“‘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