooms of its rulers with proposals for railways and +concessions. The little _opéra-bouffe_ 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, +busy-brained—the 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 has driven Melpomene to the wings, and set Comedy to +dancing before the footlights of the Southern Cross. + +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 sealing-wax and cabbage-palms and +presidents instead of kings. + +Add to these a little love and counterplotting, and scatter everywhere +throughout the maze a trail of tropical dollars—dollars warmed no more +by the torrid sun than by the hot palms of the scouts of Fortune—and, +after all, here seems to be Life, itself, with talk enough to weary the +most garrulous of Walruses. + + + + +I +“FOX-IN-THE-MORNING” + + +Coralio reclined, in the mid-day 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 +sea-following 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 ceiba-trees; the palms waved their limber +fronds foolishly like an awkward chorus at the prima donna’s cue to +enter. + +Suddenly the town was full of excitement. A native boy dashed down a +grass-grown street, shrieking: “_Busca el Señor Goodwin. Ha venido un +telégrafo por el!_” + +The word passed quickly. Telegrams do not often come to anyone in +Coralio. The cry for Señor 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 despatch. Knots +of women with complexions varying from palest olive to deepest brown +gathered at street corners and plaintively carolled: “_Un telégrafo por +Señor Goodwin!_” The _comandante_, Don Señor el Coronel Encarnación +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 Señor 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 latter-day 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 of their art and skill. + +Keogh leaned in the doorway, his bold and humorous countenance wearing +a look of interest at the unusual influx of life and sound into 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 clamour of the natives was drowned and +silenced. + +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 revolution.” + +Goodwin had strolled up the street and met the boy with the message. +The ox-eyed women gazed at him with shy admiration, for his type drew +them. He was big, blonde, and jauntily dressed in white linen, with +buckskin _zapatos_. His manner was courtly, with a sort of kindly +truculence in it, tempered by 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 it—the women to their baking in the mud ovens under +the orange-trees, 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 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. The Ins and the Outs were +perpetually on their guard. But Englehart was a diplomatist. There +existed but one code upon which he might make requisition with promise +of safety—the great and potent code of Slang. So, here is the message +that slipped, unconstrued, through the fingers of curious officials, +and came to the eye of Goodwin: + +His Nibs skedaddled yesterday per jack-rabbit 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 know what to do. + + +BOB. + + +This screed, remarkable as it was, had no mystery for Goodwin. He was +the most successful of the small advance-guard 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 petty office-holders. There was always a revolutionary +party; and to it he had always allied himself; for the adherents of a +new administration received the rewards of their labours. 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 now Englehart’s +telegram had come as a corroboration of his wisdom. + +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 “jack-rabbit line” +could mean nothing else than the mule-back 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 +party—its way now made a pacific one—would 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 government. + +Goodwin handed the message to Keogh. + +“Read that, Billy,” he said. “It’s from Bob Englehart. Can you manage +the cipher?” + +Keogh sat in the other half of the doorway, and carefully perused the +telegram. + +“’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 it.” + +“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 breech-loader. This little literary essay I hold in my hands means a +game of Fox-in-the-Morning. Ever play that, Frank, when you was a kid?” + +“I think so,” said Goodwin, laughing. “You join hands all ’round, and—” + +“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 +‘Fox-in-the-Morning’ 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: +‘Fox-in-the-Morning!’ Me and you, standing here, we say: ‘Goose and the +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?’ They say: +‘More than you’re able to catch.’ And then the game commences.” + +“I catch the idea,” said Goodwin. “It won’t do to let the goose and +gander slip through our 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 mule-back 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 from—here and Solitas +and Alazan. They’re the only points we’ll have to guard. It’s as easy +as a chess problem—fox 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 seeking to overthrow it.” + +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; ice-cold and hot, wet and dry. The trail climbed +appalling mountains, wound like a rotten string about the brows of +breathless precipices, plunged through chilling snow-fed 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 of the 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 ever 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, +Frank—and 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 wrapped up and +carried off?” + +“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 there’s Irish blood in your ancestry.” + +“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 cocoanuts for her. Think of that president man with Lord +knows how many hundreds of thousands of dollars in one hand, and this +muslin siren in the other, galloping down 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 the 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 palm-thatched 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 red-tiled roofs of the one-story houses—the bell tower +of the _Calaboza_, the Hotel de los Estranjeros, 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 Morena—the summer “White House” of the +President of Anchuria. On the principal street running along the +beach—the Broadway of Coralio—were the larger stores, the government +_bodega_ and post-office, the _cuartel_, the rum-shops 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 +salutation of the big American. + +“Is there any news, Mr. Goodwin? Please don’t say no. Isn’t it warm? I +feel just like Mariana in her moated grange—or was it a range?—it’s hot +enough.” + +“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 porch—and there’s no +other place available that is cool enough.” + +“He isn’t grumpy,” said Paula Brannigan, impulsively, “when he—” + +But she ceased suddenly, and drew back with a deepening colour; 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 +demonstrative nature. + + + + +II +THE LOTUS AND THE BOTTLE + + +Willard Geddie, 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 drink. What kind of a way is that of representing your +government?” + +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 +capital; and now it was but a waiting game that he had to play. + +The consul was interested in his report. He was only twenty-four; and +he had not been in Coralio long enough for his enthusiasm to cool in +the heat of the tropics—a paradox that may be allowed between Cancer +and Capricorn. + +So many thousand bunches of bananas, so many thousand oranges and +cocoanuts, so many ounces of gold dust, pounds of rubber, coffee, +indigo and sarsaparilla—actually, exports were twenty per cent. greater +than for the previous year! + +A little thrill of satisfaction ran through the consul. Perhaps, he +thought, the State Department, upon reading his introduction, would +notice—and 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 town in an insignificant republic lying along the +by-ways of a second-rate 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 report—some underling in the State +Department and a compositor in the Public Printing Office. Perhaps the +typesticker would note the increase of commerce in Coralio, and speak +of it, over the cheese and beer, to a friend. + +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 country”—when he heard the hoarse notes of a steamer’s +siren. + +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 _niños_ of five years, +everyone 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 harbour 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 harbour, 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, or a +saucy French barque would hang innocently for a few days in the offing. +Then the custom-house 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 Three-Star 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 red-striped trousers, and that the record books showed no +increase in import duties received. + +The customs 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 first-baseman. 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 +beach—about a third of the population of the town—laughed 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 flourish in Coralio. + +The consul re-hoisted his umbrella and walked back to the consulate. + +This home of a great nation’s representative was a wooden structure of +two rooms, with a native-built gallery of poles, bamboo and nipa palm +running on three sides of it. One room was the official apartment, +furnished chastely with a flat-top desk, a hammock, and three +uncomfortable cane-seated chairs. Engravings of the first and latest +president of the country represented hung against the wall. The other +room was the consul’s living apartment. + +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 sea—a spot +famous as the coolest in Coralio. The breakfast consisted of shark’s +fin soup, stew of land crabs, breadfruit, a boiled iguana steak, +aguacates, a freshly cut pineapple, claret and coffee. + +Geddie took his seat, and unrolled with luxurious laziness his bundle +of newspapers. Here in Coralio for two days or longer he would read of +goings-on 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 English-speaking 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 +half-page, badly printed reproduction of a photograph of a vessel. +Languidly interested, he leaned for a nearer scrutiny and a view of the +florid headlines of the column next to the picture. + +Yes; he was not mistaken. The engraving was of the eight-hundred-ton +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 +favoured guests, would sail the next day on a six weeks’ cruise along +the Central American and South American coasts and among the Bahama +Islands. Among the guests were Mrs. Cumberland Payne and Miss Ida +Payne, of Norfolk. + +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 +well-nigh read the marriage ceremony over them. He played coyly and +insinuatingly upon the strings of “_on dit_” and “Madame Rumour” 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 favourite 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 anyone +else. But evidently Tolliver had not yet abandoned hope. + +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 people—a 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 nights—with all he was more than content. +Also, there was Paula Brannigan. + +Geddie intended to marry Paula—if, 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 would sever the last +tie that bound him to his old world. + +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 their house was ready +to be placed at the service of Geddie and Paula as soon as he should +make up his mind to speak about it. + +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 dark-green foliage of +lemon-trees and orange-trees just bursting into bloom. A lagoon pierced +the land like a dark, jagged crystal, and above it a pale ceiba-tree +rose almost to the clouds. The waving cocoanut 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 amid the vert of the coppice, of odours of fruit and bloom and +the smoke from Chanca’s clay oven under the calabash-tree; 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 shore—and, gradually, of a white speck, growing to a +blur, that intruded itself upon the drab prospect of the sea. + +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. Scarcely a mile of sea +had separated her from the shore. He had seen the frequent flash of her +polished brass work and the stripes of her deck-awnings—so 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, +she might have been an immaterial thing, a chimera of his idle brain. + +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 even his unconscious self need cling to the past any longer. + +After dinner, when the sun was low behind the mountains, Geddie walked +on the little strip of beach under the cocoanuts. The wind was blowing +mildly landward, and the surface of the sea was rippled by tiny +wavelets. + +A miniature breaker, spreading with a soft “swish” upon the sand +brought with it 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 long-necked wine bottle of colourless glass. The +cork had been driven in tightly to the level of the mouth, and the end +covered with dark-red sealing-wax. 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 sealing-wax was the impression +of a seal—probably of a signet-ring, 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 signet-ring 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, and set the bottle on his +desk. + +Throwing off his hat and coat, and lighting a lamp—for the night had +crowded precipitately upon the brief twilight—he began to examine his +piece of sea salvage. + +By holding the bottle near the light and turning it judiciously, he +made out that it contained a double sheet of note-paper 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 caught comprehensive glimpses, +were Ida’s, he felt sure. + +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 comfortably. He would smoke those three cigars while +considering the problem. + +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 upon even trifling matters. + +He began 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 succour! But, premising such an improbable outrage, would the +agitated captives have taken the pains to fill four pages of note-paper +with carefully penned arguments to their rescue. + +Thus by elimination he soon rid the matter of the more unlikely +theories, and was reduced—though aversely—to the less assailable one +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 the shore. + +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 fire-flies traversing the quiet +streets. + +If this was a message to him from Ida, what could it mean save an +overture toward a 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 it, if not actually +contemptuous. + +The thought stirred his pride and subdued whatever emotions had been +resurrected by the finding of the bottle. + +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, care-free and indolent. Some timorous +_señoritas_ scurrying past with fire-flies 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 orange-blossoms. + +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 colour came to her cheek at the sound of Geddie’s +voice. + +He was charmed at the sight of her costume—a 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 long-deferred speech. Certain though he had been that she +would not say him nay, he was thrilled with joy 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 captious +standards of convention. + +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 to-night, and his heart was full of serene, assured content. + +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 half-darkness, his +hand struck against the bottle. He started as if he had touched the +cold rotundity of a serpent. + +He had forgotten that the bottle was there. + +He lighted the lamp and fed the monkey. Then, very deliberately, he +lighted a cigar, and took the bottle in his hand, and walked down the +path to the beach. + +There was a moon, and the sea was glorious. The breeze had shifted, as +it did each evening, and was now rushing steadily seaward. + +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 stood +still upon the beach, smoking and looking out upon the water. + +“Simon!—Oh, Simon!—wake up there, Simon!” bawled a sonorous voice at +the edge of the water. + +Old Simon Cruz was a half-breed fisherman and smuggler who lived in a +hut on the beach. Out of his earliest nap Simon was thus awakened. + +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 Dr. Gregg or Mr. Goodwin or +anybody that’s a friend to Mr. Geddie, and bring ’em here at once.” + +“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 drownded. 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 decide that.” + +“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, Simon.” + + + + +III +SMITH + + +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. They 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 endeavour 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 hoarse toots of her siren. The +_Karlsefin_ was 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 _Karlsefin_ 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 making 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 usual 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 sloops and +dories that belonged to the sea-going contingent of Coralio. Goodwin +and Zavalla moved everywhere, but without ostentation, watching the +loopholes of escape. + +The customs officials crowded importantly into their boat and rowed out +to the _Karlsefin_. 