JOHNNY.

“I throw in that postscript,” explained the consul, “so Uncle Obadiah

won’t take offence at the official tone of the letter! Now, Billy, you

get that correspondence fixed up, and send Pancho to the post-office

with it. The _Ariadne_ takes the mail out to-morrow if they make up

that load of fruit to-day.”

The night programme in Coralio never varied. The recreations of the

people were soporific and flat. They wandered about, barefoot and

aimless, speaking lowly and smoking cigar or cigarette. Looking down on

the dimly lighted ways one seemed to see a threading maze of brunette

ghosts tangled with a procession of insane fireflies. In some houses

the thrumming of lugubrious guitars added to the depression of the

_triste_ night. Giant tree-frogs rattled in the foliage as loudly as

the end man’s “bones” in a minstrel troupe. By nine o’clock the streets

were almost deserted.

Nor at the consulate was there often a change of bill. Keogh would come

there nightly, for Coralio’s one cool place was the little seaward

porch of that official residence.

The brandy would be kept moving; and before midnight sentiment would

begin to stir in the heart of the self-exiled consul. Then he would

relate to Keogh the story of his ended romance. Each night Keogh would

listen patiently to the tale, and be ready with untiring sympathy.

“But don’t you think for a minute”—thus Johnny would always conclude

his woeful narrative—“that I’m grieving about that girl, Billy. I’ve

forgotten her. She never enters my mind. If she were to enter that door

right now, my pulse wouldn’t gain a beat. That’s all over long ago.”

“Don’t I know it?” Keogh would answer. “Of course you’ve forgotten her.

Proper thing to do. Wasn’t quite O. K. of her to listen to the knocks

that—er—Dink Pawson kept giving you.”

“Pink Dawson!”—a world of contempt would be in Johnny’s tones—“Poor

white trash! That’s what he was. Had five hundred acres of farming

land, though; and that counted. Maybe I’ll have a chance to get back at

him some day. The Dawsons weren’t anybody. Everybody in Alabama knows

the Atwoods. Say, Billy—did you know my mother was a De Graffenreid?”

“Why, no,” Keogh would say; “is that so?” He had heard it some three

hundred times.

“Fact. The De Graffenreids of Hancock County. But I never think of that

girl any more, do I, Billy?”

“Not for a minute, my boy,” would be the last sounds heard by the

conqueror of Cupid.

At this point Johnny would fall into a gentle slumber, and Keogh would

saunter out to his own shack under the calabash tree at the edge of the

plaza.

In a day or two the letter from the Dalesburg postmaster and its answer

had been forgotten by the Coralio exiles. But on the 26th day of July

the fruit of the reply appeared upon the tree of events.

The _Andador_, a fruit steamer that visited Coralio regularly, drew

into the offing and anchored. The beach was lined with spectators while

the quarantine doctor and the custom-house crew rowed out to attend to

their duties.

An hour later Billy Keogh lounged into the consulate, clean and cool in

his linen clothes, and grinning like a pleased shark.

“Guess what?” he said to Johnny, lounging in his hammock.

“Too hot to guess,” said Johnny, lazily.

“Your shoe-store man’s come,” said Keogh, rolling the sweet morsel on

his tongue, “with a stock of goods big enough to supply the continent

as far down as Terra del Fuego. They’re carting his cases over to the

custom-house now. Six barges full they brought ashore and have paddled

back for the rest. Oh, ye saints in glory! won’t there be regalements

in the air when he gets onto the joke and has an interview with Mr.

Consul? It’ll be worth nine years in the tropics just to witness that

one joyful moment.”

Keogh loved to take his mirth easily. He selected a clean place on the

matting and lay upon the floor. The walls shook with his enjoyment.

Johnny turned half over and blinked.

“Don’t tell me,” he said, “that anybody was fool enough to take that

letter seriously.”

“Four-thousand-dollar stock of goods!” gasped Keogh, in ecstasy. “Talk

about coals to Newcastle! Why didn’t he take a ship-load of palm-leaf

fans to Spitzbergen while he was about it? Saw the old codger on the

beach. You ought to have been there when he put on his specs and

squinted at the five hundred or so barefooted citizens standing

around.”

“Are you telling the truth, Billy?” asked the consul, weakly.

“Am I? You ought to see the buncoed gentleman’s daughter he brought

along. Looks! She makes the brick-dust señoritas here look like

tar-babies.”

“Go on,” said Johnny, “if you can stop that asinine giggling. I hate to

see a grown man make a laughing hyena of himself.”

“Name is Hemstetter,” went on Keogh. “He’s a— Hello! what’s the matter

now?”

Johnny’s moccasined feet struck the floor with a thud as he wriggled

out of his hammock.

“Get up, you idiot,” he said, sternly, “or I’ll brain you with this

inkstand. That’s Rosine and her father. Gad! what a drivelling idiot

old Patterson is! Get up, here, Billy Keogh, and help me. What the

devil are we going to do? Has all the world gone crazy?”

Keogh rose and dusted himself. He managed to regain a decorous

demeanour.

“Situation has got to be met, Johnny,” he said, with some success at

seriousness. “I didn’t think about its being your girl until you spoke.

First thing to do is to get them comfortable quarters. You go down and

face the music, and I’ll trot out to Goodwin’s and see if Mrs. Goodwin

won’t take them in. They’ve got the decentest house in town.”

“Bless you, Billy!” said the consul. “I knew you wouldn’t desert me.

The world’s bound to come to an end, but maybe we can stave it off for

a day or two.”

Keogh hoisted his umbrella and set out for Goodwin’s house. Johnny put

on his coat and hat. He picked up the brandy bottle, but set it down

again without drinking, and marched bravely down to the beach.

In the shade of the custom-house walls he found Mr. Hemstetter and

Rosine surrounded by a mass of gaping citizens. The customs officers

were ducking and scraping, while the captain of the _Andador_

interpreted the business of the new arrivals. Rosine looked healthy and

very much alive. She was gazing at the strange scenes around her with

amused interest. There was a faint blush upon her round cheek as she

greeted her old admirer. Mr. Hemstetter shook hands with Johnny in a

very friendly way. He was an oldish, impractical man—one of that

numerous class of erratic business men who are forever dissatisfied,

and seeking a change.

“I am very glad to see you, John—may I call you John?” he said. “Let me

thank you for your prompt answer to our postmaster’s letter of inquiry.

He volunteered to write to you on my behalf. I was looking about for

something different in the way of a business in which the profits would

be greater. I had noticed in the papers that this coast was receiving

much attention from investors. I am extremely grateful for your advice

to come. I sold out everything that I possess, and invested the

proceeds in as fine a stock of shoes as could be bought in the North.

You have a picturesque town here, John. I hope business will be as good

as your letter justifies me in expecting.”

Johnny’s agony was abbreviated by the arrival of Keogh, who hurried up

with the news that Mrs. Goodwin would be much pleased to place rooms at

the disposal of Mr. Hemstetter and his daughter. So there Mr.

Hemstetter and Rosine were at once conducted and left to recuperate

from the fatigue of the voyage, while Johnny went down to see that the

cases of shoes were safely stored in the customs warehouse pending

their examination by the officials. Keogh, grinning like a shark,

skirmished about to find Goodwin, to instruct him not to expose to Mr.

Hemstetter the true state of Coralio as a shoe market until Johnny had

been given a chance to redeem the situation, if such a thing were

possible.

That night the consul and Keogh held a desperate consultation on the

breezy porch of the consulate.

“Send ’em back home,” began Keogh, reading Johnny’s thoughts.

“I would,” said Johnny, after a little silence; “but I’ve been lying to

you, Billy.”

“All right about that,” said Keogh, affably.

“I’ve told you hundreds of times,” said Johnny, slowly, “that I had

forgotten that girl, haven’t I?”

“About three hundred and seventy-five,” admitted the monument of

patience.

“I lied,” repeated the consul, “every time. I never forgot her for one

minute. I was an obstinate ass for running away just because she said

‘No’ once. And I was too proud a fool to go back. I talked with Rosine

a few minutes this evening up at Goodwin’s. I found out one thing. You

remember that farmer fellow who was always after her?”

“Dink Pawson?” asked Keogh.

“Pink Dawson. Well, he wasn’t a hill of beans to her. She says she

didn’t believe a word of the things he told her about me. But I’m sewed

up now, Billy. That tomfool letter we sent ruined whatever chance I had

left. She’ll despise me when she finds out that her old father has been

made the victim of a joke that a decent school boy wouldn’t have been

guilty of. Shoes! Why he couldn’t sell twenty pairs of shoes in Coralio

if he kept store here for twenty years. You put a pair of shoes on one

of these Caribs or Spanish brown boys and what’d he do? Stand on his

head and squeal until he’d kicked ’em off. None of ’em ever wore shoes

and they never will. If I send ’em back home I’ll have to tell the

whole story, and what’ll she think of me? I want that girl worse than

ever, Billy, and now when she’s in reach I’ve lost her forever because

I tried to be funny when the thermometer was at 102.”

“Keep cheerful,” said the optimistic Keogh. “And let ’em open the

store. I’ve been busy myself this afternoon. We can stir up a temporary

boom in foot-gear anyhow. I’ll buy six pairs when the doors open. I’ve

been around and seen all the fellows and explained the catastrophe.

They’ll all buy shoes like they was centipedes. Frank Goodwin will take

cases of ’em. The Geddies want about eleven pairs between ’em. Clancy

is going to invest the savings of weeks, and even old Doc Gregg wants

three pairs of alligator-hide slippers if they’ve got any tens.

Blanchard got a look at Miss Hemstetter; and as he’s a Frenchman, no

less than a dozen pairs will do for him.”

“A dozen customers,” said Johnny, “for a $4,000 stock of shoes! It

won’t work. There’s a big problem here to figure out. You go home,

Billy, and leave me alone. I’ve got to work at it all by myself. Take

that bottle of Three-star along with you—no, sir; not another ounce of

booze for the United States consul. I’ll sit here to-night and pull out

the think stop. If there’s a soft place on this proposition anywhere

I’ll land on it. If there isn’t there’ll be another wreck to the credit

of the gorgeous tropics.”

Keogh left, feeling that he could be of no use. Johnny laid a handful

of cigars on a table and stretched himself in a steamer chair. When the

sudden daylight broke, silvering the harbour ripples, he was still

sitting there. Then he got up, whistling a little tune, and took his

bath.

At nine o’clock he walked down to the dingy little cable office and

hung for half an hour over a blank. The result of his application was

the following message, which he signed and had transmitted at a cost of

$33:

TO PINKNEY DAWSON,

Dalesburg, Ala.

Draft for $100 comes to you next mail. Ship me immediately 500

pounds stiff, dry cockleburrs. New use here in arts. Market price

twenty cents pound. Further orders likely. Rush.

XIII

SHIPS

Within a week a suitable building had been secured in the Calle Grande,

and Mr. Hemstetter’s stock of shoes arranged upon their shelves. The

rent of the store was moderate; and the stock made a fine showing of

neat white boxes, attractively displayed.

Johnny’s friends stood by him loyally. On the first day Keogh strolled

into the store in a casual kind of way about once every hour, and

bought shoes. After he had purchased a pair each of extension soles,

congress gaiters, button kids, low-quartered calfs, dancing pumps,

rubber boots, tans of various hues, tennis shoes and flowered slippers,

he sought out Johnny to be prompted as to names of other kinds that he

might inquire for. The other English-speaking residents also played

their parts nobly by buying often and liberally. Keogh was grand

marshal, and made them distribute their patronage, thus keeping up a

fair run of custom for several days.

Mr. Hemstetter was gratified by the amount of business done thus far;

but expressed surprise that the natives were so backward with their

custom.

“Oh, they’re awfully shy,” explained Johnny, as he wiped his forehead

nervously. “They’ll get the habit pretty soon. They’ll come with a rush

when they do come.”

One afternoon Keogh dropped into the consul’s office, chewing an

unlighted cigar thoughtfully.

“Got anything up your sleeve?” he inquired of Johnny. “If you have it’s

about time to show it. If you can borrow some gent’s hat in the

audience, and make a lot of customers for an idle stock of shoes come

out of it, you’d better spiel. The boys have all laid in enough

footwear to last ’em ten years; and there’s nothing doing in the shoe

store but dolcy far nienty. I just came by there. Your venerable victim

was standing in the door, gazing through his specs at the bare toes

passing by his emporium. The natives here have got the true artistic

temperament. Me and Clancy took eighteen tintypes this morning in two

hours. There’s been but one pair of shoes sold all day. Blanchard went

in and bought a pair of fur-lined house-slippers because he thought he

saw Miss Hemstetter go into the store. I saw him throw the slippers

into the lagoon afterwards.”

“There’s a Mobile fruit steamer coming in to-morrow or next day,” said

Johnny. “We can’t do anything until then.”

“What are you going to do—try to create a demand?”

“Political economy isn’t your strong point,” said the consul,

impudently. “You can’t create a demand. But you can create a necessity

for a demand. That’s what I am going to do.”

