JIM TRIES STRATEGY.
Jim Morrison was not discouraged, but for the moment he was nonplused.
As the reader must have discovered, he was a very impulsive young man.
As they used to say in the dime novels, "To think was to act with Jack
Dalton"; and because Jim acted instantly upon his impulses he had got
into hot water more than once.
A very rich young man cannot violently rush theatrical ladies in the
city of New York without waking up married in New Jersey or Connecticut
sooner or later, and if such a fate had not befallen Jim, it was more
through good luck than good judgment.
On several occasions a pair of fine eyes had bowled him over, but he
had recovered when he knew the lady better; in the case of Ellen Goring
he was certain he would never recover. The effect that girl had upon
him when he set eyes on her in the hotel dining room was as different
from the feeling with which Gladys Gower had inspired in him as
sunlight is from moonlight. Ordinarily he didn't make such an idiot of
himself as he had done upon the two occasions he had encountered Ellen:
he had acted like a drunken man, but he was drunk, not on liquor as she
had charged, but upon a pair of amazing brown eyes.
He had blurted out that insane proposal to a girl to whom he hadn't
been introduced because he could not help himself; and he had been
in a fever when he bought a load of flowers and followed her to the
consulate. The mouthings of that small-town politician, her father, had
not bothered him in the slightest until the old man had stated that
Ellen wanted him deported from Rosa Blanca. That was like emptying a
pail of ice water upon his devoted head.
So far, in his twenty-five years, he had always got what he wanted
from everybody, and when he paid court to young women he had found
them responsive. Was it possible that this girl, the only one he could
ever love, was not going to love him in return? Had he made such a sad
impression on her that she disliked him? If she wanted him deported she
couldn't like him very much. He shook his head.
"Wrong tactics," he muttered. "Can't rush a swell girl like that off
her feet."
It's possible he might have been completely discouraged had it not been
for the titter which he had heard from above while arguing with the
old gentleman. It was exceedingly unlikely that Ellen's mother would
giggle; the servants probably did not understand English; and that left
only the young lady to be considered as the author of the mirthful
sound.
Deport him? He would show her. But he had to find some way to meet her
if he couldn't call at the consulate or speak to her in the street. Get
somebody to invite her to dinner and seat him beside her and then she
would have to talk.
Upon his arrival in Rosa Blanca _en route_ for the plantation he had
stopped in the sweltering seaport only long enough to procure an
automobile to take him into the hills, but Morrison's had a manager
in the city and that gentleman would have to be nice to the son of
Tom Morrison. From him he could find out a lot about the Gorings, and
if the manager had a wife he might confide in her and persuade her to
square him with Ellen.
This manager was a sun-browned, hard-drinking individual of middle age
named Jefferson Tillman, who had met Jim at the boat and capered about
in his anxiety to be of service. Look him up.
Cramming his straw hat upon his blond head, Jim left the hotel and
walked three blocks to the office of the Morrison Company, a gloomy
looking interior, darkened in a vain effort to keep it cool. There he
found Mr. Tillman in a small room at the rear with his feet upon a desk
reading a New York newspaper a fortnight old. Mr. Tillman leaped to his
feet and came forward with both hands extended in welcome.
"I've been to your hotel twice this morning, Mr. Morrison," he
exclaimed. "I only heard late last night you had got in. How did you
find things at the plantations?"
"Nothing there but a lot of bananas," he retorted as he threw himself
into a swivel chair and put his own feet on the desk. "Say, this is
probably the hottest and dirtiest town in all Central America. I'll go
further and say in the world."
"You're lucky you don't have to live here," replied Tillman as he
seated himself again. "I heard you canceled your passage on to-day's
boat. Why?"
"I'm detained here on business," replied the heir of the Morrison
banana business. "I have to wait till I persuade a girl to marry me,
and it's going to take time by the looks of it. Years, maybe, the way
she feels about me now."
"Not a Spanish girl? Not somebody you met in the hills?"
"The future Mrs. Morrison is known at present as Ellen Goring, and her
old man is our consul in this interesting city. I am afraid he doesn't
like me very much."
* * * * *
"Ellen Goring!" cried Mr. Tillman. "By Jove, you've picked a corker!
That's one of the finest girls I've ever known, and my wife says so,
too. So you're going to marry Ellen? I'm tickled to death. You work
fast, young fellow. I suppose, though, you met her in America."
"It's like this, Tillman," he said, shamefacedly. "Miss Goring hasn't
exactly agreed yet. She isn't taking the situation in the right spirit.
In fact, she wants her father to have me deported."
"What? By the way you talked I thought it was almost settled," gasped
the properly astonished agent.
"It's settled in my mind, but not in hers. You see, she's prejudiced
against me by the fact that I had an argument with her father before I
knew who he was. I called him a superannuated ape."
"And so he is," declared Tillman with a laugh, "only that wasn't very
tactful of you."
"Well I had to overcome that and I tried plunging tactics. I stopped
her on the street this morning and told her I wanted to marry her. So
she wants me deported," he said ruefully.
"They couldn't deport you from this country, my boy. The Morrison Fruit
Company is practically the government. But it's too bad you were so
precipitate."
"I don't think she really meant it, but her father thinks she did.
Anyway, I'm forbidden the consulate, and she'll probably call a cop if
I speak to her again on the street, so I wondered if you and your wife
couldn't throw a party and sort of give me a chance to have a talk with
her. Give me five minutes alone with that girl--" His spirits soared at
the idea.
The agent reached for his hand and shook it heartily. "You bet we
shall," he exclaimed. "I'll talk it over with Mary at lunch. Suppose
you come home with me and have lunch with us. Mary is crazy about Ellen
and she was saying only last night it would be terrible if that girl
threw herself away upon Carlo Lopez."
"What's that? Who?"
"Carlo Lopez, the minister of war. He is very rich and he has been
paying her attentions. I think her father favors him."
"Say," shouted Morrison. "Do you mean to say that old catawampus would
let his daughter marry one of these 'high-yallars' down here?"
"Lopez is as white as you or I. He is a Castilian, young, handsome and
rich, as I have said. Ellen seems to like him."
"Yeah? Well, we'll soon change all that. The minister of war. Eight
generals and two privates, that's his army, I suppose."
"No, no," protested Tillman. "They have a pretty good little army
here. About five thousand well trained, well armed men. Morrison money
armed and equipped them when President Garcia was a revolutionist and
overthrew the government of President Moreno. I don't suppose I should
tell you this, though."
"I wish I had called that old man something worse than an ape. He's an
unnatural father. He's a scoundrel!"
"No. Just a loud-mouthed old jackass. He's flattered by the attentions
of Lopez, but he couldn't make Ellen do something she didn't want to.
She has a will of her own, that girl."
"Come on. We'll go see your wife," Jim commanded. "Good Lord, we've got
to get things started right away. I never dreamed I was up against any
competition. I've got to get going."