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 _Karlsefin_ 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 _Karlsefin_ had come, he said, from +New York, to which port her latest load of oranges and cocoanuts 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 the advantage offered by a certain dearth of fruit in +the States. + +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, clean-cut as a +steel engraving. The beautiful vessel hovered off shore, see-sawing 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 new-comer 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 Anglo-Saxon figure present. +Goodwin greeted him with courtesy. + +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 had seen several things, +there was a discrepancy between Smith and his yacht. A bullet-headed +man Smith was, with an oblique, dead eye and the moustache of a +cocktail-mixer. And unless he had shifted costumes before putting off +for shore he had affronted the deck of his correct vessel clad in a +pearl-gray derby, a gay plaid suit and vaudeville neckwear. Men owning +pleasure yachts generally harmonize better with them. + +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 +starred-and-striped bunting hanging above the little consulate, which +was concealed behind the orange-trees. + +“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 plowed his way through the sand to the consulate, his +haberdashery creating violent discord against the smooth tropical blues +and greens. + +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 addition—one 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 souls—a peripheral +one which serves ordinarily, and a central one which is stirred only at +certain times, but then with activity and vigour. 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 himself—or 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 the atoms only that they may settle where they belong. + +Geddie’s revulsion had been a mild one—no 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 half-way 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 and decorating the upper +story of the Brannigan house. + +The consul rose from his hammock when he saw the conspicuous stranger +in his 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 +consul—is that right? A big, cool guy on the beach directed me here. +Thought I’d pay my respects to the flag.” + +“Sit down,” said Geddie. “I’ve been admiring your craft ever since it +came in sight. Looks like a fast sailer. What’s her tonnage?” + +“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 name—don’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 cocoanuts, and +parrots down here—is that right?” + +“We have them all,” said Geddie. “I’m quite sure that our fauna and +flora would take a prize over Central Park.” + +“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 the +steamers. No; very few people land in Coralio. An investor now and +then—tourists and sight-seers generally go further down the coast to +one of the larger towns where there is a harbour.” + +“I see a ship out there loading up with bananas,” said Smith. “Any +passengers come on her?” + +“That’s the _Karlsefin_,” 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 the native high-fliers.” + +“Thanks,” said the yachtsman, “but I wouldn’t put you to 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 I could 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 pills, in case I need ’em.” + +“You will be apt to find Dr. Gregg at the hotel,” said the consul. “You +can see it from the door—it’s that two-story building with the balcony, +where the orange-trees are.” + +The Hotel de los Estranjeros 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 orange-trees 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 colour by the salt breeze and the sun. Upon its upper balcony opened +a central door and two windows containing broad jalousies instead of +sashes. + +The lower floor communicated by two doorways with the narrow, +rock-paved sidewalk. The _pulperia_—or drinking shop—of the +proprietress, 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 guest-rooms which were rarely put to their +destined use. Sometimes a fruit-grower, 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 anyone required meat, drink or +lodging at the Hotel de los Estranjeros they had but to come, and be +served. _Está bueno._ If they came not, why, then, they came not. _Está +bueno._ + +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 sea. + +Dr. 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 seaport—the yellow fever—and it was the +duty of Dr. 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 by Dr. Gregg will have become exhausted. + +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 +his unusual and prismatic clothes. + +“You’re Dr. Gregg—is that right?” said Smith, feeling the dog’s head +pin in his tie. “The constable—I 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 café looks on the blink, but I guess it can +set out something wet.” + +“I will join you, sir, in just a taste of brandy,” said Dr. Gregg, +rising quickly. “I find that as a prophylactic a little brandy is +almost a necessity in this climate.” + +As they turned to enter the _pulperia_ a native man, barefoot, glided +noiselessly up and addressed the doctor in Spanish. He was +yellowish-brown, like an over-ripe 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 were to be wasted. + +Dr. Gregg felt his pulse. + +“You sick?” he inquired. + +“_Mi mujer está enferma en la casa_,” said the man, thus endeavouring +to convey the news, in the only language open to him, that his wife lay +ill in her palm-thatched hut. + +The doctor drew a handful of capsules filled with a white powder from +his trousers pocket. He counted out ten of them into the native’s hand, +and held up his forefinger impressively. + +“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 its dial twice. Again the +two fingers confronted the patient’s nose. “Two—two—two hours,” +repeated the doctor. + +“_Si, Señor_,” said the native, sadly. + +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 to-morrow.” Then he departed downheartedly with +his capsules. + +“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 boats +except the _Karlsefin_ had arrived for some days.” + +The two leaned against the deserted bar; and Madama set out a bottle +without waiting for the doctor’s order. There was no dust on it. + +After they had drank twice Smith said: + +“You say there were no passengers on the _Karlsefin_, Doc? Are you sure +about that? It seems to me I heard somebody down on the beach say that +there was one or two aboard.” + +“They were mistaken, sir. I myself went out and put all hands through a +medical examination, as usual. The _Karlsefin_ 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 Three-Star? 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 Dr. 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 wealth and +position, I called in for consultation Dr.—” + +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 interested; 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 bedtime—is 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 said it was an abscess, but I—” + +“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 reel—is that right?” + +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 fire-flies +heralded with their torches the approach of soft-footed night. + +In the offing the _Karlsefin_ 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 lighters heaped full from the piles of fruit ranged upon the +shore. + +On the sandy beach, with his back against a cocoanut-tree 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 gay-coated lizard, he +crouched at the foot of the cocoanut palm, and with the beady, shifting +eyes of the selfsame reptile, sustained his espionage on the +_Karlsefin_. + +On the white sands a whiter gig belonging to the yacht was drawn up, +guarded by one of the white-ducked crew. Not far away in a _pulperia_ +on the shore-following Calle Grande three other sailors swaggered with +their cues around Coralio’s solitary billiard-table. 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 was foreign to the air of Coralio. + +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 cafés; he sat under the +cocoanut-tree, 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 incident passed, yawning, into history. + +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 tale of trepanning and jealousy. + +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 cocoanut 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. + + + + +IV +CAUGHT + + +The plans for the detention of the flying President Miraflores and his +companion at the coast line seemed hardly likely to fail. Dr. 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 responsible for the district +about Coralio. + +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 the question of escape or capture been solved. + +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 there. + +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, grass-covered lanes, lending his own aid to +the vigil that had been intrusted to him by Bob Englehart. + +The town had begun the tepid round of its nightly diversions. A few +leisurely dandies, clad in white duck, with flowing neckties, and +swinging slim bamboo canes, threaded the grassy by-ways toward the +houses of their favoured señoritas. 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, where the by-ways perished at the brink of the jungle, the +guttural cries of marauding baboons and the coughing of the alligators +in the black estuaries fractured the vain silence of the wood. + +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 darkness—perhaps +already threading the profundities of the alluvial lowlands—the high +adventurer and his mate were moving toward land’s end. The game of +Fox-in-the-Morning should be coming soon to its close. + +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 minor statutes. + +“_Quién 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 pathway. + +He saw the form of a tall man, clothed in black and carrying a large +valise, hurry down the cross-street 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 progress. They were no +Coralians, those two. + +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 power without bloodshed or +resistance. + +The couple halted at the door of the Hotel de los Estranjeros, 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 +showed, the door was opened, and the guests housed. + +Goodwin stood in 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 himself. “So, then, their arrangements for sailing have yet +to be made.” + +At that moment there came along one Estebán 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 importance as a brother +in the cause. But he had something important to tell. + +“What think you, Don Frank!” he cried, in the universal tone of the +conspirator. “I have to-night 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 +me—in a verree leetle house in a dark place. _Carramba!_—el Señor +Presidente to make himself thus secret and obscured! I think he desired +not to be known—but, _carajo!_ can you 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 call a chip over the bug.” + +“Have you ever seen President Miraflores before?” asked Goodwin. + +“But once,” answered Estebán. “He is tall; and he had weeskers, verree +black and sufficient.” + +“Was anyone else present when you shaved him?” + +“An old Indian woman, Señor, that belonged with the _casa_, and one +señorita—a ladee of so much beautee!—_ah, Dios!_” + +“All right, Estebán,” said Goodwin. “It’s very lucky that you happened +along with your tonsorial information. The new administration will be +likely to remember you for this.” + +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 anyone 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 +looked up without surprise or alarm as her third caller entered. + +“Ah! it is the Señor Goodwin. Not often does he honour my poor house by +his presence.” + +“I must come oftener,” said Goodwin, with the 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_ for each of us.” + +“My _aguardiente_,” said Madama, with pride, “is the best. It grows, in +beautiful bottles, in the dark places among the banana-trees. _Si, +Señor._ Only at midnight can they be picked by sailor-men who bring +them, before daylight comes, to your back door. Good _aguardiente_ is a +verree difficult fruit to handle, Señor Goodwin.” + +Smuggling, in Coralio, was much nearer than competition to being the +life of trade. One spoke of it slyly, yet with a certain conceit, when +it had been well accomplished. + +“You have guests in the house to-night,” 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 señor, not quite old, and one señorita of +sufficient handsomeness. To their rooms they have ascended, not +desiring the to-eat nor the to-drink. Two rooms—_Numero_ 9 and _Numero_ +10.” + +“I was expecting that gentleman and that lady,” said Goodwin. “I have +important _negocios_ that must be transacted. Will you allow me to see +them?” + +“Why not?” sighed Madama, placidly. “Why should not Señor Goodwin +ascend and speak to his friends? _Está bueno._ Room _Numero_ 9 and room +_Numero_ 10.” + +Goodwin loosened in his coat pocket the American revolver that he +carried, and ascended the steep, dark stairway. + +In the hallway above, the saffron light from a hanging lamp allowed him +to select the gaudy numbers on the doors. He turned the knob of Number +9, entered and closed the door behind him. + +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 gray-irised, and of that mould 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 below them. Such eyes denote +great nobility, vigour, 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 conventions had played in it. + +“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 me here. I have come to dictate terms of surrender.” + +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 people—demand 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 to the gentleman in Number 10 upon his taste in +feminine charms.” + +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 manners, you might now tell me by +whom I am being insulted.” + +“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 your 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 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.” + +The lady arose from her chair and stood for a moment, thinking deeply. + +“Do you live here, Mr. Goodwin?” she asked, presently. + +“Yes.” + +“What is your authority for this intrusion?” + +“I am an instrument of the republic. I was advised by wire of the +movements of the—gentleman in Number 10.” + +“May I ask you two or three questions? I believe you to be a man more +apt to be truthful than—timid. What sort of a town is this—Coralio, I +think they call it?” + +“Not much of a town,” said Goodwin, smiling. “A banana town, as they +run. Grass huts, ’dobes, five or six two-story houses, accommodations +limited, population half-breed Spanish and Indian, Caribs and +blackamoors. No sidewalks to speak of, no amusements. Rather unmoral. +That’s an offhand sketch, of course.” + +“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 hand-organs, no department stores—and there is no extradition +treaty.” + +“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 order—especially an +American colony of cultured residents.” + +“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 to-night to guarantee you further obscurity. Some mistake has +been made; I do not know just where. But _him_ you shall not disturb +to-night. 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 bring you the valise that you seem to covet so, and show +it to you.” + +She moved toward the closed door that connected the two rooms, but +stopped, and half turned and bestowed upon Goodwin a grave, searching +look that ended in a quizzical smile. + +“You force my door,” she said, “and you follow your ruffianly behaviour +with the basest accusations; and yet”—she hesitated, as if to +reconsider what she was about to say—“and yet—it is a puzzling thing—I +am sure there has been some mistake.” + +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 his +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 honour, 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—” + +The lady interrupted him with a weary gesture. + +“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 will rid me of you, let us delay it no longer.” + +She passed quickly and noiselessly into the other room, and returned +with the heavy leather valise, which she handed to the American with an +air of patient contempt. + +Goodwin set the valise quickly upon the table and began to unfasten the +straps. The lady stood by, with an expression of infinite scorn and +weariness upon her face. + +The valise opened wide to a powerful, sidelong wrench. Goodwin dragged +out two or three articles of clothing, exposing the bulk of its +contents—package 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 bound them, the total must have come +closely upon the hundred thousand mark. + +Goodwin glanced swiftly at the woman, and saw, with surprise and a +thrill of pleasure that he wondered at, that she had experienced an +unmistakable 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 +unscrupulous singer not so black as report had painted her? + +A noise in the other room startled them both. The door swung open, and +a tall, elderly, dark complexioned man, recently shaven, hurried into +the room. + +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, Estebán, 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 American—“robbery?” + +“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 his loose, linen coat. + +The other man’s hand went quickly behind him. + +“Don’t draw,” called Goodwin, sharply; “I’ve got you covered from my +pocket.” + +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, long-drawn sigh, leaned and +kissed her on the forehead, stepped back into the other room and closed +the door. + +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 fallen +man. + +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 +all-forgiving, all-comforting earthly consoler—to have made her call +out from that bloody and dishonoured room—“Oh, mother, mother, mother!” + +But there was an alarm outside. The barber, Estebán, 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 it into a thick orange-tree in the little inclosure +below. + +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 sounded—the +_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 lace and 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 Estebán. 