Two weeks after the consul sent his cable, a fruit steamer brought him

a huge, mysterious brown bale of some unknown commodity. Johnny’s

influence with the custom-house people was sufficiently strong for him

to get the goods turned over to him without the usual inspection. He

had the bale taken to the consulate and snugly stowed in the back room.

That night he ripped open a corner of it and took out a handful of the

cockleburrs. He examined them with the care with which a warrior

examines his arms before he goes forth to battle for his lady-love and

life. The burrs were the ripe August product, as hard as filberts, and

bristling with spines as tough and sharp as needles. Johnny whistled

softly a little tune, and went out to find Billy Keogh.

Later in the night, when Coralio was steeped in slumber, he and Billy

went forth into the deserted streets with their coats bulging like

balloons. All up and down the Calle Grande they went, sowing the sharp

burrs carefully in the sand, along the narrow sidewalks, in every foot

of grass between the silent houses. And then they took the side streets

and by-ways, missing none. No place where the foot of man, woman or

child might fall was slighted. Many trips they made to and from the

prickly hoard. And then, nearly at the dawn, they laid themselves down

to rest calmly, as great generals do after planning a victory according

to the revised tactics, and slept, knowing that they had sowed with the

accuracy of Satan sowing tares and the perseverance of Paul planting.

With the rising sun came the purveyors of fruits and meats, and

arranged their wares in and around the little market-house. At one end

of the town near the seashore the market-house stood; and the sowing of

the burrs had not been carried that far. The dealers waited long past

the hour when their sales usually began. None came to buy. “_Qué hay?_”

they began to exclaim, one to another.

At their accustomed time, from every ’dobe and palm hut and

grass-thatched shack and dim _patio_ glided women—black women, brown

women, lemon-colored women, women dun and yellow and tawny. They were

the marketers starting to purchase the family supply of cassava,

plantains, meat, fowls, and tortillas. Décolleté they were and

bare-armed and bare-footed, with a single skirt reaching below the

knee. Stolid and ox-eyed, they stepped from their doorways into the

narrow paths or upon the soft grass of the streets.

The first to emerge uttered ambiguous squeals, and raised one foot

quickly. Another step and they sat down, with shrill cries of alarm, to

pick at the new and painful insects that had stung them upon the feet.

“_Qué picadores diablos!_” they screeched to one another across the

narrow ways. Some tried the grass instead of the paths, but there they

were also stung and bitten by the strange little prickly balls. They

plumped down in the grass, and added their lamentations to those of

their sisters in the sandy paths. All through the town was heard the

plaint of the feminine jabber. The venders in the market still wondered

why no customers came.

Then men, lords of the earth, came forth. They, too, began to hop, to

dance, to limp, and to curse. They stood stranded and foolish, or

stooped to pluck at the scourge that attacked their feet and ankles.

Some loudly proclaimed the pest to be poisonous spiders of an unknown

species.

And then the children ran out for their morning romp. And now to the

uproar was added the howls of limping infants and cockleburred

childhood. Every minute the advancing day brought forth fresh victims.

Doña Maria Castillas y Buenventura de las Casas stepped from her

honoured doorway, as was her daily custom, to procure fresh bread from

the _panaderia_ across the street. She was clad in a skirt of flowered

yellow satin, a chemise of ruffled linen, and wore a purple mantilla

from the looms of Spain. Her lemon-tinted feet, alas! were bare. Her

progress was majestic, for were not her ancestors hidalgos of Aragon?

Three steps she made across the velvety grass, and set her aristocratic

sole upon a bunch of Johnny’s burrs. Doña Maria Castillas y Buenventura

de las Casas emitted a yowl even as a wild-cat. Turning about, she fell

upon hands and knees, and crawled—ay, like a beast of the field she

crawled back to her honourable door-sill.

Don Señor Ildefonso Federico Valdazar, _Juez de la Paz_, weighing

twenty stone, attempted to convey his bulk to the _pulperia_ at the

corner of the plaza in order to assuage his matutinal thirst. The first

plunge of his unshod foot into the cool grass struck a concealed mine.

Don Ildefonso fell like a crumpled cathedral, crying out that he had

been fatally bitten by a deadly scorpion. Everywhere were the shoeless

citizens hopping, stumbling, limping, and picking from their feet the

venomous insects that had come in a single night to harass them.

The first to perceive the remedy was Estebán Delgado, the barber, a man

of travel and education. Sitting upon a stone, he plucked burrs from

his toes, and made oration:

“Behold, my friends, these bugs of the devil! I know them well. They

soar through the skies in swarms like pigeons. These are the dead ones

that fell during the night. In Yucatan I have seen them as large as

oranges. Yes! There they hiss like serpents, and have wings like bats.

It is the shoes—the shoes that one needs! _Zapatos—zapatos para mi!_”

Estebán hobbled to Mr. Hemstetter’s store, and bought shoes. Coming

out, he swaggered down the street with impunity, reviling loudly the

bugs of the devil. The suffering ones sat up or stood upon one foot and

beheld the immune barber. Men, women and children took up the cry:

“_Zapatos! zapatos!_”

The necessity for the demand had been created. The demand followed.

That day Mr. Hemstetter sold three hundred pairs of shoes.

“It is really surprising,” he said to Johnny, who came up in the

evening to help him straighten out the stock, “how trade is picking up.

Yesterday I made but three sales.”

“I told you they’d whoop things up when they got started,” said the

consul.

“I think I shall order a dozen more cases of goods, to keep the stock

up,” said Mr. Hemstetter, beaming through his spectacles.

“I wouldn’t send in any orders yet,” advised Johnny. “Wait till you see

how the trade holds up.”

Each night Johnny and Keogh sowed the crop that grew dollars by day. At

the end of ten days two-thirds of the stock of shoes had been sold; and

the stock of cockleburrs was exhausted. Johnny cabled to Pink Dawson

for another 500 pounds, paying twenty cents per pound as before. Mr.

Hemstetter carefully made up an order for $1500 worth of shoes from

Northern firms. Johnny hung about the store until this order was ready

for the mail, and succeeded in destroying it before it reached the

postoffice.

That night he took Rosine under the mango tree by Goodwin’s porch, and

confessed everything. She looked him in the eye, and said: “You are a

very wicked man. Father and I will go back home. You say it was a joke?

I think it is a very serious matter.”

But at the end of half an hour’s argument the conversation had been

turned upon a different subject. The two were considering the

respective merits of pale blue and pink wall paper with which the old

colonial mansion of the Atwoods in Dalesburg was to be decorated after

the wedding.

On the next morning Johnny confessed to Mr. Hemstetter. The shoe

merchant put on his spectacles, and said through them: “You strike me

as being a most extraordinary young scamp. If I had not managed this

enterprise with good business judgment my entire stock of goods might

have been a complete loss. Now, how do you propose to dispose of the

rest of it?”

When the second invoice of cockleburrs arrived Johnny loaded them and

the remainder of the shoes into a schooner, and sailed down the coast

to Alazan.

There, in the same dark and diabolical manner, he repeated his success;

and came back with a bag of money and not so much as a shoestring.

And then he besought his great Uncle of the waving goatee and starred

vest to accept his resignation, for the lotus no longer lured him. He

hankered for the spinach and cress of Dalesburg.

The services of Mr. William Terence Keogh as acting consul, _pro tem._,

were suggested and accepted, and Johnny sailed with the Hemstetters

back to his native shores.

Keogh slipped into the sinecure of the American consulship with the

ease that never left him even in such high places. The tintype

establishment was soon to become a thing of the past, although its

deadly work along the peaceful and helpless Spanish Main was never

effaced. The restless partners were about to be off again, scouting

ahead of the slow ranks of Fortune. But now they would take different

ways. There were rumours of a promising uprising in Peru; and thither

the martial Clancy would turn his adventurous steps. As for Keogh, he

was figuring in his mind and on quires of Government letter-heads a

scheme that dwarfed the art of misrepresenting the human countenance

upon tin.

“What suits me,” Keogh used to say, “in the way of a business

proposition is something diversified that looks like a longer shot than

it is—something in the way of a genteel graft that isn’t worked enough

for the correspondence schools to be teaching it by mail. I take the

long end; but I like to have at least as good a chance to win as a man

learning to play poker on an ocean steamer, or running for governor of

Texas on the Republican ticket. And when I cash in my winnings, I don’t

want to find any widows’ and orphans’ chips in my stack.”

The grass-grown globe was the green table on which Keogh gambled. The

games he played were of his own invention. He was no grubber after the

diffident dollar. Nor did he care to follow it with horn and hounds.

Rather he loved to coax it with egregious and brilliant flies from its

habitat in the waters of strange streams. Yet Keogh was a business man;

and his schemes, in spite of their singularity, were as solidly set as

the plans of a building contractor. In Arthur’s time Sir William Keogh

would have been a Knight of the Round Table. In these modern days he

rides abroad, seeking the Graft instead of the Grail.

Three days after Johnny’s departure, two small schooners appeared off

Coralio. After some delay a boat put off from one of them, and brought

a sunburned young man ashore. This young man had a shrewd and

calculating eye; and he gazed with amazement at the strange things that

he saw. He found on the beach some one who directed him to the consul’s

office; and thither he made his way at a nervous gait.

Keogh was sprawled in the official chair, drawing caricatures of his

Uncle’s head on an official pad of paper. He looked up at his visitor.

“Where’s Johnny Atwood?” inquired the sunburned young man, in a

business tone.

“Gone,” said Keogh, working carefully at Uncle Sam’s necktie.

“That’s just like him,” remarked the nut-brown one, leaning against the

table. “He always was a fellow to gallivant around instead of ’tending

to business. Will he be in soon?”

“Don’t think so,” said Keogh, after a fair amount of deliberation.

“I s’pose he’s out at some of his tomfoolery,” conjectured the visitor,

in a tone of virtuous conviction. “Johnny never would stick to anything

long enough to succeed. I wonder how he manages to run his business

here, and never be ’round to look after it.”

“I’m looking after the business just now,” admitted the _pro tem._

consul.

“Are you—then, say!—where’s the factory?”

“What factory?” asked Keogh, with a mildly polite interest.

“Why, the factory where they use them cockleburrs. Lord knows what they

use ’em for, anyway! I’ve got the basements of both them ships out

there loaded with ’em. I’ll give you a bargain in this lot. I’ve had

every man, woman and child around Dalesburg that wasn’t busy pickin’

’em for a month. I hired these ships to bring ’em over. Everybody

thought I was crazy. Now, you can have this lot for fifteen cents a

pound, delivered on land. And if you want more I guess old Alabam’ can

come up to the demand. Johnny told me when he left home that if he

struck anything down here that there was any money in he’d let me in on

it. Shall I drive the ships in and hitch?”

A look of supreme, almost incredulous, delight dawned in Keogh’s ruddy

countenance. He dropped his pencil. His eyes turned upon the sunburned

young man with joy in them mingled with fear lest his ecstasy should

prove a dream.

“For God’s sake, tell me,” said Keogh, earnestly, “are you Dink

Pawson?”

“My name is Pinkney Dawson,” said the cornerer of the cockleburr

market.

Billy Keogh slid rapturously and gently from his chair to his favourite

strip of matting on the floor.

There were not many sounds in Coralio on that sultry afternoon. Among

those that were may be mentioned a noise of enraptured and unrighteous

laughter from a prostrate Irish-American, while a sunburned young man,

with a shrewd eye, looked on him with wonder and amazement. Also the

“tramp, tramp, tramp” of many well-shod feet in the streets outside.

Also the lonesome wash of the waves that beat along the historic shores

of the Spanish Main.

XIV

MASTERS OF ARTS

A two-inch stub of a blue pencil was the wand with which Keogh

performed the preliminary acts of his magic. So, with this he covered

paper with diagrams and figures while he waited for the United States

of America to send down to Coralio a successor to Atwood, resigned.

The new scheme that his mind had conceived, his stout heart indorsed,

and his blue pencil corroborated, was laid around the characteristics

and human frailties of the new president of Anchuria. These

characteristics, and the situation out of which Keogh hoped to wrest a

golden tribute, deserve chronicling contributive to the clear order of

events.

President Losada—many called him Dictator—was a man whose genius would

have made him conspicuous even among Anglo-Saxons, had not that genius

been intermixed with other traits that were petty and subversive. He

had some of the lofty patriotism of Washington (the man he most

admired), the force of Napoleon, and much of the wisdom of the sages.

These characteristics might have justified him in the assumption of the

title of “The Illustrious Liberator,” had they not been accompanied by

a stupendous and amazing vanity that kept him in the less worthy ranks

of the dictators.

Yet he did his country great service. With a mighty grasp he shook it

nearly free from the shackles of ignorance and sloth and the vermin

that fed upon it, and all but made it a power in the council of

nations. He established schools and hospitals, built roads, bridges,

railroads and palaces, and bestowed generous subsidies upon the arts

and sciences. He was the absolute despot and the idol of his people.

The wealth of the country poured into his hands. Other presidents had

been rapacious without reason. Losada amassed enormous wealth, but his

people had their share of the benefits.