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 Miraflores. + +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 Señor Goodwin himself led the searching party +which combed that town as carefully as a woman combs her hair; but the +money was not found. + +So they buried the dead man, without honours, 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 Señor Goodwin, like a tower of strength, +shielded Doña 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 hand-woven Indian +rugs of silk fibre, tall ornaments and pictures, musical instruments +and papered walls—“figure-it-to-yourself!” they exclaim. + +But they cannot tell you in Coralio (as you shall learn) what became of +the money that Frank Goodwin dropped into the orange-tree. But that +shall come later; for the palms are fluttering in the breeze, bidding +us to sport and gaiety. + + + + +V +CUPID’S EXILE NUMBER TWO + + +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 +self-banished 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 international commerce. + +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 honoured 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 +neighbourhood who dared to enter the lists as a rival to the high-born +Atwood. + +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 there—moonlight, oleanders, magnolias, the mock-bird’s song. +Whether or no the shadow of Pinkney Dawson, the prosperous young +farmer, came between them on that occasion is not known; but Rosine’s +answer was unfavourable. 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 and heart. A Hemstetter refuse an Atwood! +Zounds! + +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 away—away. +Perhaps in years to come Rosine would think how true, how faithful his +love had been, and would drop a tear—maybe 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 +good-bye. 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 +400-acre orchard, and the three-mile alfalfa tract, and the 200-acre +pasture. So Johnny shook hands with Rosine as coolly as if he were only +going to run up to Montgomery for a couple of days. They had the royal +manner when they chose, those Atwoods. + +“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 +profitable deal.” + +“Certainly, Pink,” said Johnny, pleasantly. “If I strike anything of +the 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 twenty-two; and the grief of youth is +not worn like a garment as it is by older men. It has its seasons when +it reigns; and then it is unseated for a 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 officials, and have his credentials +transmitted through an interpreter. + +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 the ages, an Atwood, of Dalesburg; and you might know every thought +conceived in 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 Johnny 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 term of holding office.” + +“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 that 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 the world where they +didn’t talk about farms. There are none here, are there?” + +“Not the kind you are acquainted with,” answered the ex-consul. “There +is no such art here as agriculture. There never was a plow or a reaper +within the boundaries of Anchuria.” + +“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 preëmption 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 conveniently near. + +One evening they sat thus, mainly silent, for their talk had dwindled +before the stilling influence of an unusual night. + +There was a great, full moon; and the sea was mother-of-pearl. 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, full-laden 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 the beach where the gentle surf wetted them. + +Then down the coast, tacking close to shore, slowly swam a little +sloop, white-winged 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 like the movements of a graceful skater. + +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 ear-rending yawp fractured the silence +of Coralio like a cannon shot. + +“Mel-lin-ger a-hoy!” + +The sloop was now on its outward tack; but from it came a clear, +answering hail: + +“Good-bye, Billy … go-ing home—bye!” + +The _Andador_ was the sloop’s destination. No doubt some passenger with +a sailing permit from some up-the-coast 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 the larger bulk of the +fruiter’s side. + +“That’s old H. P. Mellinger,” explained Keogh, dropping back into his +chair. “He’s going back to New York. He was private secretary of the +late hot-foot president of this grocery and fruit stand that they call +a country. His job’s over now; and I guess old Mellinger is glad.” + +“Why does he disappear to music, like Zo-zo, the magic queen?” asked +Johnny. “Just to show ’em that he doesn’t care?” + +“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 carried it around with him afterward.” + +“Tell me about it,” demanded Johnny, betraying interest. + +“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 +atmosphere, or they may not.” + +“I want to hear about that graft,” persisted Johnny. “You’ve got no +right to refuse. I’ve told you all about every man, woman and hitching +post in Dalesburg.” + +“You shall hear it,” said Keogh. “I said my instincts of narrative were +perplexed. Don’t you believe it. It’s an art I’ve acquired along with +many other of the graces and sciences.” + + + + +VI +THE PHONOGRAPH AND THE GRAFT + + +“What was 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 +favourite 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 phonograph. + +“Me and Henry Horsecollar brought the first phonograph to this country. +Henry was a quarter-breed, quarter-back Cherokee, educated East in the +idioms of football, and West in contraband whisky, 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 rubber-tire 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 times—the last-named 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, stem-winders, +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 entomologist would be +needed, and he wasn’t one. + +“So, as I say, Henry had $360, and I had $288. The idea of introducing +the phonograph to South America was Henry’s; but I took to it freely, +being fond of machinery of all kinds. + +“‘The Latin races,’ says Henry, explaining easy in the idioms he +learned at college, ‘are peculiarly adapted to be victims of the +phonograph. They have the artistic temperament. They yearn for music +and color and gaiety. They give wampum to the hand-organ man and the +four-legged chicken in the tent when they’re months behind with the +grocery and the bread-fruit tree.’ + +“‘Then,’ says I, ‘we’ll export canned music to the Latins; but I’m +mindful of Mr. Julius Cæsar’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 our gall in devising means to tree them parties.”’ + +“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 Texarkana—one of the best make—and half +a trunkful of records. We packed up, and took the T. and P. for New +Orleans. From that celebrated centre of molasses and disfranchised coon +songs we took a steamer for South America. + +“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 +hard-boiled 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 +‘Sh-sh-sh’ on the beach; and now and then a ripe cocoanut 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 onto the rear +step, this town of Solitas will wake up and ask if anybody spoke. + +“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 Mercenary +and Licentious Dispositions, the way it read upon his sign. + +“‘I touch here again a week from to-day,’ says the captain. + +“‘By that time,’ we told him, ‘we’ll be amassing wealth in the interior +towns with our galvanized prima donna and correct imitations of Sousa’s +band excavating a march from a tin mine.’ + +“‘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 bearing a red seal and a dialect story, +and no change. + +“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 French-Irish in his affections, and puffed up with +disconsolation. Yes, he was a flattened kind of a man, in whom drink +lay stagnant, inclined to corpulence and misery. Yes, I think he was a +kind of Dutchman, being very sad and genial in his ways. + +“‘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. Simple-hearted children of nature, +progress has never condemned them to accept the work of a can-opener as +an overture, and rag-time 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 señor behind the bar for a subsequence of the red +wine.’ + +“Thus soliloquized the consul of Solitas to me and Henry Horsecollar. + +“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 good-sized 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 Kafoozlum is about to enter. + +“We were rubbing the dust off the machine and getting fixed to start +business the next day, when a big, fine-looking 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 trying to decide which +dress to wear to the party. + +“‘New York?’ he says to me finally. + +“‘Originally, and from time to time,’ I says. ‘Hasn’t it rubbed off +yet?’ + +“‘It’s simple,’ says he, ‘when you know how. It’s the fit of the vest. +They don’t cut vests right anywhere else. Coats, maybe, but not vests.’ + +“The white man looks at Henry Horsecollar and hesitates. + +“‘Injun,’ says Henry; ‘tame Injun.’ + +“‘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 break a +bottle of wine across your bows, according to Hoyle.’ + +“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 +Señors 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 cocoanut, and pour in on the juice of it +French brandy and other adjuvants. We had them and other things. + +“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 system of noises ever set to music. + +“‘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 top-liner in the copy book—“Honesty is the Best +Policy”? That’s it. I’m working honesty 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 a 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 money in it, but it’s a sure thing, and +lets a man sleep of nights.’ + +“Thus Homer P. Mellinger made oration to me and Henry Horsecollar. And, +later, he divested himself of this remark: + +“‘Boys, I’m to hold a _soirée_ 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 +caviare sandwich somewhere on Thirty-fourth 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 caviare at Billy Renfrew’s café, corner +of Thirty-fourth 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 side-kicker 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 sets 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 +to-night, compliments of H. P. M. That’s the way I’ll get them in a +bunch, and things are on the programme to happen to them.’ + +“We three were sitting at table in the cantina of the Purified Saints. +Mellinger poured out wine, and was looking some worried; I was +thinking. + +“‘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 +like throwing up my job, but I’m d——n 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 Renfrew some day; and that tightens my grip whenever I see a fat +thing that I could corral just by winking one eye—and 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 +caviare with Billy. To-night 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.’ + +“Mellinger appears shaky, and breaks his glass against the neck of the +bottle. + +“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 see it.’ + +“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 nail of his left hand. + +“By and by the invitations to the musicale came sliding in by pairs and +threes and spade flushes. Their colour was of a diversity, running from +a three-days’ smoked meerschaum to a patent-leather polish. They were +as polite as wax, being devastated with enjoyments to give Señor +Mellinger the good evenings. I understood their Spanish talk—I ran a +pumping engine two years in a Mexican silver mine, and had it pat—but I +never let on. + +“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 colour of a rubber overshoe, and he +had an eye like a head waiter’s. + +“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 brass-band record and the festivities became +initiated. The governor man had a bit of English under his hat, and +when the music was choked off he says: + +“‘Ver-r-ree fine. _Gr-r-r-r-racias_, the American gentleemen, 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 crowd, when the home talent suddenly opened the services. + +“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 face toward the secretary man. + +“‘Do the American señors understand Spanish?’ he asks in his native +accents. + +“‘They do not,’ says Mellinger. + +“‘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, Señor Mellinger, of our proposals. To-night we will +speak out. We know that you stand in the president’s favour, 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 raises his hand, but the governor man bottles him up. +‘Do not speak until I have done.’ + +“The governor man then draws a package wrapped in paper from his +pocket, and lays it on the table by Mellinger’s hand. + +“‘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 unwiseness to +refuse.’ + +“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 colorado-maduro 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 programme 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 peanut-roaster on Thirty-fourth Street, New York.’ + +“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 then +Homer P. Mellinger takes up the bundle of boodle and slams it in the +governor man’s face. + +“‘That’s my answer,’ says Mellinger, private secretary, ‘and there’ll +be another in the morning. I have proofs of conspiracy against every +man of you. The show is over, gentlemen.’ + +“‘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. _Señores_, I call upon you in the name of +the cause to seize this man.’ + +“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 grand-stand 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 estimations and points of view. + +“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 party. + +“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. + +“‘Get behind me, both of you,’ says Henry. + +“‘What’s it to be, chief?’ I asked. + +“‘I’m going to buck centre,’ says Henry, in his football idioms. ‘There +isn’t a tackle in the lot of them. Follow me close, and rush the game.’ + +“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 co-operation +of the Carlisle war-whoop 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 step-ladder through it without striking against anything. All +Mellinger and me had to do was to follow. + +“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 bare-toed 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 honours 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 _soirée_.’ + +“‘This is more money than the machine is worth,’ says I. + +“‘’Tis government expense money,’ says Mellinger. ‘The government pays +for it, and it’s getting the tune-grinder cheap.’ + +“Me and Henry knew that pretty well. We knew that it had saved Homer P. +Mellinger’s graft when he was on the point of losing it; but we never +let him know we knew it. + +“‘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 stake—honest.’ + +“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. + +“‘I told you you’d be waiting,’ he says. ‘Where’s the Hamburger +machine?’ + +“‘It stays behind,’ I says, ‘to play “Home, Sweet Home.”’ + +“‘I told you so,’ says the captain again. ‘Climb in the boat.’ + +“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 its hand.” + +“I suppose he’s taking it home with him as a souvenir,” remarked the +consul. + +“Not as a souvenir,” said Keogh. “He’ll need two of ’em in New York, +running day and night.” + + + + +VII +MONEY MAZE + + +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 treasury by the ill-fated Miraflores. + +Colonel Emilio Falcon, the private secretary of Losada, the new +president, was despatched from the capital upon this important mission. + +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 +body-guard to his chief, and a smeller-out 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 +which he selects a matrimonial mate. + +Colonel Falcon, a handsome and urbane gentleman of Castilian courtesy +and débonnaire 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 co-operate +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 sittings—much as if he +were a kind of unified grand jury—and summoned before him all those +whose testimony might illumine the financial tragedy that had +accompanied the less momentous one of the late president’s death. + +Two or three who were thus examined, among whom was the barber Estebán, +declared that they had identified the body of the president before its +burial. + +“Of a truth,” testified Estebán 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 Liberal—I am devoted to my country—and I spake of these +things to Señor Goodwin.” + +“It is known,” said Colonel Falcon, smoothly, “that the late President +took with him an American leather valise, containing a large amount of +money. Did you see that?” + +“_De veras_—no,” Estebán 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 lady—a señorita of much beauty—that I could see even +in so small a light. But the money, señor, or the thing in which it was +carried—that I did not see.” + +The _comandante_ and other officers gave testimony that they had been +awakened and alarmed by the noise of a pistol-shot in the Hotel de los +Estranjeros. 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. Señor Goodwin was +also in the room when they entered it. But of the valise of money they +saw nothing. + +Madame Timotea Ortiz, the proprietress of the hotel in which the game +of Fox-in-the-Morning had been played out, told of the coming of the +two guests to her house. + +“To my house they came,” said she—“one _señor_, not quite old, and one +_señorita_ of sufficient handsomeness. They desired not to eat or to +drink—not even of my _aguardiente_, which is the best. To their rooms +they ascended—_Numero Nueve_ and _Numero Diez_. Later came Señor +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. _Está bueno._ I saw nothing of money or of the thing you +call _veliz_ that you say he carried it in.” + +Colonel Falcon soon came to the reasonable conclusion that if anyone 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 word-petal dripping with honey, +requesting the favour 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 water-color sketch +of the afternoon seascape. + +Here was a woman who looked to be happy. And more—she looked to be +content. Had a poet been inspired to pen just similes concerning her +favour, he would have likened her full, clear eyes, with their +white-encircled, 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 re-entering 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 thrice—a movement remindful (Poesy +forgive us!) of the tail-wagging of a faithful dog—and 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 his honour. + +“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 +and indisputable feminine headaches.” + +“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 own wine and +provender.” + +“Has he found anyone who saw the valise of money?” + +“Not a soul. Even Madama Ortiz, whose eyes are so sharp for the sight +of a revenue official, does not remember that there was any baggage.” + +Mrs. Goodwin laid down her brush and sighed. + +“I am so sorry, Frank,” she said, “that they are giving you so much +trouble about the money. But we can’t let them know about it, can we?” + +“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 other ignoramuses in +Coralio.” + +“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 first made himself her tower of refuge. Thus they stood for a +little while. + +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 anyone +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 close investigation, +according to his orders, but he will find out nothing.” + +Thus they spake together. Had anyone 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 honourable thoughts. In Goodwin’s steady eye and firm +lineaments, moulded into material shape by the inward spirit of +kindness and generosity and courage, there was nothing reconcilable +with his words. + +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 of her 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 +headache brought on by a slight _calentura_. + +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 investigations in +the town had furnished him with any clue to the lost funds. + +“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 +_Señorita_ Isabel Guilbert, the opera singer. The Government, +officially and personally, is loath 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, either of the +desirable articles with which his flight was burdened.” + +“I suppose you would like to hear what I have to say about the affair,” +said Goodwin, coming directly to the point. “It will not require many +words. + +“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 Estranjeros, +and engaged rooms. I followed them upstairs, leaving Estebán, 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 +were on the spot. I suppose you have been informed of the subsequent +facts.” + +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 anyone 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 inquiry you wished to make +of me?” + +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 the lucrative “graft” of +Mellinger, the secretary of Miraflores. + +“I thank you, _Señor_ Goodwin,” said Falcon, “for speaking plainly. +Your word will be sufficient for the president. But, _Señor_ 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, +_señor_, 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, Colonel Falcon, that I do not care to have her +questioned or disturbed.” + +Colonel Falcon bowed again. + +“_Por supuesto_, no!” he cried. And to indicate that the inquiry was +ended he added: “And now, _señor_, 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 re-christened “Beelzebub” as an acknowledgment 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 +gold-rimmed 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 +drink-reddened face always smoothly shaven. For the rest he sponged +gracefully upon whomsoever he could for enough to keep him pretty +drunk, and sheltered from the rains and night dews. + +“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 +Miraflores lost.” + +“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. + +“Have a drink?” said Goodwin. + +“They can’t bring it too quickly,” said Blythe. “I’ve been in a drought +ever since morning. Hi—_muchacho!—el aguardiente por acá_.” + +“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 you—well, this has the +preference.” He gulped down his brandy, and gazed longingly into the +empty glass. + +“Have another?” suggested Goodwin. + +“Between gentlemen,” said the fallen angel, “I don’t quite like your +use of that word ‘another.’ It isn’t quite delicate. But the concrete +idea that the word represents is not displeasing.” + +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?” + +Blythe did not reply at once. + +“Old Losada would make it a hot country,” he remarked at length, “for +the man who swiped that gripsack of treasury boodle, don’t you think?” + +“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?” + +“All right,” said Goodwin. “_Buenas noches._” + +“Beelzebub” 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 man that he drinks with.” + + + + +VIII +THE ADMIRAL + + +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 office-holders and military favourites organized a new “Liberal” +party, and began to lay their plans for a re-succession. Thus the game +of Anchurian politics began, like a Chinese comedy, to unwind slowly +its serial length. Here and there Mirth peeps for an instant from the +wings and illumines the florid lines. + +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 Minister of War. + +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 humour 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 custom-house +officers at the town of Coralio of the sloop _Estrella del Noche_ and +her cargo of drygoods, patent medicines, granulated sugar and +three-star brandy. Also six Martini rifles and a barrel of American +whisky. 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 intrusted—a 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 tedium of executive session. + +In the constitution of this small, maritime banana republic was a +forgotten section that provided for the maintenance of a navy. This +provision—with many other wiser ones—had 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 audacious—that he should have disturbed the dust of this +musty and sleeping statute to increase the humour 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 humour +even the swart dignity of President Losada himself. + +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 relations—and certain consummated deals—between that +company and the republic of Anchuria. + +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 Señor 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 humour 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 feeble-minded 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 other half. + +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 even 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 harbour. 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 as a suitable custodian of the captured sloop. + +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 +recommendation. He despatched a _muchacho_ at once to fetch the future +admiral. + +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 +ill-favoured 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 feet were bare; he held in his +hand the cheapest of straw hats from the States. + +“Señor 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 +navy—but 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 coast-guard to prevent, as far as you may be able, the crime of +smuggling. You will uphold the honour and prestige of your country at +sea, and endeavour 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, Señor Admiral—I do not know—but it is a very high honour +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 over +into your charge. That is as far as my instructions go.” + +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 +spoken a word, and walked swiftly away through the hot sand of the +street. + +“_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 uniform—a +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 crew—three +grinning, glossy, black Caribs, bare to the waist, the sand spurting in +showers from the spring of their naked feet. + +Briefly and with dignity Felipe demanded his vessel of the collector. +And now a fresh honour 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 +pattern—a red cross upon a blue-and-white ground. She 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 finances. + +“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? _Quién 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 happy-go-lucky 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 heavy eyes almost +lighted up—“it may gladly call upon us for help.” + +Thereafter _El Nacional_ turned out with the other coast craft and +became a wage-earner. 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 self-supporting 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 then reply: + +“Not yet, it seems, _Señor el Almirante—poco tiempo!_” + +Outside in the shade of the lime-trees the crew chewed sugar cane or +slumbered, well content to serve a country that was contented with so +little service. + +One day in the early summer the revolution predicted by the collector +flamed out suddenly. It had long been smouldering. 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 neighbouring 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 favourite +corner, in his fast-decaying uniform, with his prodigious sabre +distributed between his red legs, he waited for the long-delayed, but +now soon expected, orders. + +“Not yet, _Señor 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 tick of the little +instrument on the table. + +“They will come,” would be his unshaken reply; “I am the admiral.” + + + + +IX +THE FLAG PARAMOUNT + + +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 connoisseur—the wonder +was that he could content himself with the petty, remote life of his +native country. + +“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 world-famous collections. +Collections of what? _Por Dios!_ of everything from postage stamps to +prehistoric stone idols.” + +But, for a mere dilettante, the æsthetic 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 rumoured 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 +coast. + +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 rumour +that the leaders of the revolt had been forced to fly, hotly pursued. + +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 called, loudly: “One telegram for _el Almirante_, Don +Señor Felipe Carrera!” + +There was a shuffling sound, a great rattling of tin scabbard, and the +admiral, prompt at his spot of waiting, leaped across the room to +receive it. + +The message was handed to him. Slowly spelling it out, he found it to +be his first official order—thus running: + +Proceed immediately with your vessel to mouth of Rio Ruiz; transport +beef and provisions to barracks at Alforan. + + +Martinez, General. + + +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 Nacional_ was tacking swiftly down coast in a stiff +landward breeze. + +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 breadth and leisure, through an alluvial morass +into the sea. + +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 fallow waters. 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 sea-going water as it purled against the prow of the vessel. Small +chance there seemed of wresting beef or provisions from that empty +solitude. + +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 three-foot telescope, closely +scanned the impervious foliage fifty yards away. + +It was nearly sunset when a reverberating “hal-lo-o-o!” 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 strange-looking 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, gray-besprinkled, dark hair, +blue, sparkling eyes, and the pronounced air of a _caballero grande_. +The other two were small, brown-faced 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 à quatre_, through flood, +mire and jungle. + +“_O-hé! Señor Almirante_,” called the large man. “Send to us your +boat.” + +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 +splendour. 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 torn, and depended almost to his eyes. The admiral’s feet were +bare. + +“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 despatch—from General Martinez. A little nearer +with your boat, dear Admiral. Upon these devils of shifting vines we +stand with the smallest security.” + +Felipe regarded him with a stolid face. + +“Provisions and beef for the barracks at Alforan,” he quoted. + +“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, señor, at once. You first, _caballeros—á priesa!_ Come back for +me. The boat is too small.” + +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 sail—for the barracks at +Alforan—no?” + +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 clamour from the bosky profundities of the shore. + +“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 glided 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 course the +admiral had taken. + +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 +scheme—this 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 crack-brained and +precarious. + +The brief, tropic twilight seemed to slide swiftly into the pearly +splendour 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 close-headed converse. The sloop was speeding as if to +strike midway between ship and shore. + +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 favour to shape your course +accordingly.” + +Without replying, the admiral gave a sharp command, and put the tiller +hard to port. _El Nacional_ swerved, and headed straight as an arrow’s +course for the shore. + +“Do me the favour,” 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. + +The admiral emitted a croaking, harsh laugh, and spake. + +“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. With your face +to a wall. Yes.” + +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 O! 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 and shot dead. + +Again he addressed the extravagant figure at the helm. + +“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 +republic—this pig’s head of a country—to 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 boy—admiral, whatever you call yourself, turn your boat. Put us on +board the _Salvador_, and here is your pay—five hundred _pesos_ in +money of the _Estados Unidos_—more than your lying government will pay +you in twenty years.” + +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 another parrot-like cackle. + +“That is why they do it,” he said—“so that you will not see the guns. +They fire—oom!—and you fall dead. With your face to the wall. Yes.” + +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 the Carib _lengua_. So, I +understood your order. Perhaps now you will—” + +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 drawing his pistol as he sprang, +and the next instant he shot the admiral down. + +Don Sabas stooped over him, and rose again. + +“In the heart,” he said briefly. “_Señores_, the navy is abolished.” + +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, señor,” called Colonel Rafael. “Our friends on the +steamer will wonder why we are sailing under it.” + +“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 after-dinner drollery, and by the same hand +that began it. + +Suddenly Don Sabas gave a great cry of joy, and ran down the slanting +deck to the side of Colonel Rafael. Across his arm he carried the flag +of the extinguished navy. + +“_Mire! mire! señor._ 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 orchid—to Patagonia for a headdress—to +Benares for a slipper—to 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, O! such rare specimens. One of a Barbary 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, señor—do 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 navy—that dead cockatoo lying there was its commander—that 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 heaven-born +flag! _O-hé!_ old grumbler beyond the ocean. Wait till Don Sabas comes +again to the Königin Strasse. He will let you kneel and touch the folds +of it with one finger. _O-hé!_ old spectacled ransacker of the world!” + +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 the sea. + +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 and held her there. + +Captain McLeod leaned over the side. + +“Well, señor, the jig is up, I’m told.” + +“The jig is up?” Don Sabas looked perplexed for a moment. “That +revolution—ah, yes!” With a shrug of his shoulders he dismissed the +matter. + +The captain learned of the escape and the imprisoned crew. + +“Caribs?” he said; “no harm in them.” He slipped down into the sloop +and kicked loose the hasp of the hatch. The black fellows came tumbling +up, sweating but grinning. + +“Hey! black boys!” said the captain, in a dialect of his own; “you +sabe, catchy boat and vamos back same place quick.” + +They saw him point to themselves, the sloop and Coralio. “Yas, yas!” +they cried, with broader grins and many nods. + +The four—Don Sabas, the two officers and the captain—moved to quit the +sloop. Don Sabas lagged a little behind, looking at the still form of +the late admiral, sprawled in his paltry trappings. + +“_Pobrecito loco_,” he said softly. + +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. Without a smile, he looked, and said, “The poor little +crazed one!” + +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 own coat. + +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 +shore. + +And Herr Grunitz’s collection of naval flags was still the finest in +the world. + + + + +X +THE SHAMROCK AND THE PALM + + +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 of their heritage by the aspersion of +alien things. + +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. Dr. 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 +calabash-tree. 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. To-night there were symptoms of divulgement in +him. + +“’Tis elegant weather for filibusterin’,” 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 strainin’ to the +back and makes corns on the hands.” + +“I didn’t know you had ever lent your sword to an oppressed people,” +murmured Atwood, from the grass. + +“I did,” said Clancy; “and they turned it into a ploughshare.” + +“What country was so fortunate as to secure your aid?” airily inquired +Blanchard. + +“Where’s Kamchatka?” asked Clancy, with seeming irrelevance. + +“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, then—the hot +one—I’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 man 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, single-handed, and endeavoured to liberate it from a +tyrannical government with a single-barreled pickaxe, unloaded at that. +Ye don’t understand, of course. ’Tis a statement demandin’ elucidation +and apologies. + +“’Twas in New Orleans one morning about the first of June; I was +standin’ down on the wharf, lookin’ 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 throwin’ out smoke, and a gang of +roustabouts were carryin’ aboard a pile of boxes that was stacked up on +the wharf. The boxes were about two feet square, and somethin’ like +four feet long, and they seemed to be pretty heavy. + +“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 wonder where the +popguns are goin’?’ + +“I heard somebody cough, and I turned around. There stood a little, +round, fat man with a brown face and white clothes, a +first-class-looking little man, with a four-karat diamond on his finger +and his eye full of interrogations and respects. I judged he was a kind +of foreigner—may be from Russia or Japan or the archipelagoes. + +“‘Hist!’ says the round man, full of concealments and confidences. +‘Will the señor respect the discoveryments he has made, that the mans +on the ship shall not be acquaint? The señor will be a gentleman that +shall not expose one thing that by accident occur.’ + +“‘Monseer,’ says I—for 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 +Liberty—veev it good and strong. Whenever you hear of a Clancy +obstructin’ the abolishment of existin’ governments you may notify me +by return mail.’ + +“‘The señor is good,’ says the dark, fat man, smilin’ under his black +mustache. ‘Wish you to come aboard my ship and drink of wine a glass.’ + +“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 want a hand in it. + +“‘You goin’ to stir things up in your country, ain’t you, monseer?’ +says I, with a wink to let him know I was on. + +“‘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 never-to-happen 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 old—I mean the banana-vine or the pie-plant, or whatever +the imperial emblem may be of your down-trodden country, wave forever.’ + +“‘A thousand thank-yous,’ 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 hard—oh, so hard to find good mans to +help in the work.’ + +“‘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 denudin’ your shores of the +tyrant’s yoke they’re yours to command.’ + +“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 country need.’ + +“General De Vega, as was the name by which he denounced himself, +brought out a document for me to sign, which I did, makin’ a fine +flourish and curlycue with the tail of the ‘y.’ + +“‘Your passage-money,’ says the general, business-like, ‘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 and earmuffs, with elegant fleece-lined gloves and woolen +muffler. + +“‘_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 in separatin’ the two nations in name, climate and +geographic disposition. + +“I paid my passage—twenty-four dollars, first cabin—and ate at table +with the officer crowd. Down on the lower deck was a gang of +second-class passengers, about forty of them, seemin’ to be Dagoes and +the like. I wondered what so many of them were goin’ along for. + +“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 gradin’ 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 load was full of pickaxes +and spades. + +“And then—sorrow be upon them tropics—the proud Clancy and the +dishonoured 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 labour. Usually the imported spade-slingers died in +two or three months from eatin’ the over-ripe water and breathin’ the +violent tropical scenery. Wherefore they made them sign contracts for a +year, when they hired them, and put an armed guard over the poor divils +to keep them from runnin’ away. + +“’Twas thus I was double-crossed by the tropics through a family +failin’ of goin’ out of the way to hunt disturbances. + +“They gave me a pick, and I took it, meditatin’ an insurrection on the +spot; but there was the guards handlin’ 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 startin’ 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. T’irty 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 +star-spangled cause of liberty, did you have meditations of reducin’ me +to the ranks of the stump-grubbin’ Dagoes in the chain-gangs of your +vile and grovelin’ country?’ + +“The general man expanded his rotundity and laughed considerable. Yes, +he laughed very long and loud, and I, Clancy, stood and waited. + +“‘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 r-r-revolutions? Not one word. I +say, big, strong mans is need in Guatemala. So. The mistake is of you. +You have looked in those one box containing those gun for the guard. +You think all boxes is contain gun? No. + +“‘There is not war in Guatemala. But work? Yes. Good. T’irty dollar in +the month. You shall shoulder one pickaxe, señor, and dig for the +liberty and prosperity of Guatemala. Off to your work. The guard waits +for you.’ + +“‘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 repartee.’ + +“The boss of the gang orders us to work. I tramps off with the Dagoes, +and I hears the distinguished patriot and kidnapper laughin’ hearty as +we go. + +“’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 +sky-scrapers; the underbrush was full of needles and pins; there was +monkeys jumpin’ around and crocodiles and pink-tailed mockin’-birds, +and ye stood knee-deep 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 workin’ on the road—mostly +Dagoes, nigger-men, Spanish-men and Swedes. Three or four were Irish. + +“One old man named Halloran—a man of Hibernian entitlements and +discretions, explained it to me. He had been workin’ 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 beasts—lions and baboons and +anacondas—waitin’ to devour ye. The sun strikes ye hard, and melts the +marrow in your bones. Ye get similar to the lettuce-eaters the +poetry-book 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 yoursilf, “Nixt week I’ll break away,” +and ye go to sleep and call yersilf a liar, for ye know ye’ll never do +it.’ + +“‘Who is this general man,’ asks I, ‘that calls himself De Vega?’ + +“‘’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 prisident. The people want the railroad +completed, as they’re taxed mighty on account of it. The De Vegy man is +pushin’ it along as a campaign move.’ + +“‘’Tis not my way,’ says I, ‘to make threats against any man, but +there’s an account to be settled between the railroad man and James +O’Dowd Clancy.’ + +“‘’Twas that way I thought, mesilf, at first,’ Halloran says, with a +big sigh, ‘until I got to be a lettuce-eater. 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 harbourin’ any sintiments 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, honours and silver candlesticks; instead of which I am set to +amputatin’ its scenery and grubbin’ its roots. ’Tis the general man +will have to pay for it.’ + +“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 hand-car, and I noticed, when I +started away, that the car was left there on the track. + +“That night, about twelve, I woke up Halloran and told him my scheme. + +“‘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 lettuce-land 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 sleepy.’ + +“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 cocoanut I had, and made for the railroad. I got +on that hand-car 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 +hand-car 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 +hand-to-hand 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, señora, ma’am.’ ‘Laws, now!’ +says Missis Guatemala, ‘you don’t say so, ma’am! Now, mine never think +of leavin’ me—te-he! ma’am,’ snickers Missis Guatemala. + +“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 +harbour, 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 nigger-man just about to shove off in a skiff. + +“‘Hold on, Sambo,’ says I, ‘savve English?’ + +“‘Heap plenty, yes,’ says he, with a pleasant grin. + +“‘What steamer is that?’ I asks him, ‘and where is it going? And what’s +the news, and the good word and the time of day?’ + +“‘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, señor? Yes? No?’ + +“‘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 nigger-man, proud to speak the English, ‘verree great +revolution in Guatemala one week ago. General De Vega, him try be +president. Him raise armee—one—five—ten thousand mans for fight at the +government. Those one government send five—forty—hundred thousand +soldier to suppress revolution. They fight big battle yesterday at +Lomagrande—that about nineteen or fifty mile in the mountain. That +government soldier wheep General De Vega—oh, most bad. Five +hundred—nine hundred—two thousand of his mans is kill. That revolution +is smash suppress—bust—very quick. General De Vega, him r-r-run away +fast on one big mule. Yes, _carrambos!_ The general, him r-r-run 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 they +catchee that general, señor?’ + +“‘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 hired-man 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 dollars—sinker +pacers—sinker pacers,’ says I, reducin’ the offer to the language and +denomination of the tropic dialects. + +“‘_Cinco pesos_,’ repeats the little man. ‘Five dollee, you give?’ + +“’Twas not such a bad little man. He had hesitations at first, sayin’ +that passengers leavin’ the country had to have papers and passports, +but at last he took me out alongside the steamer. + +“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 nigger-man 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 watch +out.’ + +“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, black-faced 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 man—De Vega, the great revolutionist, mule-rider and +pickaxe importer. When he saw me the general hesitated with his mouth +filled with banana and his eyes the size of cocoanuts. + +“‘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’ me face, and me costume was +a pair of blue overalls and a red shirt. + +“‘How you come in the ship, señor?’ asked the general as soon as he +could speak. + +“‘By the back door—whist!’ 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’, señor?’ 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, +señor! 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 good; but so good as life I do not think.’ + +“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 bucket of fresh water. + +“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 failin’ of his plot. Not a word did +the little balloon have to say about the other misbehavin’ idiots that +had been shot, or run themselves to death in his revolution. + +“The second day out he was feelin’ pretty braggy and uppish for a +stowed-away 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 narrow-gauge 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 black-faced rebel and outcast, +standin’ neck-deep in bananas, without friends or country. + +“‘Ah, señor,’ he snickers, ‘to the 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 down-pressed 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! +señor, could you the face of that Irish have seen when they set him to +the work!’ + +“’Twas thus the ex-boss 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 and the mule. + +“’Twas a pleasant sound when the steamer bumped against the pier in New +Orleans. Pretty soon we heard the pat-a-pat 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 passin’ 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 honour on the hands of an obscure Clancy, havin’ the +entertainment of the representative of a great foreign filibusterin’ +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, leavin’ 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 ask him, delicate, if, by any chance, he brought away anybody’s +money with him from Guatemala. He sighs and bumps 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 ever saw. + +“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, red-faced, with shinin’ +buttons, swingin’ 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 uprisin’s once or twice a week with +his club. + +“‘Is 5046 workin’ yet, Danny?’ says I, walkin’ up to him. + +“‘Overtime,’ says O’Hara, lookin’ over me suspicious. ‘Want some of +it?’ + +“Fifty-forty-six is the celebrated city ordinance authorizin’ arrest, +conviction and imprisonment of persons that succeed in concealin’ their +crimes from the police. + +“‘Don’t ye know Jimmy Clancy?’ says I. ‘Ye pink-gilled 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 minutes.’ + +“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 and rank. + +“‘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, on account of losin’ his +job.’ + +“‘_Carrambos!_’ says the general, fizzin’ like a little soda-water +fountain, ‘you fought, señor, 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 _caballero_—’ + +“‘Railroader,’ says I again. ‘On the hog. No good. Been livin’ for +three days on stolen bananas. Look at him. Ain’t that enough?’ + +“Twenty-five 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 that I slung a pick for the +great country of Kam—Guatemala.” + +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 surf on the sands. + +“Tell ’em, ye divil,” he chuckled, “how you got even with the tropical +general in the way of agricultural manœuvrings.” + +“Havin’ 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 places. + +“‘Fat, strong mans,’ says I to General De Vega, ‘is needed in New +Orleans. Yes. To carry on the good work. Carrambos! Erin go bragh!’” + + + + +XI +THE REMNANTS OF THE CODE + + +Breakfast in Coralio was at eleven. Therefore the people did not go to +market early. The little wooden market-house stood on a patch of +short-trimmed grass, under the vivid green foliage of a bread-fruit +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 mid-morning sun by the projecting, +grass-thatched roof. Upon this platform the venders were wont to +display their goods—newly-killed beef, fish, crabs, fruit of the +country, cassava, eggs, _dulces_ and high, tottering stacks of native +tortillas as large around as the sombrero of a Spanish grandee. + +But on this morning they whose stations lay on the seaward side of the +market-house, 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 gold-rimmed glasses, the surviving badge of his ancient +glory. + +The sun’s rays, reflecting quiveringly from the rippling sea upon his +face, and the voices of the market-men 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 beseeching him to vacate in favour of their market stuff. + +If the señor would have the goodness—a thousand pardons for bringing to +him molestation—but soon would come the _compradores_ for the day’s +provisions—surely 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 trade. + +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 maintain a chair of morals within its walls. + +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. Golden-skinned +babies tumbled over one another in the grass. The sea breeze brought +him appetite, but nothing to satisfy it. Throughout Coralio were its +morning odors—those 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 light-footed 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 green-golden +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 still +peace. + +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, Circumstance, and the implacable +carpenter, Fate. + +To Blythe money was now but a memory. He had drained his friends of all +that their good-fellowship had to offer; then he had squeezed them to +the last drop of their generosity; and at the last, Aaron-like, 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 neighbours’ 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 market. + +But on this morning no beggar would have more thankfully received a +charitable coin, for the demon thirst had him by the throat—the +drunkard’s matutinal thirst that requires to be slaked at each morning +station on the road to Tophet. + +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 nothing, +and passed on. + +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 were his creditors almost without exception. + +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 of the prisoners in the _calaboza_, bearing the morning +meal of the immured. The food in their hands aroused small longing in +Blythe. 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, grey 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 improbity, holding by a +slender life-line 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 the drowning swimmer who has +ceased to struggle. + +Blythe walked to the next corner and stood there while he brushed the +sand from his garments and re-polished his glasses. + +“I’ve got to do it—oh, I’ve got to do it,” he told himself, aloud. “If +I had a quart of rum I believe I could stave it off yet—for 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 long and purposeful strides. + +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 for the better part of an hour. + +The castaway walked to the steps, and flourished a hand. + +“Good morning, Blythe,” said Goodwin, looking up. “Come in and have a +chair. Anything I can do for you?” + +“I want to speak to you in private.” + +Goodwin nodded at his secretary, who strolled out under a mango tree +and lit a cigarette. Blythe took the chair that he had left vacant. + +“I want some money,” he began, doggedly. + +“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 use furnishing you with money to ruin yourself with any +longer.” + +“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 morning; and Society owes me reparation for my wounded +feelings.” + +“I didn’t kick you out.” + +“No; but 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 +man—I 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 it to me.” + +“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 forty-eight 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 villain—one of the regular +sawmill-drama kind—but you’re one of my particular friends, and I don’t +want to stick you hard.” + +“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 Fly-by-night 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 awhile cursing Sir Isaac Newton, or whoever it was +that invented gravitation, for not confining his theory to apples. + +“And then along came Mr. Miraflores and his true-love with the treasury +in a valise, and went into the hotel. Next you hove in sight, and held +a pow-wow with the tonsorial artist who insisted upon talking shop +after hours. I tried to slumber again; but once more my rest was +disturbed—this 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 +Goodwin—excuse me—I 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 hundred-thousand-dollar crop from one orange tree in +a season about breaks the record of the fruit-growing industry. + +“Being a gentleman at that time, of course, I never mentioned the +incident to anyone. But this morning I was kicked out of a saloon, my +code of honour is all out at the elbows, and I’d sell my mother’s +prayer-book 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 secretary, who came, spryly. + +“The _Ariel_—when does she sail?” asked Goodwin. + +“Señor,” answered the youth, “at three this afternoon. She drops +down-coast to Punta Soledad to complete her cargo of fruit. From there +she sails for New Orleans without delay.” + +“_Bueno!