The joint in his armour was his insatiate passion for monuments and

tokens commemorating his glory. In every town he caused to be erected

statues of himself bearing legends in praise of his greatness. In the

walls of every public edifice, tablets were fixed reciting his

splendour and the gratitude of his subjects. His statuettes and

portraits were scattered throughout the land in every house and hut.

One of the sycophants in his court painted him as St. John, with a halo

and a train of attendants in full uniform. Losada saw nothing

incongruous in this picture, and had it hung in a church in the

capital. He ordered from a French sculptor a marble group including

himself with Napoleon, Alexander the Great, and one or two others whom

he deemed worthy of the honour.

He ransacked Europe for decorations, employing policy, money and

intrigue to cajole the orders he coveted from kings and rulers. On

state occasions his breast was covered from shoulder to shoulder with

crosses, stars, golden roses, medals and ribbons. It was said that the

man who could contrive for him a new decoration, or invent some new

method of extolling his greatness, might plunge a hand deep into the

treasury.

This was the man upon whom Billy Keogh had his eye. The gentle

buccaneer had observed the rain of favors that fell upon those who

ministered to the president’s vanities, and he did not deem it his duty

to hoist his umbrella against the scattering drops of liquid fortune.

In a few weeks the new consul arrived, releasing Keogh from his

temporary duties. He was a young man fresh from college, who lived for

botany alone. The consulate at Coralio gave him the opportunity to

study tropical flora. He wore smoked glasses, and carried a green

umbrella. He filled the cool, back porch of the consulate with plants

and specimens so that space for a bottle and chair was not to be found.

Keogh gazed on him sadly, but without rancour, and began to pack his

gripsack. For his new plot against stagnation along the Spanish Main

required of him a voyage overseas.

Soon came the _Karlsefin_ again—she of the trampish habits—gleaning a

cargo of cocoanuts for a speculative descent upon the New York market.

Keogh was booked for a passage on the return trip.

“Yes, I’m going to New York,” he explained to the group of his

countrymen that had gathered on the beach to see him off. “But I’ll be

back before you miss me. I’ve undertaken the art education of this

piebald country, and I’m not the man to desert it while it’s in the

early throes of tintypes.”

With this mysterious declaration of his intentions Keogh boarded the

_Karlsefin_.

Ten days later, shivering, with the collar of his thin coat turned

high, he burst into the studio of Carolus White at the top of a tall

building in Tenth Street, New York City.

Carolus White was smoking a cigarette and frying sausages over an oil

stove. He was only twenty-three, and had noble theories about art.

“Billy Keogh!” exclaimed White, extending the hand that was not busy

with the frying pan. “From what part of the uncivilized world, I

wonder!”

“Hello, Carry,” said Keogh, dragging forward a stool, and holding his

fingers close to the stove. “I’m glad I found you so soon. I’ve been

looking for you all day in the directories and art galleries. The

free-lunch man on the corner told me where you were, quick. I was sure

you’d be painting pictures yet.”

Keogh glanced about the studio with the shrewd eye of a connoisseur in

business.

“Yes, you can do it,” he declared, with many gentle nods of his head.

“That big one in the corner with the angels and green clouds and

band-wagon is just the sort of thing we want. What would you call that,

Carry—scene from Coney Island, ain’t it?”

“That,” said White, “I had intended to call ‘The Translation of

Elijah,’ but you may be nearer right than I am.”

“Name doesn’t matter,” said Keogh, largely; “it’s the frame and the

varieties of paint that does the trick. Now, I can tell you in a minute

what I want. I’ve come on a little voyage of two thousand miles to take

you in with me on a scheme. I thought of you as soon as the scheme

showed itself to me. How would you like to go back with me and paint a

picture? Ninety days for the trip, and five thousand dollars for the

job.”

“Cereal food or hair-tonic posters?” asked White.

“It isn’t an ad.”

“What kind of a picture is it to be?”

“It’s a long story,” said Keogh.

“Go ahead with it. If you don’t mind, while you talk I’ll just keep my

eye on these sausages. Let ’em get one shade deeper than a Vandyke

brown and you spoil ’em.”

Keogh explained his project. They were to return to Coralio, where

White was to pose as a distinguished American portrait painter who was

touring in the tropics as a relaxation from his arduous and

remunerative professional labours. It was not an unreasonable hope,

even to those who had trod in the beaten paths of business, that an

artist with so much prestige might secure a commission to perpetuate

upon canvas the lineaments of the president, and secure a share of the

_pesos_ that were raining upon the caterers to his weaknesses.

Keogh had set his price at ten thousand dollars. Artists had been paid

more for portraits. He and White were to share the expenses of the

trip, and divide the possible profits. Thus he laid the scheme before

White, whom he had known in the West before one declared for Art and

the other became a Bedouin.

Before long the two machinators abandoned the rigour of the bare studio

for a snug corner of a café. There they sat far into the night, with

old envelopes and Keogh’s stub of blue pencil between them.

At twelve o’clock White doubled up in his chair, with his chin on his

fist, and shut his eyes at the unbeautiful wall-paper.

“I’ll go you, Billy,” he said, in the quiet tones of decision. “I’ve

got two or three hundred saved up for sausages and rent; and I’ll take

the chance with you. Five thousand! It will give me two years in Paris

and one in Italy. I’ll begin to pack to-morrow.”

“You’ll begin in ten minutes,” said Keogh. “It’s to-morrow now. The

_Karlsefin_ starts back at four P.M. Come on to your painting shop, and

I’ll help you.”

For five months in the year Coralio is the Newport of Anchuria. Then

only does the town possess life. From November to March it is

practically the seat of government. The president with his official

family sojourns there; and society follows him. The pleasure-loving

people make the season one long holiday of amusement and rejoicing.

_Fiestas_, balls, games, sea bathing, processions and small theatres

contribute to their enjoyment. The famous Swiss band from the capital

plays in the little plaza every evening, while the fourteen carriages

and vehicles in the town circle in funereal but complacent procession.

Indians from the interior mountains, looking like prehistoric stone

idols, come down to peddle their handiwork in the streets. The people

throng the narrow ways, a chattering, happy, careless stream of buoyant

humanity. Preposterous children rigged out with the shortest of ballet

skirts and gilt wings, howl, underfoot, among the effervescent crowds.

Especially is the arrival of the presidential party, at the opening of

the season, attended with pomp, show and patriotic demonstrations of

enthusiasm and delight.

When Keogh and White reached their destination, on the return trip of

the _Karlsefin_, the gay winter season was well begun. As they stepped

upon the beach they could hear the band playing in the plaza. The

village maidens, with fireflies already fixed in their dark locks, were

gliding, barefoot and coy-eyed, along the paths. Dandies in white

linen, swinging their canes, were beginning their seductive strolls.

The air was full of human essence, of artificial enticement, of

coquetry, indolence, pleasure—the man-made sense of existence.

The first two or three days after their arrival were spent in

preliminaries. Keogh escorted the artist about town, introducing him to

the little circle of English-speaking residents and pulling whatever

wires he could to effect the spreading of White’s fame as a painter.

And then Keogh planned a more spectacular demonstration of the idea he

wished to keep before the public.

He and White engaged rooms in the Hotel de los Estranjeros. The two

were clad in new suits of immaculate duck, with American straw hats,

and carried canes of remarkable uniqueness and inutility. Few

caballeros in Coralio—even the gorgeously uniformed officers of the

Anchurian army—were as conspicuous for ease and elegance of demeanour

as Keogh and his friend, the great American painter, Señor White.

White set up his easel on the beach and made striking sketches of the

mountain and sea views. The native population formed at his rear in a

vast, chattering semicircle to watch his work. Keogh, with his care for

details, had arranged for himself a pose which he carried out with

fidelity. His rôle was that of friend to the great artist, a man of

affairs and leisure. The visible emblem of his position was a pocket

camera.

“For branding the man who owns it,” said he, “a genteel dilettante with

a bank account and an easy conscience, a steam-yacht ain’t in it with a

camera. You see a man doing nothing but loafing around making

snap-shots, and you know right away he reads up well in ‘Bradstreet.’

You notice these old millionaire boys—soon as they get through taking

everything else in sight they go to taking photographs. People are more

impressed by a kodak than they are by a title or a four-carat

scarf-pin.” So Keogh strolled blandly about Coralio, snapping the

scenery and the shrinking señoritas, while White posed conspicuously in

the higher regions of art.

Two weeks after their arrival, the scheme began to bear fruit. An

aide-de-camp of the president drove to the hotel in a dashing victoria.

The president desired that Señor White come to the Casa Morena for an

informal interview.

Keogh gripped his pipe tightly between his teeth. “Not a cent less than

ten thousand,” he said to the artist—“remember the price. And in gold

or its equivalent—don’t let him stick you with this bargain-counter

stuff they call money here.”

“Perhaps it isn’t that he wants,” said White.

“Get out!” said Keogh, with splendid confidence. “I know what he wants.

He wants his picture painted by the celebrated young American painter

and filibuster now sojourning in his down-trodden country. Off you go.”

The victoria sped away with the artist. Keogh walked up and down,

puffing great clouds of smoke from his pipe, and waited. In an hour the

victoria swept again to the door of the hotel, deposited White, and

vanished. The artist dashed up the stairs, three at a step. Keogh

stopped smoking, and became a silent interrogation point.

“Landed,” exclaimed White, with his boyish face flushed with elation.

“Billy, you are a wonder. He wants a picture. I’ll tell you all about

it. By Heavens! that dictator chap is a corker! He’s a dictator clear

down to his finger-ends. He’s a kind of combination of Julius Cæsar,

Lucifer and Chauncey Depew done in sepia. Polite and grim—that’s his

way. The room I saw him in was about ten acres big, and looked like a

Mississippi steamboat with its gilding and mirrors and white paint. He

talks English better than I can ever hope to. The matter of the price

came up. I mentioned ten thousand. I expected him to call the guard and

have me taken out and shot. He didn’t move an eyelash. He just waved

one of his chestnut hands in a careless way, and said, ‘Whatever you

say.’ I am to go back to-morrow and discuss with him the details of the

picture.”

Keogh hung his head. Self-abasement was easy to read in his downcast

countenance.

“I’m failing, Carry,” he said, sorrowfully. “I’m not fit to handle

these man’s-size schemes any longer. Peddling oranges in a push-cart is

about the suitable graft for me. When I said ten thousand, I swear I

thought I had sized up that brown man’s limit to within two cents. He’d

have melted down for fifteen thousand just as easy. Say—Carry—you’ll

see old man Keogh safe in some nice, quiet idiot asylum, won’t you, if

he makes a break like that again?”

The Casa Morena, although only one story in height, was a building of

brown stone, luxurious as a palace in its interior. It stood on a low

hill in a walled garden of splendid tropical flora at the upper edge of

Coralio. The next day the president’s carriage came again for the

artist. Keogh went out for a walk along the beach, where he and his

“picture box” were now familiar sights. When he returned to the hotel

White was sitting in a steamer-chair on the balcony.

“Well,” said Keogh, “did you and His Nibs decide on the kind of a

chromo he wants?”

White got up and walked back and forth on the balcony a few times. Then

he stopped, and laughed strangely. His face was flushed, and his eyes

were bright with a kind of angry amusement.

“Look here, Billy,” he said, somewhat roughly, “when you first came to

me in my studio and mentioned a picture, I thought you wanted a Smashed

Oats or a Hair Tonic poster painted on a range of mountains or the side

of a continent. Well, either of those jobs would have been Art in its

highest form compared to the one you’ve steered me against. I can’t

paint that picture, Billy. You’ve got to let me out. Let me try to tell

you what that barbarian wants. He had it all planned out and even a

sketch made of his idea. The old boy doesn’t draw badly at all. But, ye

goddesses of Art! listen to the monstrosity he expects me to paint. He

wants himself in the centre of the canvas, of course. He is to be

painted as Jupiter sitting on Olympus, with the clouds at his feet. At

one side of him stands George Washington, in full regimentals, with his

hand on the president’s shoulder. An angel with outstretched wings

hovers overhead, and is placing a laurel wreath on the president’s

head, crowning him—Queen of the May, I suppose. In the background is to

be cannon, more angels and soldiers. The man who would paint that

picture would have to have the soul of a dog, and would deserve to go

down into oblivion without even a tin can tied to his tail to sound his

memory.”

Little beads of moisture crept out all over Billy Keogh’s brow. The

stub of his blue pencil had not figured out a contingency like this.

The machinery of his plan had run with flattering smoothness until now.

He dragged another chair upon the balcony, and got White back to his

seat. He lit his pipe with apparent calm.

“Now, sonny,” he said, with gentle grimness, “you and me will have an

Art to Art talk. You’ve got your art and I’ve got mine. Yours is the

real Pierian stuff that turns up its nose at bock-beer signs and

oleographs of the Old Mill. Mine’s the art of Business. This was my

scheme, and it worked out like two-and-two. Paint that president man as

Old King Cole, or Venus, or a landscape, or a fresco, or a bunch of

lilies, or anything he thinks he looks like. But get the paint on the

canvas and collect the spoils. You wouldn’t throw me down, Carry, at

this stage of the game. Think of that ten thousand.”