_” said Goodwin. “These letters may wait yet awhile.” + +The secretary returned to his cigarette under the mango tree. + +“In round numbers,” said Goodwin, facing Blythe squarely, “how much +money do you owe in this town, not including the sums you have +‘borrowed’ from me?” + +“Five hundred—at a rough guess,” answered Blythe, lightly. + +“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 expected to do in return.” + +“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 O. K. You’re a good fellow, Goodwin; and I let you off +light. I’ll agree to everything. But in the meantime—I’ve a devil of a +thirst on, old man—” + +“Not a _centavo_,” said Goodwin, firmly, “until you are on board the +_Ariel_. You would be drunk in thirty minutes if you had money now.” + +But he noticed the blood-streaked 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. To-day 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 his hand, he set down his glass, untasted. + +“In two hours,” his dry lips muttered to Goodwin, as he marched down +the steps and turned his face toward the town. + +In the edge of the cool banana grove “Beelzebub” halted, and snapped +the tongue of his belt buckle into another hole. + +“I couldn’t do it,” he explained, feverishly, to the waving banana +fronds. “I wanted to, but I couldn’t. A gentleman can’t drink with the +man that he blackmails.” + + + + +XII +SHOES + + +John De Graffenreid Atwood ate of the lotus, root, stem, and flower. +The tropics gobbled him up. He plunged enthusiastically into his work, +which was to try to forget Rosine. + +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 the “_Americanos diablos_.” + +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 of lotus-eating when all the +world tastes bitter in one’s mouth. + +“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 see what they want. I’m +feeling too rocky to move.” + +Keogh, acclimated beyond all possibility of ill-humour, drew his chair +to the table with smiling compliance on his rose-pink 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 cyclopædia 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 honour 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 scratch, Billy; it’ll keep me awake.” + +“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 minute!—here’s one more letter—it’s from your own +town, too—Dalesburg.” + +“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 on the ground floor.” + +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 letter from Dalesburg. + +“Great bunions!” exclaimed the consul. “Shoe store! What’ll they ask +about next, I wonder? Overcoat factory, I reckon. Say, Billy—of our +3,000 citizens, how many do you suppose ever had on a pair of shoes?” + +Keogh reflected judicially. + +“Let’s see—there’s you and me and—” + +“Not me,” said Johnny, promptly and incorrectly, holding up a foot +encased in a disreputable deerskin _zapato_. “I haven’t been a victim +to shoes in months.” + +“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 Delgado—no; he wears +sandals. And, oh, yes; there’s Madama Ortiz, ‘what kapes the hotel’—she +had on a pair of red 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-days—and Mrs. +Geddie, who wears a two with a Castilian instep—and that’s about all +the ladies. Let’s see—don’t some of the soldiers at the _cuartel_—no: +that’s so; they’re allowed shoes only when on the march. In barracks +they turn their little toeses out to grass.” + +“’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 store—that 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 him a letter, +Billy. I’ll dictate it. We’ll jolly him back a few.” + +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: + +Mr. Obadiah Patterson, + Dalesburg, Ala. + _Dear Sir:_ In reply to your favour of July 2d, I have the honour + 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 first-class 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 our citizens actually + without shoes at present. + 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 honour to be, sir, + + +Your Obt. Servant, +JOHN DE GRAFFENREID ATWOOD, +U. S. Consul at Coralio. + + +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 green-headed +parrot and a bunch of bananas soon, from your old friend + + +JOHNNY. + + +“I throw in that postscript,” explained the consul, “so Uncle Obadiah +won’t take offence 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 to-morrow if they make up +that load of fruit to-day.” + +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 tree-frogs rattled in the foliage as loudly as +the end man’s “bones” in a minstrel troupe. By nine o’clock the streets +were almost deserted. + +Nor at the consulate was there often a change of bill. Keogh would come +there nightly, for Coralio’s one cool place was the little seaward +porch of that official residence. + +The brandy would be kept moving; and before midnight sentiment would +begin to stir in the heart of the self-exiled 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 sympathy. + +“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 +right now, my pulse wouldn’t gain a beat. That’s all over long ago.” + +“Don’t I know it?” Keogh would answer. “Of course you’ve forgotten her. +Proper thing to do. Wasn’t quite O. K. of her to listen to the knocks +that—er—Dink Pawson kept giving you.” + +“Pink Dawson!”—a world 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, Billy—did you know my mother was a De Graffenreid?” + +“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 the calabash tree at the edge of the +plaza. + +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 custom-house crew rowed out to attend to +their duties. + +An hour later Billy Keogh lounged into the consulate, clean and cool in +his linen clothes, and grinning like a pleased shark. + +“Guess what?” he said to Johnny, lounging in his hammock. + +“Too hot to guess,” said Johnny, lazily. + +“Your shoe-store 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 Terra del Fuego. They’re carting his cases over to the +custom-house 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 walls shook with his enjoyment. +Johnny turned half over and blinked. + +“Don’t tell me,” he said, “that anybody was fool enough to take that +letter seriously.” + +“Four-thousand-dollar stock of goods!” gasped Keogh, in ecstasy. “Talk +about coals to Newcastle! Why didn’t he take a ship-load of palm-leaf +fans to Spitzbergen 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 barefooted citizens standing +around.” + +“Are you telling the truth, Billy?” asked the consul, weakly. + +“Am I? You ought to see the buncoed gentleman’s daughter he brought +along. Looks! She makes the brick-dust señoritas here look like +tar-babies.” + +“Go on,” said Johnny, “if you can stop that asinine giggling. I hate to +see a grown man make a laughing hyena of himself.” + +“Name is Hemstetter,” went on Keogh. “He’s a— Hello! what’s the matter +now?” + +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 to do? Has all the world gone crazy?” + +Keogh rose and dusted himself. He managed to regain a decorous +demeanour. + +“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 decentest house in town.” + +“Bless you, Billy!” said the consul. “I knew you wouldn’t desert me. +The world’s bound to come to an end, but maybe we can stave it off for +a day or two.” + +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 custom-house 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, John—may 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 in expecting.” + +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 chance to redeem the situation, if such a thing were +possible. + +That night the consul and Keogh held a desperate consultation on the +breezy porch of the consulate. + +“Send ’em back home,” began Keogh, reading Johnny’s thoughts. + +“I would,” said Johnny, after a little silence; “but I’ve been lying to +you, Billy.” + +“All right about that,” said Keogh, affably. + +“I’ve told you hundreds of times,” said Johnny, slowly, “that I had +forgotten that girl, haven’t I?” + +“About three hundred and seventy-five,” admitted the monument of +patience. + +“I lied,” repeated the consul, “every time. I never forgot her for one +minute. 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 always after her?” + +“Dink Pawson?” asked Keogh. + +“Pink Dawson. Well, he wasn’t a hill of beans to her. She says she +didn’t believe a word of the things he 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 school boy 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 the thermometer was at 102.” + +“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 foot-gear 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 alligator-hide 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 will do for him.” + +“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 Three-star along with you—no, sir; not another ounce of +booze for the United States consul. I’ll sit here to-night and pull out +the think stop. If there’s a soft place on this proposition anywhere +I’ll land on it. If there isn’t there’ll be another wreck to the credit +of the gorgeous tropics.” + +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 harbour ripples, he was still +sitting there. Then he got up, whistling a little tune, and took his +bath. + +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: + +TO PINKNEY DAWSON, + Dalesburg, Ala. + Draft for $100 comes to you next mail. Ship me immediately 500 + pounds stiff, dry cockleburrs. New use here in arts. Market price + twenty cents pound. Further orders likely. Rush. + + + + +XIII +SHIPS + + +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 white boxes, attractively displayed. + +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, low-quartered calfs, dancing pumps, +rubber boots, tans of various hues, tennis shoes and flowered slippers, +he sought out Johnny to be prompted as to names of other kinds that he +might inquire for. The other English-speaking 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 days. + +Mr. Hemstetter was gratified by the amount of business done thus far; +but expressed surprise that the natives were so backward with their +custom. + +“Oh, they’re awfully shy,” explained Johnny, as he wiped his forehead +nervously. “They’ll get the habit pretty soon. They’ll come with a rush +when they do come.” + +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 fur-lined house-slippers 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 to-morrow or next day,” said +Johnny. “We can’t do anything until then.” + +“What are you going to do—try to create a demand?” + +“Political economy isn’t your strong point,” said the consul, +impudently. “You can’t create a demand. But you can create a necessity +for a demand. That’s what I am going to do.” + +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 custom-house 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 lady-love 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 by-ways, 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 planting. + +With the rising sun came the purveyors of fruits and meats, and +arranged their wares in and around the little market-house. At one end +of the town near the seashore the market-house 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. “_Qué 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 women—black women, brown +women, lemon-colored women, women dun and yellow and tawny. They were +the marketers starting to purchase the family supply of cassava, +plantains, meat, fowls, and tortillas. Décolleté they were and +bare-armed and bare-footed, with a single skirt reaching below the +knee. Stolid and ox-eyed, 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. +“_Qué 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 +stooped to pluck at the scourge that attacked their feet and ankles. +Some loudly proclaimed the pest to be poisonous spiders of an unknown +species. + +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. + +Doña Maria Castillas y Buenventura de las Casas stepped from her +honoured 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 lemon-tinted 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. Doña Maria Castillas y Buenventura +de las Casas emitted a yowl even as a wild-cat. Turning about, she fell +upon hands and knees, and crawled—ay, like a beast of the field she +crawled back to her honourable door-sill. + +Don Señor 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 them. + +The first to perceive the remedy was Estebán Delgado, the barber, a man +of travel and education. Sitting upon a stone, he plucked burrs from +his toes, and made oration: + +“Behold, my friends, these bugs of the devil! I know them well. They +soar through the skies in swarms like pigeons. These are the 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 shoes—the shoes that one needs! _Zapatos—zapatos para mi!_” + +Estebán 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 hundred pairs of shoes. + +“It is really surprising,” he said to Johnny, who came up in the +evening to help him straighten out the stock, “how trade is picking up. +Yesterday I made but three sales.” + +“I told you they’d whoop things up when they got started,” said the +consul. + +“I think I shall order a dozen more cases of goods, to keep the stock +up,” said Mr. Hemstetter, beaming through his spectacles. + +“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 two-thirds 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 mail, and succeeded in destroying it before it reached the +postoffice. + +That night he took Rosine under the mango tree by Goodwin’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? +I think it is a very serious matter.” + +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 wall paper with which the old +colonial mansion of the Atwoods in Dalesburg was to be decorated after +the wedding. + +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 do you propose to dispose of the +rest of it?” + +When the second invoice of cockleburrs arrived Johnny loaded them and +the remainder of the shoes into a schooner, and sailed down the coast +to Alazan. + +There, in the same dark and diabolical manner, he repeated his success; +and came back with a bag of money and not so much as a shoestring. + +And then he besought his great Uncle of the waving goatee and starred +vest to accept his resignation, for the lotus no longer lured him. He +hankered for the spinach and cress of Dalesburg. + +The services of Mr. William Terence Keogh as acting consul, _pro tem._, +were suggested and accepted, and Johnny sailed with the Hemstetters +back to his native shores. + +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 rumours 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 letter-heads a +scheme that dwarfed the art of misrepresenting the human countenance +upon tin. + +“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 is—something 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 my stack.” + +The grass-grown 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. In these modern days he +rides abroad, seeking the Graft instead of the Grail. + +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. He looked up at his visitor. + +“Where’s Johnny Atwood?” inquired the sunburned young man, in a +business tone. + +“Gone,” said Keogh, working carefully at Uncle Sam’s necktie. + +“That’s just like him,” remarked the nut-brown one, leaning against the +table. “He always was a fellow to gallivant around instead of ’tending +to business. Will he be in soon?” + +“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.” + +“I’m looking after the business just now,” admitted the _pro tem._ +consul. + +“Are you—then, say!—where’s the factory?” + +“What factory?” asked Keogh, with a mildly polite interest. + +“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 and hitch?” + +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 should +prove a dream. + +“For God’s sake, tell me,” said Keogh, earnestly, “are you Dink +Pawson?” + +“My name is Pinkney Dawson,” said the cornerer of the cockleburr +market. + +Billy Keogh slid rapturously and gently from his chair to his favourite +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 Irish-American, while a sunburned young man, +with a shrewd eye, looked on him with wonder and amazement. Also the +“tramp, tramp, tramp” of many well-shod feet in the streets outside. +Also the lonesome wash of the waves that beat along the historic shores +of the Spanish Main. + + + + +XIV +MASTERS OF ARTS + + +A two-inch 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 America to send down to Coralio a successor to Atwood, resigned. + +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 of Anchuria. These +characteristics, and the situation out of which Keogh hoped to wrest a +golden tribute, deserve chronicling contributive to the clear order of +events. + +President Losada—many called him Dictator—was a man whose genius would +have made him conspicuous even among Anglo-Saxons, 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 in the assumption of the +title of “The Illustrious Liberator,” had they not been accompanied by +a stupendous and amazing vanity that kept him in the less worthy ranks +of the dictators. + +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 wealth, but his +people had their share of the benefits. + +The joint in his armour 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 +splendour 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 honour. + +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 umbrella against the scattering drops of liquid fortune. + +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 rancour, and began to pack his +gripsack. For his new plot against stagnation along the Spanish Main +required of him a voyage overseas. + +Soon came the _Karlsefin_ again—she of the trampish habits—gleaning a +cargo of cocoanuts 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, and I’m not the man to desert it while it’s in the +early throes of tintypes.” + +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 White at the top of a tall +building in Tenth Street, New York City. + +Carolus White was smoking a cigarette and frying sausages over an oil +stove. He was only twenty-three, and had noble theories about art. + +“Billy Keogh!” exclaimed White, extending the hand that was not busy +with the frying pan. “From what part of the uncivilized world, I +wonder!” + +“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 +free-lunch 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 green clouds and +band-wagon is just the sort of thing we want. What would you call that, +Carry—scene from Coney Island, ain’t it?” + +“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.” + +“Cereal food or hair-tonic posters?” asked White. + +“It isn’t an ad.” + +“What kind of a picture is it to be?” + +“It’s a long story,” said Keogh. + +“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 shade deeper than a Vandyke +brown and you spoil ’em.” + +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 labours. It was not an unreasonable hope, +even to those who had 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 rigour of the bare studio +for a snug corner of a café. 