“I can’t help thinking of it,” said White, “and that’s what hurts. I’m

tempted to throw every ideal I ever had down in the mire, and steep my

soul in infamy by painting that picture. That five thousand meant three

years of foreign study to me, and I’d almost sell my soul for that.”

“Now it ain’t as bad as that,” said Keogh, soothingly. “It’s a business

proposition. It’s so much paint and time against money. I don’t fall in

with your idea that that picture would so everlastingly jolt the art

side of the question. George Washington was all right, you know, and

nobody could say a word against the angel. I don’t think so bad of that

group. If you was to give Jupiter a pair of epaulets and a sword, and

kind of work the clouds around to look like a blackberry patch, it

wouldn’t make such a bad battle scene. Why, if we hadn’t already

settled on the price, he ought to pay an extra thousand for Washington,

and the angel ought to raise it five hundred.”

“You don’t understand, Billy,” said White, with an uneasy laugh. “Some

of us fellows who try to paint have big notions about Art. I wanted to

paint a picture some day that people would stand before and forget that

it was made of paint. I wanted it to creep into them like a bar of

music and mushroom there like a soft bullet. And I wanted ’em to go

away and ask, ‘What else has he done?’ And I didn’t want ’em to find a

thing; not a portrait nor a magazine cover nor an illustration nor a

drawing of a girl—nothing but _the_ picture. That’s why I’ve lived on

fried sausages, and tried to keep true to myself. I persuaded myself to

do this portrait for the chance it might give me to study abroad. But

this howling, screaming caricature! Good Lord! can’t you see how it

is?”

“Sure,” said Keogh, as tenderly as he would have spoken to a child, and

he laid a long forefinger on White’s knee. “I see. It’s bad to have

your art all slugged up like that. I know. You wanted to paint a big

thing like the panorama of the battle of Gettysburg. But let me

kalsomine you a little mental sketch to consider. Up to date we’re out

$385.50 on this scheme. Our capital took every cent both of us could

raise. We’ve got about enough left to get back to New York on. I need

my share of that ten thousand. I want to work a copper deal in Idaho,

and make a hundred thousand. That’s the business end of the thing. Come

down off your art perch, Carry, and let’s land that hatful of dollars.”

“Billy,” said White, with an effort, “I’ll try. I won’t say I’ll do it,

but I’ll try. I’ll go at it, and put it through if I can.”

“That’s business,” said Keogh heartily. “Good boy! Now, here’s another

thing—rush that picture—crowd it through as quick as you can. Get a

couple of boys to help you mix the paint if necessary. I’ve picked up

some pointers around town. The people here are beginning to get sick of

Mr. President. They say he’s been too free with concessions; and they

accuse him of trying to make a dicker with England to sell out the

country. We want that picture done and paid for before there’s any

row.”

In the great _patio_ of Casa Morena, the president caused to be

stretched a huge canvas. Under this White set up his temporary studio.

For two hours each day the great man sat to him.

White worked faithfully. But, as the work progressed, he had seasons of

bitter scorn, of infinite self-contempt, of sullen gloom and sardonic

gaiety. Keogh, with the patience of a great general, soothed, coaxed,

argued—kept him at the picture.

At the end of a month White announced that the picture was

completed—Jupiter, Washington, angels, clouds, cannon and all. His face

was pale and his mouth drawn straight when he told Keogh. He said the

president was much pleased with it. It was to be hung in the National

Gallery of Statesmen and Heroes. The artist had been requested to

return to Casa Morena on the following day to receive payment. At the

appointed time he left the hotel, silent under his friend’s joyful talk

of their success.

An hour later he walked into the room where Keogh was waiting, threw

his hat on the floor, and sat upon the table.

“Billy,” he said, in strained and labouring tones, “I’ve a little money

out West in a small business that my brother is running. It’s what I’ve

been living on while I’ve been studying art. I’ll draw out my share and

pay you back what you’ve lost on this scheme.”

“Lost!” exclaimed Keogh, jumping up. “Didn’t you get paid for the

picture?”

“Yes, I got paid,” said White. “But just now there isn’t any picture,

and there isn’t any pay. If you care to hear about it, here are the

edifying details. The president and I were looking at the painting. His

secretary brought a bank draft on New York for ten thousand dollars and

handed it to me. The moment I touched it I went wild. I tore it into

little pieces and threw them on the floor. A workman was repainting the

pillars inside the _patio_. A bucket of his paint happened to be

convenient. I picked up his brush and slapped a quart of blue paint all

over that ten-thousand-dollar nightmare. I bowed, and walked out. The

president didn’t move or speak. That was one time he was taken by

surprise. It’s tough on you, Billy, but I couldn’t help it.”

There seemed to be excitement in Coralio. Outside there was a confused,

rising murmur pierced by high-pitched cries. “_Bajo el traidor—Muerte

el traidor!_” were the words they seemed to form.

“Listen to that!” exclaimed White, bitterly: “I know that much Spanish.

They’re shouting, ‘Down with the traitor!’ I heard them before. I felt

that they meant me. I was a traitor to Art. The picture had to go.”

“‘Down with the blank fool’ would have suited your case better,” said

Keogh, with fiery emphasis. “You tear up ten thousand dollars like an

old rag because the way you’ve spread on five dollars’ worth of paint

hurts your conscience. Next time I pick a side-partner in a scheme the

man has got to go before a notary and swear he never even heard the

word ‘ideal’ mentioned.”

Keogh strode from the room, white-hot. White paid little attention to

his resentment. The scorn of Billy Keogh seemed a trifling thing beside

the greater self-scorn he had escaped.

In Coralio the excitement waxed. An outburst was imminent. The cause of

this demonstration of displeasure was the presence in the town of a

big, pink-cheeked Englishman, who, it was said, was an agent of his

government come to clinch the bargain by which the president placed his

people in the hands of a foreign power. It was charged that not only

had he given away priceless concessions, but that the public debt was

to be transferred into the hands of the English, and the custom-houses

turned over to them as a guarantee. The long-enduring people had

determined to make their protest felt.

On that night, in Coralio and in other towns, their ire found vent.

Yelling mobs, mercurial but dangerous, roamed the streets. They

overthrew the great bronze statue of the president that stood in the

centre of the plaza, and hacked it to shapeless pieces. They tore from

public buildings the tablets set there proclaiming the glory of the

“Illustrious Liberator.” His pictures in the government offices were

demolished. The mobs even attacked the Casa Morena, but were driven

away by the military, which remained faithful to the executive. All the

night terror reigned.

The greatness of Losada was shown by the fact that by noon the next day

order was restored, and he was still absolute. He issued proclamations

denying positively that any negotiations of any kind had been entered

into with England. Sir Stafford Vaughn, the pink-cheeked Englishman,

also declared in placards and in public print that his presence there

had no international significance. He was a traveller without guile. In

fact (so he stated), he had not even spoken with the president or been

in his presence since his arrival.

During this disturbance, White was preparing for his homeward voyage in

the steamship that was to sail within two or three days. About noon,

Keogh, the restless, took his camera out with the hope of speeding the

lagging hours. The town was now as quiet as if peace had never departed

from her perch on the red-tiled roofs.

About the middle of the afternoon, Keogh hurried back to the hotel with

something decidedly special in his air. He retired to the little room

where he developed his pictures.

Later on he came out to White on the balcony, with a luminous, grim,

predatory smile on his face.

“Do you know what that is?” he asked, holding up a 4 × 5 photograph

mounted on cardboard.

“Snap-shot of a señorita sitting in the sand—alliteration

unintentional,” guessed White, lazily.

“Wrong,” said Keogh with shining eyes. “It’s a slung-shot. It’s a can

of dynamite. It’s a gold mine. It’s a sight-draft on your president man

for twenty thousand dollars—yes, sir—twenty thousand this time, and no

spoiling the picture. No ethics of art in the way. Art! You with your

smelly little tubes! I’ve got you skinned to death with a kodak. Take a

look at that.”

White took the picture in his hand, and gave a long whistle.

“Jove!” he exclaimed, “but wouldn’t that stir up a row in town if you

let it be seen. How in the world did you get it, Billy?”

“You know that high wall around the president man’s back garden? I was

up there trying to get a bird’s-eye of the town. I happened to notice a

chink in the wall where a stone and a lot of plaster had slid out.

Thinks I, I’ll take a peep through to see how Mr. President’s cabbages

are growing. The first thing I saw was him and this Sir Englishman

sitting at a little table about twenty feet away. They had the table

all spread over with documents, and they were hobnobbing over them as

thick as two pirates. ’Twas a nice corner of the garden, all private

and shady with palms and orange trees, and they had a pail of champagne

set by handy in the grass. I knew then was the time for me to make my

big hit in Art. So I raised the machine up to the crack, and pressed

the button. Just as I did so them old boys shook hands on the deal—you

see they took that way in the picture.”

Keogh put on his coat and hat.

“What are you going to do with it?” asked White.

“Me,” said Keogh in a hurt tone, “why, I’m going to tie a pink ribbon

to it and hang it on the what-not, of course. I’m surprised at you. But

while I’m out you just try to figure out what ginger-cake potentate

would be most likely to want to buy this work of art for his private

collection—just to keep it out of circulation.”

The sunset was reddening the tops of the cocoanut palms when Billy

Keogh came back from Casa Morena. He nodded to the artist’s questioning

gaze; and lay down on a cot with his hands under the back of his head.

“I saw him. He paid the money like a little man. They didn’t want to

let me in at first. I told ’em it was important. Yes, that president

man is on the plenty-able list. He’s got a beautiful business system

about the way he uses his brains. All I had to do was to hold up the

photograph so he could see it, and name the price. He just smiled, and

walked over to a safe and got the cash. Twenty one-thousand-dollar

brand-new United States Treasury notes he laid on the table, like I’d

pay out a dollar and a quarter. Fine notes, too—they crackled with a

sound like burning the brush off a ten-acre lot.”

“Let’s try the feel of one,” said White, curiously. “I never saw a

thousand-dollar bill.” Keogh did not immediately respond.

“Carry,” he said, in an absent-minded way, “you think a heap of your

art, don’t you?”

“More,” said White, frankly, “than has been for the financial good of

myself and my friends.”

“I thought you were a fool the other day,” went on Keogh, quietly, “and

I’m not sure now that you wasn’t. But if you was, so am I. I’ve been in

some funny deals, Carry, but I’ve always managed to scramble fair, and

match my brains and capital against the other fellow’s. But when it

comes to—well, when you’ve got the other fellow cinched, and the screws

on him, and he’s got to put up—why, it don’t strike me as being a man’s

game. They’ve got a name for it, you know; it’s—confound you, don’t you

understand? A fellow feels—it’s something like that blamed art of

yours—he—well, I tore that photograph up and laid the pieces on that

stack of money and shoved the whole business back across the table.

‘Excuse me, Mr. Losada,’ I said, ‘but I guess I’ve made a mistake in

the price. You get the photo for nothing.’ Now, Carry, you get out the

pencil, and we’ll do some more figuring. I’d like to save enough out of

our capital for you to have some fried sausages in your joint when you

get back to New York.”

XV

DICKY

There is little consecutiveness along the Spanish Main. Things happen

there intermittently. Even Time seems to hang his scythe daily on the

branch of an orange tree while he takes a siesta and a cigarette.

After the ineffectual revolt against the administration of President

Losada, the country settled again into quiet toleration of the abuses

with which he had been charged. In Coralio old political enemies went

arm-in-arm, lightly eschewing for the time all differences of opinion.

The failure of the art expedition did not stretch the cat-footed Keogh

upon his back. The ups and downs of Fortune made smooth travelling for

his nimble steps. His blue pencil stub was at work again before the

smoke of the steamer on which White sailed had cleared away from the

horizon. He had but to speak a word to Geddie to find his credit

negotiable for whatever goods he wanted from the store of Brannigan &

Company. On the same day on which White arrived in New York Keogh, at

the rear of a train of five pack mules loaded with hardware and

cutlery, set his face toward the grim, interior mountains. There the

Indian tribes wash gold dust from the auriferous streams; and when a

market is brought to them trading is brisk and _muy bueno_ in the

Cordilleras.

In Coralio Time folded his wings and paced wearily along his drowsy

path. They who had most cheered the torpid hours were gone. Clancy had

sailed on a Spanish barque for Colon, contemplating a cut across the

isthmus and then a further voyage to end at Calao, where the fighting

was said to be on. Geddie, whose quiet and genial nature had once

served to mitigate the frequent dull reaction of lotus eating, was now

a home-man, happy with his bright orchid, Paula, and never even

dreaming of or regretting the unsolved, sealed and monogramed Bottle

whose contents, now inconsiderable, were held safely in the keeping of

the sea.

Well may the Walrus, most discerning and eclectic of beasts, place

sealing-wax midway on his programme of topics that fall pertinent and

diverting upon the ear.

Atwood was gone—he of the hospitable back porch and ingenuous cunning.

Dr. Gregg, with his trepanning story smouldering within him, was a

whiskered volcano, always showing signs of imminent eruption, and was

not to be considered in the ranks of those who might contribute to the

amelioration of ennui. The new consul’s note chimed with the sad sea

waves and the violent tropical greens—he had not a bar of Scheherezade

or of the Round Table in his lute. Goodwin was employed with large

projects: what time he was loosed from them found him at his home,

where he loved to be. Therefore it will be seen that there was a dearth

of fellowship and entertainment among the foreign contingent of

Coralio.

And then Dicky Maloney dropped down from the clouds upon the town, and

amused it.

Nobody knew where Dicky Maloney hailed from or how he reached Coralio.

He appeared there one day; and that was all. He afterward said that he

came on the fruit steamer _Thor_; but an inspection of the _Thor’s_

passenger list of that date was found to be Maloneyless. Curiosity,

however, soon perished; and Dicky took his place among the odd fish

cast up by the Caribbean.

He was an active, devil-may-care, rollicking fellow with an engaging

gray eye, the most irresistible grin, a rather dark or much sunburned

complexion, and a head of the fieriest red hair ever seen in that

country. Speaking the Spanish language as well as he spoke English, and

seeming always to have plenty of silver in his pockets, it was not long

before he was a welcome companion whithersoever he went. He had an

extreme fondness for _vino blanco_, and gained the reputation of being

able to drink more of it than any three men in town. Everybody called

him “Dicky”; everybody cheered up at the sight of him—especially the

natives, to whom his marvellous red hair and his free-and-easy style

were a constant delight and envy. Wherever you went in the town you

would soon see Dicky or hear his genial laugh, and find around him a

group of admirers who appreciated him both for his good nature and the

white wine he was always so ready to buy.

A considerable amount of speculation was had concerning the object of

his sojourn there, until one day he silenced this by opening a small

shop for the sale of tobacco, _dulces_ and the handiwork of the

interior Indians—fibre-and-silk-woven goods, deerskin _zapatos_ and

basketwork of _tule_ reeds. Even then he did not change his habits; for

he was drinking and playing cards half the day and night with the

_comandante_, the collector of customs, the _Jefe Politico_ and other

gay dogs among the native officials.

One day Dicky saw Pasa, the daughter of Madama Ortiz, sitting in the

side-door of the Hotel de los Estranjeros. He stopped in his tracks,

still, for the first time in Coralio; and then he sped, swift as a

deer, to find Vasquez, a gilded native youth, to present him.

The young men had named Pasa “_La Santita Naranjadita_.” _Naranjadita_

is a Spanish word for a certain colour that you must go to more trouble

to describe in English. By saying “The little saint, tinted the most

beautiful-delicate-slightly-orange-golden,” you will approximate the

description of Madama Ortiz’s daughter.

La Madama Ortiz sold rum in addition to other liquors. Now, you must

know that the rum expiates whatever opprobrium attends upon the other

commodities. For rum-making, mind you, is a government monopoly; and to

keep a government dispensary assures respectability if not preëminence.

Moreover, the saddest of precisians could find no fault with the

conduct of the shop. Customers drank there in the lowest of spirits and

fearsomely, as in the shadow of the dead; for Madama’s ancient and

vaunted lineage counteracted even the rum’s behest to be merry. For,

was she not of the Iglesias, who landed with Pizarro? And had not her

deceased husband been _comisionado de caminos y puentes_ for the

district?

In the evenings Pasa sat by the window in the room next to the one

where they drank, and strummed dreamily upon her guitar. And then, by

twos and threes, would come visiting young caballeros and occupy the

prim line of chairs set against the wall of this room. They were there

to besiege the heart of “_La Santita_.” Their method (which is not

proof against intelligent competition) consisted of expanding the

chest, looking valorous, and consuming a gross or two of cigarettes.

Even saints delicately oranged prefer to be wooed differently.

Doña Pasa would tide over the vast chasms of nicotinized silence with

music from her guitar, while she wondered if the romances she had read

about gallant and more—more contiguous cavaliers were all lies. At

somewhat regular intervals Madama would glide in from the dispensary

with a sort of drought-suggesting gleam in her eye, and there would be

a rustling of stiffly-starched white trousers as one of the caballeros

would propose an adjournment to the bar.

That Dicky Maloney would, sooner or later, explore this field was a

thing to be foreseen. There were few doors in Coralio into which his

red head had not been poked.

In an incredibly short space of time after his first sight of her he

was there, seated close beside her rocking chair. There were no

back-against-the-wall poses in Dicky’s theory of wooing. His plan of

subjection was an attack at close range. To carry the fortress with one

concentrated, ardent, eloquent, irresistible _escalade_—that was

Dicky’s way.

Pasa was descended from the proudest Spanish families in the country.

Moreover, she had had unusual advantages. Two years in a New Orleans

school had elevated her ambitions and fitted her for a fate above the

ordinary maidens of her native land. And yet here she succumbed to the

first red-haired scamp with a glib tongue and a charming smile that

came along and courted her properly.

Very soon Dicky took her to the little church on the corner of the

plaza, and “Mrs. Maloney” was added to her string of distinguished

names.

And it was her fate to sit, with her patient, saintly eyes and figure

like a bisque Psyche, behind the sequestered counter of the little

shop, while Dicky drank and philandered with his frivolous

acquaintances.

The women, with their naturally fine instinct, saw a chance for

vivisection, and delicately taunted her with his habits. She turned

upon them in a beautiful, steady blaze of sorrowful contempt.

“You meat-cows,” she said, in her level, crystal-clear tones; “you know

nothing of a man. Your men are _maromeros_. They are fit only to roll

cigarettes in the shade until the sun strikes and shrivels them up.

They drone in your hammocks and you comb their hair and feed them with

fresh fruit. My man is of no such blood. Let him drink of the wine.

When he has taken sufficient of it to drown one of your _flaccitos_ he

will come home to me more of a man than one thousand of your

_pobrecitos_. _My_ hair he smooths and braids; to me he sings; he

himself removes my _zapatos_, and there, there, upon each instep leaves

a kiss. He holds— Oh, you will never understand! Blind ones who have

never known a _man_.”

Sometimes mysterious things happened at night about Dicky’s shop. While

the front of it was dark, in the little room back of it Dicky and a few

of his friends would sit about a table carrying on some kind of very

quiet _negocios_ until quite late. Finally he would let them out the

front door very carefully, and go upstairs to his little saint. These

visitors were generally conspirator-like men with dark clothes and

hats. Of course, these dark doings were noticed after a while, and

talked about.

Dicky seemed to care nothing at all for the society of the alien

residents of the town. He avoided Goodwin, and his skilful escape from

the trepanning story of Dr. Gregg is still referred to, in Coralio, as

a masterpiece of lightning diplomacy.

Many letters arrived, addressed to “Mr. Dicky Maloney,” or “Señor

Dickee Maloney,” to the considerable pride of Pasa. That so many people

should desire to write to him only confirmed her own suspicion that the

light from his red head shone around the world. As to their contents

she never felt curiosity. There was a wife for you!

The one mistake Dicky made in Coralio was to run out of money at the

wrong time. Where his money came from was a puzzle, for the sales of

his shop were next to nothing, but that source failed, and at a

peculiarly unfortunate time. It was when the _comandante_, Don Señor el

Coronel Encarnación Rios, looked upon the little saint seated in the

shop and felt his heart go pitapat.

The _comandante_, who was versed in all the intricate arts of

gallantry, first delicately hinted at his sentiments by donning his

dress uniform and strutting up and down fiercely before her window.

Pasa, glancing demurely with her saintly eyes, instantly perceived his

resemblance to her parrot, Chichi, and was diverted to the extent of a

smile. The _comandante_ saw the smile, which was not intended for him.

Convinced of an impression made, he entered the shop, confidently, and

advanced to open compliment. Pasa froze; he pranced; she flamed

royally; he was charmed to injudicious persistence; she commanded him

to leave the shop; he tried to capture her hand,—and Dicky entered,

smiling broadly, full of white wine and the devil.

He spent five minutes in punishing the _comandante_ scientifically and

carefully, so that the pain might be prolonged as far as possible. At

the end of that time he pitched the rash wooer out the door upon the

stones of the street, senseless.

A barefooted policeman who had been watching the affair from across the

street blew a whistle. A squad of four soldiers came running from the

_cuartel_ around the corner. When they saw that the offender was Dicky,

they stopped, and blew more whistles, which brought out reënforcements

of eight. Deeming the odds against them sufficiently reduced, the

military advanced upon the disturber.

Dicky, being thoroughly imbued with the martial spirit, stooped and

drew the _comandante’s_ sword, which was girded about him, and charged

his foe. He chased the standing army four squares, playfully prodding

its squealing rear and hacking at its ginger-coloured heels.

But he was not so successful with the civic authorities. Six muscular,

nimble policemen overpowered him and conveyed him, triumphantly but

warily, to jail. “_El Diablo Colorado_” they dubbed him, and derided

the military for its defeat.

Dicky, with the rest of the prisoners, could look out through the

barred door at the grass of the little plaza, at a row of orange trees

and the red tile roofs and ’dobe walls of a line of insignificant

stores.

At sunset along a path across this plaza came a melancholy procession

of sad-faced women bearing plantains, cassaba, bread and fruit—each

coming with food to some wretch behind those bars to whom she still

clung and furnished the means of life. Twice a day—morning and

evening—they were permitted to come. Water was furnished to her

compulsory guests by the republic, but no food.

That evening Dicky’s name was called by the sentry, and he stepped

before the bars of the door. There stood his little saint, a black

mantilla draped about her head and shoulders, her face like glorified

melancholy, her clear eyes gazing longingly at him as if they might

draw him between the bars to her. She brought a chicken, some oranges,

_dulces_ and a loaf of white bread. A soldier inspected the food, and

passed it in to Dicky. Pasa spoke calmly, as she always did, briefly,

in her thrilling, flute-like tones. “Angel of my life,” she said, “let

it not be long that thou art away from me. Thou knowest that life is

not a thing to be endured with thou not at my side. Tell me if I can do

aught in this matter. If not, I will wait—a little while. I come again

in the morning.”

Dicky, with his shoes removed so as not to disturb his fellow

prisoners, tramped the floor of the jail half the night condemning his

lack of money and the cause of it—whatever that might have been. He

knew very well that money would have bought his release at once.

For two days succeeding Pasa came at the appointed times and brought

him food. He eagerly inquired each time if a letter or package had come

for him, and she mournfully shook her head.

On the morning of the third day she brought only a small loaf of bread.

There were dark circles under her eyes. She seemed as calm as ever.

“By jingo,” said Dicky, who seemed to speak in English or Spanish as

the whim seized him, “this is dry provender, _muchachita_. Is this the

best you can dig up for a fellow?”

Pasa looked at him as a mother looks at a beloved but capricious babe.

“Think better of it,” she said, in a low voice; “since for the next

meal there will be nothing. The last _centavo_ is spent.” She pressed

closer against the grating.

“Sell the goods in the shop—take anything for them.”

“Have I not tried? Did I not offer them for one-tenth their cost? Not

even one _peso_ would any one give. There is not one _real_ in this

town to assist Dickee Malonee.”

Dick clenched his teeth grimly. “That’s the _comandante_,” he growled.

“He’s responsible for that sentiment. Wait, oh, wait till the cards are

all out.”

Pasa lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “And, listen, heart of my

heart,” she said, “I have endeavoured to be brave, but I cannot live

without thee. Three days now—”

Dicky caught a faint gleam of steel from the folds of her mantilla. For

once she looked in his face and saw it without a smile, stern, menacing

and purposeful. Then he suddenly raised his hand and his smile came

back like a gleam of sunshine. The hoarse signal of an incoming

steamer’s siren sounded in the harbour. Dicky called to the sentry who

was pacing before the door: “What steamer comes?”

“The _Catarina_.”

“Of the Vesuvius line?”

“Without doubt, of that line.”

“Go you, _picarilla_,” said Dicky joyously to Pasa, “to the American

consul. Tell him I wish to speak with him. See that he comes at once.

And look you! let me see a different look in those eyes, for I promise

your head shall rest upon this arm to-night.”

It was an hour before the consul came. He held his green umbrella under

his arm, and mopped his forehead impatiently.

“Now, see here, Maloney,” he began, captiously, “you fellows seem to

think you can cut up any kind of row, and expect me to pull you out of

it. I’m neither the War Department nor a gold mine. This country has

its laws, you know, and there’s one against pounding the senses out of

the regular army. You Irish are forever getting into trouble. I don’t

see what I can do. Anything like tobacco, now, to make you

comfortable—or newspapers—”

“Son of Eli,” interrupted Dicky, gravely, “you haven’t changed an iota.

That is almost a duplicate of the speech you made when old Koen’s

donkeys and geese got into the chapel loft, and the culprits wanted to

hide in your room.”