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 wall-paper. + +“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 in Italy. I’ll begin to pack to-morrow.” + +“You’ll begin in ten minutes,” said Keogh. “It’s to-morrow now. The +_Karlsefin_ starts back at four P.M. Come on to your painting shop, and +I’ll help you.” + +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 pleasure-loving +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, show and patriotic demonstrations of +enthusiasm and delight. + +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 coy-eyed, 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, pleasure—the man-made 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 English-speaking 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 demonstration of the idea he +wished to keep before the public. + +He and White engaged rooms in the Hotel de los Estranjeros. 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 Coralio—even the gorgeously uniformed officers of the +Anchurian army—were as conspicuous for ease and elegance of demeanour +as Keogh and his friend, the great American painter, Señor 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 rôle 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 steam-yacht ain’t in it with a +camera. You see a man doing nothing but loafing around making +snap-shots, and you know right away he reads up well in ‘Bradstreet.’ +You notice these old millionaire boys—soon 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 four-carat +scarf-pin.” So Keogh strolled blandly about Coralio, snapping the +scenery and the shrinking señoritas, while White posed conspicuously in +the higher regions of art. + +Two weeks after their arrival, the scheme began to bear fruit. An +aide-de-camp of the president drove to the hotel in a dashing victoria. +The president desired that Señor White come to the Casa Morena for an +informal interview. + +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 equivalent—don’t let him stick you with this bargain-counter +stuff they call money here.” + +“Perhaps it isn’t that he wants,” said White. + +“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 down-trodden 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 point. + +“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 finger-ends. He’s a kind of combination of Julius Cæsar, +Lucifer and Chauncey Depew done in sepia. Polite and grim—that’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 to-morrow and discuss with him the details of the +picture.” + +Keogh hung his head. Self-abasement was easy to read in his downcast +countenance. + +“I’m failing, Carry,” he said, sorrowfully. “I’m not fit to handle +these man’s-size schemes any longer. Peddling oranges in a push-cart 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. Say—Carry—you’ll +see old man Keogh safe in some nice, quiet idiot asylum, won’t you, if +he makes a break like that again?” + +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 steamer-chair on the balcony. + +“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. His face was flushed, and his eyes +were bright with a kind of angry amusement. + +“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 centre 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 him—Queen 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 bock-beer signs and +oleographs of the Old Mill. Mine’s the art of Business. This was my +scheme, and it worked out like two-and-two. 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, Carry, at +this stage of the game. Think of that ten thousand.” + +“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 of foreign study to me, and I’d almost sell my soul for that.” + +“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 five hundred.” + +“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 girl—nothing 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 how it +is?” + +“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 let’s land that hatful of dollars.” + +“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 can.” + +“That’s business,” said Keogh heartily. “Good boy! Now, here’s another +thing—rush that picture—crowd 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 want that picture done and paid for before there’s any +row.” + +In the great _patio_ of Casa Morena, the president caused to be +stretched a huge canvas. Under this White set up his temporary studio. +For two hours each day the great man sat to him. + +White worked faithfully. But, as the work progressed, he had seasons of +bitter scorn, of infinite self-contempt, of sullen gloom and sardonic +gaiety. Keogh, with the patience of a great general, soothed, coaxed, +argued—kept him at the picture. + +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 time he left the hotel, silent under his friend’s joyful talk +of their success. + +An hour later he walked into the room where Keogh was waiting, threw +his hat on the floor, and sat upon the table. + +“Billy,” he said, in strained and labouring 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 you back what you’ve lost on this scheme.” + +“Lost!” exclaimed Keogh, jumping up. “Didn’t you get paid for the +picture?” + +“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 ten-thousand-dollar 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 high-pitched cries. “_Bajo el traidor—Muerte +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 side-partner in a scheme the +man has got to go before a notary and swear he never even heard the +word ‘ideal’ mentioned.” + +Keogh strode from the room, white-hot. White paid little attention to +his resentment. The scorn of Billy Keogh seemed a trifling thing beside +the greater self-scorn he had escaped. + +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, pink-cheeked 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 long-enduring people had +determined to make their protest felt. + +On that night, in Coralio and in other towns, their ire found vent. +Yelling mobs, mercurial but dangerous, roamed the streets. They +overthrew the great bronze statue of the president that stood in the +centre 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. All the +night terror reigned. + +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 negotiations of any kind had been entered +into with England. Sir Stafford Vaughn, the pink-cheeked 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 red-tiled roofs. + +About the middle of the afternoon, Keogh hurried back to the hotel with +something decidedly special in his air. He retired to the little room +where he developed his pictures. + +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 × 5 photograph +mounted on cardboard. + +“Snap-shot of a señorita sitting in the sand—alliteration +unintentional,” guessed White, lazily. + +“Wrong,” said Keogh with shining eyes. “It’s a slung-shot. It’s a can +of dynamite. It’s a gold mine. It’s a sight-draft on your president man +for twenty thousand dollars—yes, sir—twenty 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 skinned to death with a kodak. Take a +look at that.” + +White took the picture in his hand, and gave a long whistle. + +“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 get it, Billy?” + +“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 deal—you +see they took that way in the picture.” + +Keogh put on his coat and hat. + +“What are you going to do with it?” asked White. + +“Me,” said Keogh in a hurt tone, “why, I’m going to tie a pink ribbon +to it and hang it on the what-not, of course. I’m surprised at you. But +while I’m out you just try to figure out what ginger-cake potentate +would be most likely to want to buy this work of art for his private +collection—just to keep it out of circulation.” + +The sunset was reddening the tops of the cocoanut 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 plenty-able 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 one-thousand-dollar +brand-new United States Treasury notes he laid on the table, like I’d +pay out a dollar and a quarter. Fine notes, too—they crackled with a +sound like burning the brush off a ten-acre lot.” + +“Let’s try the feel of one,” said White, curiously. “I never saw a +thousand-dollar bill.” Keogh did not immediately respond. + +“Carry,” he said, in an absent-minded way, “you think a heap of your +art, don’t you?” + +“More,” said White, frankly, “than has been for the financial good of +myself 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 to—well, when you’ve got the other fellow cinched, and the screws +on him, and he’s got to put up—why, 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 feels—it’s something like that blamed art of +yours—he—well, 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 your joint when you +get back to New York.” + + + + +XV +DICKY + + +There is little consecutiveness along the Spanish Main. Things happen +there intermittently. Even Time seems to 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 +arm-in-arm, lightly eschewing for the time all differences of opinion. + +The failure of the art expedition did not stretch the cat-footed 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 the +Cordilleras. + +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 Calao, 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 home-man, 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 sea. + +Well may the Walrus, most discerning and eclectic of beasts, place +sealing-wax midway on his programme of topics that fall pertinent and +diverting upon the ear. + +Atwood was gone—he of the hospitable back porch and ingenuous cunning. +Dr. Gregg, with his trepanning story smouldering 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 greens—he 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 contingent of +Coralio. + +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 his place among the odd fish +cast up by the Caribbean. + +He was an active, devil-may-care, 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-and-easy 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 Indians—fibre-and-silk-woven 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 +side-door of the Hotel de los Estranjeros. He stopped in his tracks, +still, for the first time in Coralio; and then he sped, swift as a +deer, to find Vasquez, a gilded native youth, to present him. + +The young men had named Pasa “_La Santita Naranjadita_.” _Naranjadita_ +is a Spanish word for a certain colour that you must go to more trouble +to describe in English. By saying “The little saint, tinted the most +beautiful-delicate-slightly-orange-golden,” you will approximate the +description of Madama Ortiz’s daughter. + +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 rum-making, mind you, is a government monopoly; and to +keep a government dispensary assures respectability if not preëminence. +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 +deceased husband been _comisionado de caminos y puentes_ for the +district? + +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 differently. + +Doña 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 more—more contiguous cavaliers were all lies. At +somewhat regular intervals Madama would glide in from the dispensary +with a sort of drought-suggesting gleam in her eye, and there would be +a rustling of stiffly-starched white trousers as one of the caballeros +would propose an adjournment to the bar. + +That Dicky Maloney would, sooner or later, explore this field was a +thing to be foreseen. There were few doors in Coralio into which his +red head had not been poked. + +In an incredibly short space of time after his first sight of her he +was there, seated close beside her rocking chair. There were no +back-against-the-wall 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_—that was +Dicky’s way. + +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 red-haired scamp with a glib tongue and a charming smile that +came along and courted her properly. + +Very soon Dicky took her to the little church on the corner of the +plaza, and “Mrs. Maloney” was added to her string of distinguished +names. + +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 his 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 meat-cows,” she said, in her level, crystal-clear 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 holds— Oh, you will never understand! Blind ones who have +never known a _man_.” + +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 conspirator-like men with dark clothes and +hats. Of course, these dark doings were noticed after a while, and +talked about. + +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 Dr. Gregg is still referred to, in Coralio, as +a masterpiece of lightning diplomacy. + +Many letters arrived, addressed to “Mr. Dicky Maloney,” or “Señor +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 for you! + +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 Señor el +Coronel Encarnación Rios, looked upon the little saint seated in the +shop and felt his heart go pitapat. + +The _comandante_, who was versed in all the intricate arts 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 a +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 the street, senseless. + +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 reënforcements +of eight. Deeming the odds against them sufficiently reduced, the +military advanced upon the disturber. + +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 squealing rear and hacking at its ginger-coloured heels. + +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 military for its defeat. + +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 sad-faced women bearing plantains, cassaba, bread and fruit—each +coming with food to some wretch behind those bars to whom she still +clung and furnished the means of life. Twice a day—morning and +evening—they 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, flute-like 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 wait—a little while. I come again +in the morning.” + +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 it—whatever that might have been. He +knew very well that money would have bought his release at once. + +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 eyes. She seemed as calm as ever. + +“By jingo,” said Dicky, who seemed to speak in English or Spanish as +the whim seized him, “this is dry provender, _muchachita_. Is this the +best you can dig up for a fellow?” + +Pasa looked at him as a mother looks at a beloved but capricious babe. + +“Think better of it,” she said, in a low voice; “since for the next +meal there will be nothing. The last _centavo_ is spent.” She pressed +closer against the grating. + +“Sell the goods in the shop—take anything for them.” + +“Have I not tried? Did I not offer them for one-tenth their cost? Not +even one _peso_ would any one give. There is not one _real_ in this +town to assist Dickee Malonee.” + +Dick clenched his teeth grimly. “That’s the _comandante_,” he growled. +“He’s responsible for that sentiment. Wait, oh, wait till the cards are +all out.” + +Pasa lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “And, listen, heart of my +heart,” she said, “I have endeavoured to be brave, but I cannot live +without thee. Three days now—” + +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 harbour. Dicky called to the sentry who +was pacing before the door: “What steamer comes?” + +“The _Catarina_.” + +“Of the Vesuvius line?” + +“Without doubt, of that line.” + +“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 head shall rest upon this arm to-night.” + +It was an hour before the consul came. He held his green umbrella under +his arm, and mopped his forehead impatiently. + +“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 +comfortable—or newspapers—” + +“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 in your room.” + +“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 red—any 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 Company had a habit of doing things that way in Anchuria. + +“I am exceedingly sorry—exceedingly sorry,” said the captain, “to see +this occur. I place myself at your service, Mr. Maloney. What you need +shall be furnished. Whatever you say shall be done.” + +Dicky looked at him unsmilingly. His red hair could not detract from +his attitude of severe dignity as he stood, tall and calm, with his now +grim mouth forming a horizontal line. + +“Captain De Lucco, I believe I still have funds in the hands of your +company—ample and personal funds. I ordered a remittance last week. The +money has not arrived. You know what is needed in this game. Money and +money and more money. Why has it not been sent?” + +“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 dollars. There is more if you +need it, Mr. Maloney.” + +“For the present it will suffice,” said Dicky, softening as he crinkled +the envelope and looked down at the half-inch thickness of smooth, +dingy bills. + +“The long green!” he said, gently, with a new reverence in his gaze. +“Is there anything it will not buy, Captain?” + +“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 loved.” + +“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 it—it is not—it 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, _capitán 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: + +“Am I _preso_ by the military or by the civil authority?” + +“Surely there is no martial law in effect