“Oh, heavens!” exclaimed the consul, hurriedly adjusting his

spectacles. “Are you a Yale man, too? Were you in that crowd? I don’t

seem to remember any one with red—any one named Maloney. Such a lot of

college men seem to have misused their advantages. One of the best

mathematicians of the class of ’91 is selling lottery tickets in

Belize. A Cornell man dropped off here last month. He was second

steward on a guano boat. I’ll write to the department if you like,

Maloney. Or if there’s any tobacco, or newspa—”

“There’s nothing,” interrupted Dicky, shortly, “but this. You go tell

the captain of the _Catarina_ that Dicky Maloney wants to see him as

soon as he can conveniently come. Tell him where I am. Hurry. That’s

all.”

The consul, glad to be let off so easily, hurried away. The captain of

the _Catarina_, a stout man, Sicilian born, soon appeared, shoving,

with little ceremony, through the guards to the jail door. The Vesuvius

Fruit Company had a habit of doing things that way in Anchuria.

“I am exceedingly sorry—exceedingly sorry,” said the captain, “to see

this occur. I place myself at your service, Mr. Maloney. What you need

shall be furnished. Whatever you say shall be done.”

Dicky looked at him unsmilingly. His red hair could not detract from

his attitude of severe dignity as he stood, tall and calm, with his now

grim mouth forming a horizontal line.

“Captain De Lucco, I believe I still have funds in the hands of your

company—ample and personal funds. I ordered a remittance last week. The

money has not arrived. You know what is needed in this game. Money and

money and more money. Why has it not been sent?”

“By the _Cristobal_,” replied De Lucco, gesticulating, “it was

despatched. Where is the _Cristobal_? Off Cape Antonio I spoke her with

a broken shaft. A tramp coaster was towing her back to New Orleans. I

brought money ashore thinking your need for it might not withstand

delay. In this envelope is one thousand dollars. There is more if you

need it, Mr. Maloney.”

“For the present it will suffice,” said Dicky, softening as he crinkled

the envelope and looked down at the half-inch thickness of smooth,

dingy bills.

“The long green!” he said, gently, with a new reverence in his gaze.

“Is there anything it will not buy, Captain?”

“I had three friends,” replied De Lucco, who was a bit of a

philosopher, “who had money. One of them speculated in stocks and made

ten million; another is in heaven, and the third married a poor girl

whom he loved.”

“The answer, then,” said Dicky, “is held by the Almighty, Wall Street

and Cupid. So, the question remains.”

“This,” queried the captain, including Dicky’s surroundings in a

significant gesture of his hand, “is it—it is not—it is not connected

with the business of your little shop? There is no failure in your

plans?”

“No, no,” said Dicky. “This is merely the result of a little private

affair of mine, a digression from the regular line of business. They

say for a complete life a man must know poverty, love and war. But they

don’t go well together, _capitán mio_. No; there is no failure in my

business. The little shop is doing very well.”

When the captain had departed Dicky called the sergeant of the jail

squad and asked:

“Am I _preso_ by the military or by the civil authority?”

“Surely there is no martial law in effect now, señor.”

“_Bueno_. Now go or send to the alcalde, the _Jues de la Paz_ and the

_Jefe de los Policios_. Tell them I am prepared at once to satisfy the

demands of justice.” A folded bill of the “long green” slid into the

sergeant’s hand.

Then Dicky’s smile came back again, for he knew that the hours of his

captivity were numbered; and he hummed, in time with the sentry’s

tread:

“They’re hanging men and women now,

For lacking of the green.”

So, that night Dicky sat by the window of the room over his shop and

his little saint sat close by, working at something silken and dainty.

Dicky was thoughtful and grave. His red hair was in an unusual state of

disorder. Pasa’s fingers often ached to smooth and arrange it, but

Dicky would never allow it. He was poring, to-night, over a great

litter of maps and books and papers on his table until that

perpendicular line came between his brows that always distressed Pasa.

Presently she went and brought his hat, and stood with it until he

looked up, inquiringly.

“It is sad for you here,” she explained. “Go out and drink _vino

blanco_. Come back when you get that smile you used to wear. That is

what I wish to see.”

Dicky laughed and threw down his papers. “The _vino blanco_ stage is

past. It has served its turn. Perhaps, after all, there was less

entered my mouth and more my ears than people thought. But, there will

be no more maps or frowns to-night. I promise you that. Come.”

They sat upon a reed _silleta_ at the window and watched the quivering

gleams from the lights of the _Catarina_ reflected in the harbour.

Presently Pasa rippled out one of her infrequent chirrups of audible

laughter.

“I was thinking,” she began, anticipating Dicky’s question, “of the

foolish things girls have in their minds. Because I went to school in

the States I used to have ambitions. Nothing less than to be the

president’s wife would satisfy me. And, look, thou red picaroon, to

what obscure fate thou hast stolen me!”

“Don’t give up hope,” said Dicky, smiling. “More than one Irishman has

been the ruler of a South American country. There was a dictator of

Chili named O’Higgins. Why not a President Maloney, of Anchuria? Say

the word, _santita mia_, and we’ll make the race.”

“No, no, no, thou red-haired, reckless one!” sighed Pasa; “I am

content”—she laid her head against his arm—“here.”

XVI

ROUGE ET NOIR

It has been indicated that disaffection followed the elevation of

Losada to the presidency. This feeling continued to grow. Throughout

the entire republic there seemed to be a spirit of silent, sullen

discontent. Even the old Liberal party to which Goodwin, Zavalla and

other patriots had lent their aid was disappointed. Losada had failed

to become a popular idol. Fresh taxes, fresh import duties and, more

than all, his tolerance of the outrageous oppression of citizens by the

military had rendered him the most obnoxious president since the

despicable Alforan. The majority of his own cabinet were out of

sympathy with him. The army, which he had courted by giving it license

to tyrannize, had been his main, and thus far adequate support.

But the most impolitic of the administration’s moves had been when it

antagonized the Vesuvius Fruit Company, an organization plying twelve

steamers and with a cash capital somewhat larger than Anchuria’s

surplus and debt combined.

Reasonably an established concern like the Vesuvius would become

irritated at having a small, retail republic with no rating at all

attempt to squeeze it. So when the government proxies applied for a

subsidy they encountered a polite refusal. The president at once

retaliated by clapping an export duty of one _real_ per bunch on

bananas—a thing unprecedented in fruit-growing countries. The Vesuvius

Company had invested large sums in wharves and plantations along the

Anchurian coast, their agents had erected fine homes in the towns where

they had their headquarters, and heretofore had worked with the

republic in good-will and with advantage to both. It would lose an

immense sum if compelled to move out. The selling price of bananas from

Vera Cruz to Trinidad was three _reals_ per bunch. This new duty of one

_real_ would have ruined the fruit growers in Anchuria and have

seriously discommoded the Vesuvius Company had it declined to pay it.

But for some reason, the Vesuvius continued to buy Anchurian fruit,

paying four _reals_ for it; and not suffering the growers to bear the

loss.

This apparent victory deceived His Excellency; and he began to hunger

for more of it. He sent an emissary to request a conference with a

representative of the fruit company. The Vesuvius sent Mr. Franzoni, a

little, stout, cheerful man, always cool, and whistling airs from

Verdi’s operas. Señor Espirition, of the office of the Minister of

Finance, attempted the sandbagging in behalf of Anchuria. The meeting

took place in the cabin of the _Salvador_, of the Vesuvius line.

Señor Espirition opened negotiations by announcing that the government

contemplated the building of a railroad to skirt the alluvial coast

lands. After touching upon the benefits such a road would confer upon

the interests of the Vesuvius, he reached the definite suggestion that

a contribution to the road’s expenses of, say, fifty thousand _pesos_

would not be more than an equivalent to benefits received.

Mr. Franzoni denied that his company would receive any benefits from a

contemplated road. As its representative he must decline to contribute

fifty thousand _pesos_. But he would assume the responsibility of

offering twenty-five.

Did Señor Espirition understand Señor Franzoni to mean twenty-five

thousand _pesos_?

By no means. Twenty-five _pesos_. And in silver; not in gold.

“Your offer insults my government,” cried Señor Espirition, rising with

indignation.

“Then,” said Mr. Franzoni, in warning tone, “_we will change it_.”

The offer was never changed. Could Mr. Franzoni have meant the

government?

This was the state of affairs in Anchuria when the winter season opened

at Coralio at the end of the second year of Losada’s administration.

So, when the government and society made its annual exodus to the

seashore it was evident that the presidential advent would not be

celebrated by unlimited rejoicing. The tenth of November was the day

set for the entrance into Coralio of the gay company from the capital.

A narrow-gauge railroad runs twenty miles into the interior from

Solitas. The government party travels by carriage from San Mateo to

this road’s terminal point, and proceeds by train to Solitas. From here

they march in grand procession to Coralio where, on the day of their

coming, festivities and ceremonies abound. But this season saw an

ominous dawning of the tenth of November.

Although the rainy season was over, the day seemed to hark back to

reeking June. A fine drizzle of rain fell all during the forenoon. The

procession entered Coralio amid a strange silence.

President Losada was an elderly man, grizzly bearded, with a

considerable ratio of Indian blood revealed in his cinnamon complexion.

His carriage headed the procession, surrounded and guarded by Captain

Cruz and his famous troop of one hundred light horse “_El Ciento

Huilando_.” Colonel Rocas followed, with a regiment of the regular

army.

The president’s sharp, beady eyes glanced about him for the expected

demonstration of welcome; but he faced a stolid, indifferent array of

citizens. Sight-seers the Anchurians are by birth and habit, and they

turned out to their last able-bodied unit to witness the scene; but

they maintained an accusive silence. They crowded the streets to the

very wheel ruts; they covered the red tile roofs to the eaves, but

there was never a “_viva_” from them. No wreaths of palm and lemon

branches or gorgeous strings of paper roses hung from the windows and

balconies as was the custom. There was an apathy, a dull, dissenting

disapprobation, that was the more ominous because it puzzled. No one

feared an outburst, a revolt of the discontents, for they had no

leader. The president and those loyal to him had never even heard

whispered a name among them capable of crystallizing the

dissatisfaction into opposition. No, there could be no danger. The

people always procured a new idol before they destroyed an old one.

At length, after a prodigious galloping and curvetting of red-sashed

majors, gold-laced colonels and epauletted generals, the procession

formed for its annual progress down the Calle Grande to the Casa

Morena, where the ceremony of welcome to the visiting president always

took place.

The Swiss band led the line of march. After it pranced the local

_comandante_, mounted, and a detachment of his troops. Next came a

carriage with four members of the cabinet, conspicuous among them the

Minister of War, old General Pilar, with his white moustache and his

soldierly bearing. Then the president’s vehicle, containing also the

Ministers of Finance and State; and surrounded by Captain Cruz’s light

horse formed in a close double file of fours. Following them, the rest

of the officials of state, the judges and distinguished military and

social ornaments of public and private life.

As the band struck up, and the movement began, like a bird of ill-omen

the _Valhalla_, the swiftest steamship of the Vesuvius line, glided

into the harbour in plain view of the president and his train. Of

course, there was nothing menacing about its arrival—a business firm

does not go to war with a nation—but it reminded Señor Espirition and

others in those carriages that the Vesuvius Fruit Company was

undoubtedly carrying something up its sleeve for them.

By the time the van of the procession had reached the government

building, Captain Cronin, of the _Valhalla_, and Mr. Vincenti, member

of the Vesuvius Company, had landed and were pushing their way, bluff,

hearty and nonchalant, through the crowd on the narrow sidewalk. Clad

in white linen, big, debonair, with an air of good-humoured authority,

they made conspicuous figures among the dark mass of unimposing

Anchurians, as they penetrated to within a few yards of the steps of

the Casa Morena. Looking easily above the heads of the crowd, they

perceived another that towered above the undersized natives. It was the

fiery poll of Dicky Maloney against the wall close by the lower step;

and his broad, seductive grin showed that he recognized their presence.

Dicky had attired himself becomingly for the festive occasion in a

well-fitting black suit. Pasa was close by his side, her head covered

with the ubiquitous black mantilla.

Mr. Vincenti looked at her attentively.

“Botticelli’s Madonna,” he remarked, gravely. “I wonder when she got

into the game. I don’t like his getting tangled with the women. I hoped

he would keep away from them.”

Captain Cronin’s laugh almost drew attention from the parade.

“With that head of hair! Keep away from the women! And a Maloney!

Hasn’t he got a license? But, nonsense aside, what do you think of the

prospects? It’s a species of filibustering out of my line.”

Vincenti glanced again at Dicky’s head and smiled.

“_Rouge et noir_,” he said. “There you have it. Make your play,

gentlemen. Our money is on the red.”

“The lad’s game,” said Cronin, with a commending look at the tall, easy

figure by the steps. “But ’tis all like fly-by-night theatricals to me.

The talk’s bigger than the stage; there’s a smell of gasoline in the

air, and they’re their own audience and scene-shifters.”

They ceased talking, for General Pilar had descended from the first

carriage and had taken his stand upon the top step of Casa Morena. As

the oldest member of the cabinet, custom had decreed that he should

make the address of welcome, presenting the keys of the official

residence to the president at its close.

General Pilar was one of the most distinguished citizens of the

republic. Hero of three wars and innumerable revolutions, he was an

honoured guest at European courts and camps. An eloquent speaker and a

friend to the people, he represented the highest type of the

Anchurians.

Holding in his hand the gilt keys of Casa Morena, he began his address

in a historical form, touching upon each administration and the advance

of civilization and prosperity from the first dim striving after

liberty down to present times. Arriving at the régime of President

Losada, at which point, according to precedent, he should have

delivered a eulogy upon its wise conduct and the happiness of the

people, General Pilar paused. Then he silently held up the bunch of

keys high above his head, with his eyes closely regarding it. The

ribbon with which they were bound fluttered in the breeze.

“It still blows,” cried the speaker, exultantly. “Citizens of Anchuria,

give thanks to the saints this night that our air is still free.”

Thus disposing of Losada’s administration, he abruptly reverted to that

of Olivarra, Anchuria’s most popular ruler. Olivarra had been

assassinated nine years before while in the prime of life and

usefulness. A faction of the Liberal party led by Losada himself had

been accused of the deed. Whether guilty or not, it was eight years

before the ambitious and scheming Losada had gained his goal.

Upon this theme General Pilar’s eloquence was loosed. He drew the

picture of the beneficent Olivarra with a loving hand. He reminded the

people of the peace, the security and the happiness they had enjoyed

during that period. He recalled in vivid detail and with significant

contrast the last winter sojourn of President Olivarra in Coralio, when

his appearance at their fiestas was the signal for thundering _vivas_

of love and approbation.

The first public expression of sentiment from the people that day

followed. A low, sustained murmur went among them like the surf rolling

along the shore.

“Ten dollars to a dinner at the Saint Charles,” remarked Mr. Vincenti,

“that _rouge_ wins.”

“I never bet against my own interests,” said Captain Cronin, lighting a

cigar. “Long-winded old boy, for his age. What’s he talking about?”

“My Spanish,” replied Vincenti, “runs about ten words to the minute;

his is something around two hundred. Whatever he’s saying, he’s getting

them warmed up.”

“Friends and brothers,” General Pilar was saying, “could I reach out my

hand this day across the lamentable silence of the grave to Olivarra

‘the Good,’ to the ruler who was one of you, whose tears fell when you

sorrowed, and whose smile followed your joy—I would bring him back to

you, but—Olivarra is dead—dead at the hands of a craven assassin!”

The speaker turned and gazed boldly into the carriage of the president.

His arm remained extended aloft as if to sustain his peroration. The

president was listening, aghast, at this remarkable address of welcome.

He was sunk back upon his seat, trembling with rage and dumb surprise,

his dark hands tightly gripping the carriage cushions.

Half rising, he extended one arm toward the speaker, and shouted a

harsh command at Captain Cruz. The leader of the “Flying Hundred” sat

his horse, immovable, with folded arms, giving no sign of having heard.

Losada sank back again, his dark features distinctly paling.

“Who says that Olivarra is dead?” suddenly cried the speaker, his

voice, old as he was, sounding like a battle trumpet. “His body lies in

the grave, but to the people he loved he has bequeathed his spirit—yes,

more—his learning, his courage, his kindness—yes, more—his youth, his

image—people of Anchuria, have you forgotten Ramon, the son of

Olivarra?”

Cronin and Vincenti, watching closely, saw Dicky Maloney suddenly raise

his hat, tear off his shock of red hair, leap up the steps and stand at

the side of General Pilar. The Minister of War laid his arm across the

young man’s shoulders. All who had known President Olivarra saw again

his same lion-like pose, the same frank, undaunted expression, the same

high forehead with the peculiar line of the clustering, crisp black

hair.

General Pilar was an experienced orator. He seized the moment of

breathless silence that preceded the storm.

“Citizens of Anchuria,” he trumpeted, holding aloft the keys to Casa

Morena, “I am here to deliver these keys—the keys to your homes and

liberty—to your chosen president. Shall I deliver them to Enrico

Olivarra’s assassin, or to his son?”

“Olivarra! Olivarra!” the crowd shrieked and howled. All vociferated

the magic name—men, women, children and the parrots.

And the enthusiasm was not confined to the blood of the plebs. Colonel

Rocas ascended the steps and laid his sword theatrically at young Ramon

Olivarra’s feet. Four members of the cabinet embraced him. Captain Cruz

gave a command, and twenty of _El Ciento Huilando_ dismounted and

arranged themselves in a cordon about the steps of Casa Morena.

But Ramon Olivarra seized that moment to prove himself a born genius

and politician. He waved those soldiers aside, and descended the steps

to the street. There, without losing his dignity or the distinguished

elegance that the loss of his red hair brought him, he took the

proletariat to his bosom—the barefooted, the dirty, Indians, Caribs,

babies, beggars, old, young, saints, soldiers and sinners—he missed

none of them.

While this act of the drama was being presented, the scene shifters had

been busy at the duties that had been assigned to them. Two of Cruz’s

dragoons had seized the bridle reins of Losada’s horses; others formed

a close guard around the carriage; and they galloped off with the

tyrant and his two unpopular Ministers. No doubt a place had been

prepared for them. There are a number of well-barred stone apartments

in Coralio.

“_Rouge_ wins,” said Mr. Vincenti, calmly lighting another cigar.

Captain Cronin had been intently watching the vicinity of the stone

steps for some time.

“Good boy!” he exclaimed suddenly, as if relieved. “I wondered if he

was going to forget his Kathleen Mavourneen.”

Young Olivarra had reascended the steps and spoken a few words to

General Pilar. Then that distinguished veteran descended to the ground

and approached Pasa, who still stood, wonder-eyed, where Dicky had left

her. With his plumed hat in his hand, and his medals and decorations

shining on his breast, the general spoke to her and gave her his arm,

and they went up the stone steps of the Casa Morena together. And then

Ramon Olivarra stepped forward and took both her hands before all the

people.

And while the cheering was breaking out afresh everywhere, Captain

Cronin and Mr. Vincenti turned and walked back toward the shore where

the gig was waiting for them.

“There’ll be another ‘_presidente proclamada_’ in the morning,” said

Mr. Vincenti, musingly. “As a rule they are not as reliable as the

elected ones, but this youngster seems to have some good stuff in him.

He planned and manœuvred the entire campaign. Olivarra’s widow, you

know, was wealthy. After her husband was assassinated she went to the

States, and educated her son at Yale. The Vesuvius Company hunted him

up, and backed him in the little game.”

“It’s a glorious thing,” said Cronin, half jestingly, “to be able to

discharge a government, and insert one of your own choosing, in these

days.”

“Oh, it is only a matter of business,” said Vincenti, stopping and

offering the stump of his cigar to a monkey that swung down from a lime

tree; “and that is what moves the world of to-day. That extra _real_ on

the price of bananas had to go. We took the shortest way of removing

it.”

XVII

TWO RECALLS

There remains three duties to be performed before the curtain falls

upon the patched comedy. Two have been promised: the third is no less

obligatory.

It was set forth in the programme of this tropic vaudeville that it

would be made known why Shorty O’Day, of the Columbia Detective Agency,

lost his position. Also that Smith should come again to tell us what

mystery he followed that night on the shores of Anchuria when he

strewed so many cigar stumps around the cocoanut palm during his lonely

night vigil on the beach. These things were promised; but a bigger

thing yet remains to be accomplished—the clearing up of a seeming wrong

that has been done according to the array of chronicled facts

(truthfully set forth) that have been presented. And one voice,

speaking, shall do these three things.

Two men sat on a stringer of a North River pier in the City of New

York. A steamer from the tropics had begun to unload bananas and

oranges on the pier. Now and then a banana or two would fall from an

overripe bunch, and one of the two men would shamble forward, seize the

fruit and return to share it with his companion.

One of the men was in the ultimate stage of deterioration. As far as

rain and wind and sun could wreck the garments he wore, it had been

done. In his person the ravages of drink were as plainly visible. And

yet, upon his high-bridged, rubicund nose was jauntily perched a pair

of shining and flawless gold-rimmed glasses.

The other man was not so far gone upon the descending Highway of the

Incompetents. Truly, the flower of his manhood had gone to seed—seed

that, perhaps, no soil might sprout. But there were still cross-cuts

along where he travelled through which he might yet regain the pathway

of usefulness without disturbing the slumbering Miracles. This man was

short and compactly built. He had an oblique, dead eye, like that of a

sting-ray, and the moustache of a cocktail mixer. We know the eye and

the moustache; we know that Smith of the luxurious yacht, the gorgeous

raiment, the mysterious mission, the magic disappearance, has come

again, though shorn of the accessories of his former state.

At his third banana, the man with the nose glasses spat it from him

with a shudder.

“Deuce take all fruit!” he remarked, in a patrician tone of disgust. “I

lived for two years where these things grow. The memory of their taste

lingers with you. The oranges are not so bad. Just see if you can

gather a couple of them, O’Day, when the next broken crate comes up.”

“Did you live down with the monkeys?” asked the other, made tepidly

garrulous by the sunshine and the alleviating meal of juicy fruit. “I

was down there, once myself. But only for a few hours. That was when I

was with the Columbia Detective Agency. The monkey people did me up.

I’d have my job yet if it hadn’t been for them. I’ll tell you about it.

“One day the chief sent a note around to the office that read: ‘Send

O’Day here at once for a big piece of business.’ I was the crack

detective of the agency at that time. They always handed me the big

jobs. The address the chief wrote from was down in the Wall Street

district.

“When I got there I found him in a private office with a lot of

directors who were looking pretty fuzzy. They stated the case. The

president of the Republic Insurance Company had skipped with about a

tenth of a million dollars in cash. The directors wanted him back

pretty bad, but they wanted the money worse. They said they needed it.

They had traced the old gent’s movements to where he boarded a tramp

fruit steamer bound for South America that same morning with his

daughter and a big gripsack—all the family he had.

“One of the directors had his steam yacht coaled and with steam up,

ready for the trip; and he turned her over to me, cart blongsh. In four

hours I was on board of her, and hot on the trail of the fruit tub. I

had a pretty good idea where old Wahrfield—that was his name, J.

Churchill Wahrfield—would head for. At that time we had a treaty with

about every foreign country except Belgium and that banana republic,

Anchuria. There wasn’t a photo of old Wahrfield to be had in New

York—he had been foxy there—but I had his description. And besides, the

lady with him would be a dead-give-away anywhere. She was one of the

high-flyers in Society—not the kind that have their pictures in the

Sunday papers—but the real sort that open chrysanthemum shows and

christen battleships.

“Well, sir, we never got a sight of that fruit tub on the road. The

ocean is a pretty big place; and I guess we took different paths across

it. But we kept going toward this Anchuria, where the fruiter was bound

for.

“We struck the monkey coast one afternoon about four. There was a

ratty-looking steamer off shore taking on bananas. The monkeys were

loading her up with big barges. It might be the one the old man had

taken, and it might not. I went ashore to look around. The scenery was

pretty good. I never saw any finer on the New York stage. I struck an

American on shore, a big, cool chap, standing around with the monkeys.

He showed me the consul’s office. The consul was a nice young fellow.

He said the fruiter was the _Karlsefin_, running generally to New

Orleans, but took her last cargo to New York. Then I was sure my people

were on board, although everybody told me that no passengers had

landed. I didn’t think they would land until after dark, for they might

have been shy about it on account of seeing that yacht of mine hanging

around. So, all I had to do was to wait and nab ’em when they came

ashore. I couldn’t arrest old Wahrfield without extradition papers, but

my play was to get the cash. They generally give up if you strike ’em

when they’re tired and rattled and short on nerve.

“After dark I sat under a cocoanut tree on the beach for a while, and

then I walked around and investigated that town some, and it was enough

to give you the lions. If a man could stay in New York and be honest,

he’d better do it than to hit that monkey town with a million.

“Dinky little mud houses; grass over your shoe tops in the streets;

ladies in low-neck-and-short-sleeves walking around smoking cigars;

tree frogs rattling like a hose cart going to a ten blow; big mountains

dropping gravel in the back yards, and the sea licking the paint off in

front—no, sir—a man had better be in God’s country living on free lunch

than there.

“The main street ran along the beach, and I walked down it, and then

turned up a kind of lane where the houses were made of poles and straw.

I wanted to see what the monkeys did when they weren’t climbing

cocoanut trees. The very first shack I looked in I saw my people. They

must have come ashore while I was promenading. A man about fifty,

smooth face, heavy eyebrows, dressed in black broadcloth, looking like

he was just about to say, ‘Can any little boy in the Sunday school

answer that?’ He was freezing on to a grip that weighed like a dozen

gold bricks, and a swell girl—a regular peach, with a Fifth Avenue

cut—was sitting on a wooden chair. An old black woman was fixing some

coffee and beans on a table. The light they had come from a lantern

hung on a nail. I went and stood in the door, and they looked at me,

and I said:

“‘Mr. Wahrfield, you are my prisoner. I hope, for the lady’s sake, you

will take the matter sensibly. You know why I want you.’