now, señor.” + +“_Bueno_. Now go or send to the alcalde, the _Jues 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 +sergeant’s hand. + +Then Dicky’s smile came back again, for he knew that the hours of his +captivity were numbered; and he hummed, in time with the sentry’s +tread: + +“They’re hanging men and women now, + For lacking of the green.” + + +So, that night Dicky sat by the window of the room over his shop and +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, to-night, 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 he +looked up, inquiringly. + +“It is sad for you here,” she explained. “Go out and drink _vino +blanco_. Come back when you get that smile you used to wear. That is +what I wish to see.” + +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 maps or frowns to-night. I promise you that. Come.” + +They sat upon a reed _silleta_ at the window and watched the quivering +gleams from the lights of the _Catarina_ reflected in the harbour. + +Presently Pasa rippled out one of her infrequent chirrups of audible +laughter. + +“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 word, _santita mia_, and we’ll make the race.” + +“No, no, no, thou red-haired, reckless one!” sighed Pasa; “I am +content”—she laid her head against his arm—“here.” + + + + +XVI +ROUGE ET NOIR + + +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 and with a cash capital somewhat larger than Anchuria’s +surplus and debt combined. + +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 +bananas—a thing unprecedented in fruit-growing 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 good-will 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 _reals_ 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 _reals_ for it; and not suffering the growers to bear the +loss. + +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. Señor Espirition, of the office of the Minister of +Finance, attempted the sandbagging in behalf of Anchuria. The meeting +took place in the cabin of the _Salvador_, of the Vesuvius line. + +Señor 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 of +offering twenty-five. + +Did Señor Espirition understand Señor Franzoni to mean twenty-five +thousand _pesos_? + +By no means. Twenty-five _pesos_. And in silver; not in gold. + +“Your offer insults my government,” cried Señor Espirition, rising with +indignation. + +“Then,” said Mr. Franzoni, in warning tone, “_we will change it_.” + +The offer was never changed. Could Mr. Franzoni have meant the +government? + +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 narrow-gauge 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 season saw an +ominous dawning of the tenth of November. + +Although the rainy season was over, the day seemed to hark back to +reeking June. A fine drizzle of rain fell all during the forenoon. The +procession entered Coralio amid a strange silence. + +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 regiment of the regular +army. + +The president’s sharp, beady eyes glanced about him for the expected +demonstration of welcome; but he faced a stolid, indifferent array of +citizens. Sight-seers the Anchurians are by birth and habit, and they +turned out to their last able-bodied 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 new idol before they destroyed an old one. + +At length, after a prodigious galloping and curvetting of red-sashed +majors, gold-laced 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 military and +social ornaments of public and private life. + +As the band struck up, and the movement began, like a bird of ill-omen +the _Valhalla_, the swiftest steamship of the Vesuvius line, glided +into the harbour in plain view of the president and his train. Of +course, there was nothing menacing about its arrival—a business firm +does not go to war with a nation—but it reminded Señor Espirition and +others in those carriages that the Vesuvius Fruit Company was +undoubtedly carrying something up its sleeve for them. + +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 good-humoured 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 recognized their presence. + +Dicky had attired himself becomingly for the festive occasion in a +well-fitting 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 tangled with the women. I hoped +he would keep away from them.” + +Captain Cronin’s laugh almost drew attention from the parade. + +“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 your play, +gentlemen. Our money is on the red.” + +“The lad’s game,” said Cronin, with a commending look at the tall, easy +figure by the steps. “But ’tis all like fly-by-night theatricals to me. +The talk’s bigger than the stage; there’s a smell of gasoline in the +air, and they’re their own audience and scene-shifters.” + +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 +honoured guest at European courts and camps. An eloquent speaker and a +friend to the people, he represented the highest type of the +Anchurians. + +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 régime 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 with which they were bound fluttered in the breeze. + +“It still blows,” cried the speaker, exultantly. “Citizens of Anchuria, +give thanks to the saints this night that our air is still free.” + +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 years +before the ambitious and scheming Losada had gained his goal. + +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 approbation. + +The first public expression of sentiment from the people that day +followed. A low, sustained murmur went among them like the surf rolling +along the shore. + +“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. “Long-winded old boy, for his age. What’s he talking about?” + +“My Spanish,” replied Vincenti, “runs about ten words to the minute; +his is something around two hundred. Whatever he’s saying, he’s getting +them warmed up.” + +“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 joy—I would bring him back to +you, but—Olivarra is dead—dead at the hands of a craven assassin!” + +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 cushions. + +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. +Losada sank back again, his dark features distinctly paling. + +“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 spirit—yes, +more—his learning, his courage, his kindness—yes, more—his youth, his +image—people of Anchuria, have you forgotten Ramon, the son of +Olivarra?” + +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 lion-like 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 to Casa +Morena, “I am here to deliver these keys—the keys to your homes and +liberty—to your chosen president. Shall I deliver them to Enrico +Olivarra’s assassin, or to his son?” + +“Olivarra! Olivarra!” the crowd shrieked and howled. All vociferated +the magic name—men, women, children and the parrots. + +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 about the steps of Casa Morena. + +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, he took the +proletariat to his bosom—the barefooted, the dirty, Indians, Caribs, +babies, beggars, old, young, saints, soldiers and sinners—he 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 well-barred stone apartments +in Coralio. + +“_Rouge_ wins,” said Mr. Vincenti, calmly lighting another cigar. + +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 Mavourneen.” + +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, wonder-eyed, 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 Olivarra stepped forward and took both her hands before all the +people. + +And while the cheering was breaking out afresh everywhere, Captain +Cronin and Mr. Vincenti turned and walked back toward the shore where +the gig was waiting for them. + +“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 manœuvred 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 backed him in the little game.” + +“It’s a glorious thing,” said Cronin, half jestingly, “to be able to +discharge a government, and insert one of your own choosing, in these +days.” + +“Oh, it is only a matter 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 to-day. That extra _real_ on +the price of bananas had to go. We took the shortest way of removing +it.” + + + + +XVII +TWO RECALLS + + +There remains three duties to be performed before the curtain falls +upon the patched comedy. Two have been promised: the third is no less +obligatory. + +It was set forth in the programme of this tropic vaudeville that it +would be made known why Shorty O’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 cocoanut palm during his lonely +night vigil on the beach. These things were promised; but a bigger +thing yet remains to be accomplished—the 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 things. + +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 companion. + +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 high-bridged, rubicund nose was jauntily perched a pair +of shining and flawless gold-rimmed 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 seed—seed +that, perhaps, no soil might sprout. But there were still cross-cuts +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 +sting-ray, 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 +again, though shorn of the accessories of his former state. + +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 couple of them, O’Day, when the next broken crate comes up.” + +“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 for them. I’ll tell you about it. + +“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 address the chief wrote from was down in the Wall Street +district. + +“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 gripsack—all the family he had. + +“One of the directors had his steam yacht coaled and with steam up, +ready for the 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 Wahrfield—that was his name, J. +Churchill Wahrfield—would 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 +York—he had been foxy there—but I had his description. And besides, the +lady with him would be a dead-give-away anywhere. She was one of the +high-flyers in Society—not the kind that have their pictures in the +Sunday papers—but the real sort that open chrysanthemum shows and +christen battleships. + +“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 +ratty-looking 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 rattled and short on nerve. + +“After dark I sat under a cocoanut 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 better do it than to hit that monkey town with a million. + +“Dinky little mud houses; grass over your shoe tops in the streets; +ladies in low-neck-and-short-sleeves walking around smoking cigars; +tree frogs 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 +front—no, sir—a man had better be in God’s country living on free lunch +than there. + +“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 +cocoanut 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 girl—a regular peach, with a Fifth Avenue +cut—was 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 why I want you.’ + +“‘Who are you?’ says the old gent. + +“‘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 and waited. + +“Then the young lady chipped in. She was one of the genuine +high-steppers. You could tell by the way her clothes fit and the style +she had that Fifth Avenue was made for her. + +“‘Come inside,’ she says. ‘Don’t stand in the door and disturb the +whole street with that suit of clothes. Now, what is it you want?’ + +“‘Three minutes gone,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell you again while the other two +tick off. + +“‘You’ll admit being the president of the Republic, won’t you?’ + +“‘I am,’ says he. + +“‘Well, then,’ says I, ‘it ought to be plain to you. Wanted, in New +York, J. Churchill Wahrfield, president of the Republic Insurance +Company. + +“‘Also the funds belonging to said company, now in that grip, in the +unlawful possession of said J. Churchill Wahrfield.’ + +“‘Oh-h-h-h!’ 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 returning with your father.’ + +“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 shiver to hear the tremolo stop she put on her voice. + +“The old boy looked pretty bughouse when she first grappled him, but +she went on, whispering in his ear and patting his off shoulder till he +stood still, but sweating a little. + +“She got him to one side and they talked together a minute, and then he +put on some gold eyeglasses and walked up and handed me the grip. + +“‘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 upon the mercy of the Republic Company. Have you +brought a sheep?’ + +“‘Sheep!’ says I; ‘I haven’t a single—’ + +“‘Ship,’ cut in the young lady. ‘Don’t get funny. Father is of German +birth, and doesn’t speak perfect English. How did you come?’ + +“The girl was all broke up. She had a handkerchief to her face, and +kept saying every little bit, ‘Oh, father, father!’ She walked up to me +and laid her lily-white hand on the clothes that had pained her at +first. I smelt a million violets. She was a lulu. I told her I came in +a private yacht. + +“‘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 mind. + +“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 agreed to humour them. + +“The sailors who rowed me ashore were playing billiards in a bar-room +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 knowing but what the +monkeys might stick me up. + +“The young lady says the old coloured 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, señor,’ maybe fifty times, and lights out +with the note. + +“‘Old 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 +German family in San Domingo.’ + +“‘Very likely,’ I said. ‘But you can search me for German words, except +_nix verstay_ and _noch einst_. I would have called that “See, señor” +French, though, on a gamble.’ + +“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 cocoanut tree, with a ten-foot +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. ‘Thus,’ +he says, ‘they perform trusts. Children!’ + +“I saw our boat coming, and I struck a match and lit a piece of +newspaper to show them where we were. In thirty minutes we were on +board the yacht. + +“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 +champagne—that director’s yacht was a regular floating +Waldorf-Astoria—she 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 clear through. She was sure enough _bon ton_ +and swell. She wasn’t one of the ‘among others present’ kind; she +belonged on the special mention list! + +“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 belongs when we finish to +arrive.’ + +“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. ‘There’s the +money,’ I said. + +“‘And your prisoner?’ said the chief. + +“I pointed to Mr. Wahrfield, and he stepped forward and says: + +“‘The honour of a word with you, sir, to explain.’ + +“He and the chief went into another room and stayed ten minutes. When +they came back the chief looked as black as a ton of coal. + +“‘Did this gentleman,’ he says to me, ‘have this valise in his +possession when you first saw him?’ + +“‘He did,’ said I. + +“The chief took up the grip and handed it to the prisoner with a bow, +and says to the director crowd: ‘Do any of you recognize this +gentleman?’ + +“They all shook their pink faces. + +“‘Allow me to present,’ he goes on, Señor Miraflores, president of the +republic of Anchuria. The señor 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.’ + +“They gave him a pink nod all round. + +“‘O’Day,’ he says to me. ‘As a private detective you’re wasted. In a +war, where kidnapping governments is in the rules, you’d be invaluable. +Come down to the office at eleven.’ + +“I knew what that meant. + +“‘So that’s the president of the monkeys,’ says I. ‘Well, why couldn’t +he have said so?’ + +“Wouldn’t it jar you?” + + + + +XVIII +THE VITAGRAPHOSCOPE + + +Vaudeville is intrinsically episodic and discontinuous. Its audiences +do not demand dénouements. Sufficient unto each “turn” is the evil +thereof. No one cares how many romances the singing comédienne 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 bicyclist +who retires head-first from the stage in a crash of (property) +china-ware. Neither do they consider that their seat coupons entitle +them to be instructed whether or no there is a sentiment between the +lady solo banjoist and the Irish monologist. + +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 fifty-cent seats. + +But our programme 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 will understand. + +_Extracts from a letter from the first vice-president of the Republic +Insurance Company, of New York City, to Frank Goodwin, of Coralio, +Republic of Anchuria._ + +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… + + +Cordially yours, +Lucius E. Applegate, +First Vice-President the Republic Insurance Company. + +_The Vitagraphoscope_ +(Moving Pictures) + +_The Last Sausage_ + +SCENE—_An 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 centre of the studio. The artist rises, tightens his waist belt +to another hole, and lights the stove. He goes to a tin bread box, +half-hidden by a screen, takes out a solitary link of sausage, turns +the box upside-down to show that there is no more, and chucks the +sausage into a frying-pan, 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 ruddy-faced, 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 pot-metal 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. + +_The Writing on the Sands_ + +SCENE—_The 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 +impermanent—you wait, expectant, for her to spring or glide or crawl, +like a panther that has unaccountably become stock-still. 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, even +if no longer comrades. His face is dark and smooth, and almost +inscrutable—but 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. + +_The Wilderness and Thou_ + +SCENE—_The Borders of a Gentleman’s Estate in a Tropical Land._ An old +Indian, with a mahogany-coloured 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 stand a man who is stalwart, with a kind and +courteous air, and a woman of a serene and clear-cut loveliness. When +the old Indian comes up to them the man drops money in his hand. The +grave-tender, 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 field of the moving pictures with two +walking together in it? + +CURTAIN + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CABBAGES AND KINGS *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. 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