“‘Who are you?’ says the old gent.

“‘O’Day,’ says I, ‘of the Columbia Detective Agency. And now, sir, let

me give you a piece of good advice. You go back and take your medicine

like a man. Hand ’em back the boodle; and maybe they’ll let you off

light. Go back easy, and I’ll put in a word for you. I’ll give you five

minutes to decide.’ I pulled out my watch and waited.

“Then the young lady chipped in. She was one of the genuine

high-steppers. You could tell by the way her clothes fit and the style

she had that Fifth Avenue was made for her.

“‘Come inside,’ she says. ‘Don’t stand in the door and disturb the

whole street with that suit of clothes. Now, what is it you want?’

“‘Three minutes gone,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell you again while the other two

tick off.

“‘You’ll admit being the president of the Republic, won’t you?’

“‘I am,’ says he.

“‘Well, then,’ says I, ‘it ought to be plain to you. Wanted, in New

York, J. Churchill Wahrfield, president of the Republic Insurance

Company.

“‘Also the funds belonging to said company, now in that grip, in the

unlawful possession of said J. Churchill Wahrfield.’

“‘Oh-h-h-h!’ says the young lady, as if she was thinking, ‘you want to

take us back to New York?’

“‘To take Mr. Wahrfield. There’s no charge against you, miss. There’ll

be no objection, of course, to your returning with your father.’

“Of a sudden the girl gave a tiny scream and grabbed the old boy around

the neck. ‘Oh, father, father!’ she says, kind of contralto, ‘can this

be true? Have you taken money that is not yours? Speak, father!’ It

made you shiver to hear the tremolo stop she put on her voice.

“The old boy looked pretty bughouse when she first grappled him, but

she went on, whispering in his ear and patting his off shoulder till he

stood still, but sweating a little.

“She got him to one side and they talked together a minute, and then he

put on some gold eyeglasses and walked up and handed me the grip.

“‘Mr. Detective,’ he says, talking a little broken, ‘I conclude to

return with you. I have finished to discover that life on this desolate

and displeased coast would be worse than to die, itself. I will go back

and hurl myself upon the mercy of the Republic Company. Have you

brought a sheep?’

“‘Sheep!’ says I; ‘I haven’t a single—’

“‘Ship,’ cut in the young lady. ‘Don’t get funny. Father is of German

birth, and doesn’t speak perfect English. How did you come?’

“The girl was all broke up. She had a handkerchief to her face, and

kept saying every little bit, ‘Oh, father, father!’ She walked up to me

and laid her lily-white hand on the clothes that had pained her at

first. I smelt a million violets. She was a lulu. I told her I came in

a private yacht.

“‘Mr. O’Day,’ she says. ‘Oh, take us away from this horrid country at

once. Can you! Will you! Say you will.’

“‘I’ll try,’ I said, concealing the fact that I was dying to get them

on salt water before they could change their mind.

“One thing they both kicked against was going through the town to the

boat landing. Said they dreaded publicity, and now that they were going

to return, they had a hope that the thing might yet be kept out of the

papers. They swore they wouldn’t go unless I got them out to the yacht

without any one knowing it, so I agreed to humour them.

“The sailors who rowed me ashore were playing billiards in a bar-room

near the water, waiting for orders, and I proposed to have them take

the boat down the beach half a mile or so, and take us up there. How to

get them word was the question, for I couldn’t leave the grip with the

prisoner, and I couldn’t take it with me, not knowing but what the

monkeys might stick me up.

“The young lady says the old coloured woman would take them a note. I

sat down and wrote it, and gave it to the dame with plain directions

what to do, and she grins like a baboon and shakes her head.

“Then Mr. Wahrfield handed her a string of foreign dialect, and she

nods her head and says, ‘See, señor,’ maybe fifty times, and lights out

with the note.

“‘Old Augusta only understands German,’ said Miss Wahrfield, smiling at

me. ‘We stopped in her house to ask where we could find lodging, and

she insisted upon our having coffee. She tells us she was raised in a

German family in San Domingo.’

“‘Very likely,’ I said. ‘But you can search me for German words, except

_nix verstay_ and _noch einst_. I would have called that “See, señor”

French, though, on a gamble.’

“Well, we three made a sneak around the edge of town so as not to be

seen. We got tangled in vines and ferns and the banana bushes and

tropical scenery a good deal. The monkey suburbs was as wild as places

in Central Park. We came out on the beach a good half mile below. A

brown chap was lying asleep under a cocoanut tree, with a ten-foot

musket beside him. Mr. Wahrfield takes up the gun and pitches it into

the sea. ‘The coast is guarded,’ he says. ‘Rebellion and plots ripen

like fruit.’ He pointed to the sleeping man, who never stirred. ‘Thus,’

he says, ‘they perform trusts. Children!’

“I saw our boat coming, and I struck a match and lit a piece of

newspaper to show them where we were. In thirty minutes we were on

board the yacht.

“The first thing, Mr. Wahrfield and his daughter and I took the grip

into the owner’s cabin, opened it up, and took an inventory. There was

one hundred and five thousand dollars, United States treasury notes, in

it, besides a lot of diamond jewelry and a couple of hundred Havana

cigars. I gave the old man the cigars and a receipt for the rest of the

lot, as agent for the company, and locked the stuff up in my private

quarters.

“I never had a pleasanter trip than that one. After we got to sea the

young lady turned out to be the jolliest ever. The very first time we

sat down to dinner, and the steward filled her glass with

champagne—that director’s yacht was a regular floating

Waldorf-Astoria—she winks at me and says, ‘What’s the use to borrow

trouble, Mr. Fly Cop? Here’s hoping you may live to eat the hen that

scratches on your grave.’ There was a piano on board, and she sat down

to it and sung better than you give up two cases to hear plenty times.

She knew about nine operas clear through. She was sure enough _bon ton_

and swell. She wasn’t one of the ‘among others present’ kind; she

belonged on the special mention list!

“The old man, too, perked up amazingly on the way. He passed the

cigars, and says to me once, quite chipper, out of a cloud of smoke,

‘Mr. O’Day, somehow I think the Republic Company will not give me the

much trouble. Guard well the gripvalise of the money, Mr. O’Day, for

that it must be returned to them that it belongs when we finish to

arrive.’

“When we landed in New York I ’phoned to the chief to meet us in that

director’s office. We got in a cab and went there. I carried the grip,

and we walked in, and I was pleased to see that the chief had got

together that same old crowd of moneybugs with pink faces and white

vests to see us march in. I set the grip on the table. ‘There’s the

money,’ I said.

“‘And your prisoner?’ said the chief.

“I pointed to Mr. Wahrfield, and he stepped forward and says:

“‘The honour of a word with you, sir, to explain.’

“He and the chief went into another room and stayed ten minutes. When

they came back the chief looked as black as a ton of coal.

“‘Did this gentleman,’ he says to me, ‘have this valise in his

possession when you first saw him?’

“‘He did,’ said I.

“The chief took up the grip and handed it to the prisoner with a bow,

and says to the director crowd: ‘Do any of you recognize this

gentleman?’

“They all shook their pink faces.

“‘Allow me to present,’ he goes on, Señor Miraflores, president of the

republic of Anchuria. The señor has generously consented to overlook

this outrageous blunder, on condition that we undertake to secure him

against the annoyance of public comment. It is a concession on his part

to overlook an insult for which he might claim international redress. I

think we can gratefully promise him secrecy in the matter.’

“They gave him a pink nod all round.

“‘O’Day,’ he says to me. ‘As a private detective you’re wasted. In a

war, where kidnapping governments is in the rules, you’d be invaluable.

Come down to the office at eleven.’

“I knew what that meant.

“‘So that’s the president of the monkeys,’ says I. ‘Well, why couldn’t

he have said so?’

“Wouldn’t it jar you?”

XVIII

THE VITAGRAPHOSCOPE

Vaudeville is intrinsically episodic and discontinuous. Its audiences

do not demand dénouements. Sufficient unto each “turn” is the evil

thereof. No one cares how many romances the singing comédienne may have

had if she can capably sustain the limelight and a high note or two.

The audiences reck not if the performing dogs get to the pound the

moment they have jumped through their last hoop. They do not desire

bulletins about the possible injuries received by the comic bicyclist

who retires head-first from the stage in a crash of (property)

china-ware. Neither do they consider that their seat coupons entitle

them to be instructed whether or no there is a sentiment between the

lady solo banjoist and the Irish monologist.

Therefore let us have no lifting of the curtain upon a tableau of the

united lovers, backgrounded by defeated villainy and derogated by the

comic, osculating maid and butler, thrown in as a sop to the Cerberi of

the fifty-cent seats.

But our programme ends with a brief “turn” or two; and then to the

exits. Whoever sits the show out may find, if he will, the slender

thread that binds together, though ever so slightly, the story that,

perhaps, only the Walrus will understand.

_Extracts from a letter from the first vice-president of the Republic

Insurance Company, of New York City, to Frank Goodwin, of Coralio,

Republic of Anchuria._

My Dear Mr. Goodwin:—Your communication per Messrs. Howland and

Fourchet, of New Orleans, has reached us. Also their draft on N. Y. for

$100,000, the amount abstracted from the funds of this company by the

late J. Churchill Wahrfield, its former president. … The officers and

directors unite in requesting me to express to you their sincere esteem

and thanks for your prompt and much appreciated return of the entire

missing sum within two weeks from the time of its disappearance. … Can

assure you that the matter will not be allowed to receive the least

publicity. … Regret exceedingly the distressing death of Mr. Wahrfield

by his own hand, but… Congratulations on your marriage to Miss

Wahrfield … many charms, winning manners, noble and womanly nature and

envied position in the best metropolitan society…

Cordially yours,

Lucius E. Applegate,

First Vice-President the Republic Insurance Company.

_The Vitagraphoscope_

(Moving Pictures)

_The Last Sausage_

SCENE—_An Artist’s Studio._ The artist, a young man of prepossessing

appearance, sits in a dejected attitude, amid a litter of sketches,

with his head resting upon his hand. An oil stove stands on a pine box

in the centre of the studio. The artist rises, tightens his waist belt

to another hole, and lights the stove. He goes to a tin bread box,

half-hidden by a screen, takes out a solitary link of sausage, turns

the box upside-down to show that there is no more, and chucks the

sausage into a frying-pan, which he sets upon the stove. The flame of

the stove goes out, showing that there is no more oil. The artist, in

evident despair, seizes the sausage, in a sudden access of rage, and

hurls it violently from him. At the same time a door opens, and a man

who enters receives the sausage forcibly against his nose. He seems to

cry out; and is observed to make a dance step or two, vigorously. The

newcomer is a ruddy-faced, active, keen-looking man, apparently of

Irish ancestry. Next he is observed to laugh immoderately; he kicks

over the stove; he claps the artist (who is vainly striving to grasp

his hand) vehemently upon the back. Then he goes through a pantomime

which to the sufficiently intelligent spectator reveals that he has

acquired large sums of money by trading pot-metal hatchets and razors

to the Indians of the Cordillera Mountains for gold dust. He draws a

roll of money as large as a small loaf of bread from his pocket, and

waves it above his head, while at the same time he makes pantomime of

drinking from a glass. The artist hurriedly secures his hat, and the

two leave the studio together.

_The Writing on the Sands_

SCENE—_The Beach at Nice._ A woman, beautiful, still young, exquisitely

clothed, complacent, poised, reclines near the water, idly scrawling

letters in the sand with the staff of her silken parasol. The beauty of

her face is audacious; her languid pose is one that you feel to be

impermanent—you wait, expectant, for her to spring or glide or crawl,

like a panther that has unaccountably become stock-still. She idly

scrawls in the sand; and the word that she always writes is “Isabel.” A

man sits a few yards away. You can see that they are companions, even

if no longer comrades. His face is dark and smooth, and almost

inscrutable—but not quite. The two speak little together. The man also

scratches on the sand with his cane. And the word that he writes is

“Anchuria.” And then he looks out where the Mediterranean and the sky

intermingle, with death in his gaze.

_The Wilderness and Thou_

SCENE—_The Borders of a Gentleman’s Estate in a Tropical Land._ An old

Indian, with a mahogany-coloured face, is trimming the grass on a grave

by a mangrove swamp. Presently he rises to his feet and walks slowly

toward a grove that is shaded by the gathering, brief twilight. In the

edge of the grove stand a man who is stalwart, with a kind and

courteous air, and a woman of a serene and clear-cut loveliness. When

the old Indian comes up to them the man drops money in his hand. The

grave-tender, with the stolid pride of his race, takes it as his due,

and goes his way. The two in the edge of the grove turn back along the

dim pathway, and walk close, close—for, after all, what is the world at

its best but a little round field of the moving pictures with two

walking together in it?