Billy Renfrew I'd have invented tons of ways of making you happy.
Billy was my side-kicker in New York. There is a man who never knew
what crooked was. Here I am working Honesty for a graft, but that
man loses money on it. Carrambos! I get sick at times of this
country. Everything's rotten. From the executive down to the coffee
pickers, they're plotting to down each other and skin their friends.
If a mule driver takes off his hat to an official, that man figures
it out that he's a popular idol, and set his pegs to stir up a
revolution and upset the administration. It's one of my little chores
as private secretary to smell out these revolutions and affix the
kibosh before they break out and scratch the paint off the government
property. That's why I'm down here now in this mildewed coast town.
The governor of the district and his crew are plotting to uprise.
I've got every one of their names, and they're invited to listen
to the phonograph tonight, compliments of H. P. M. That's the way
I'll get them in a bunch, and things are on the program to happen
to them.'
"We three were sitting at table in the cantina of the Purified Saints.
Mellinger poured out wine, and was looking some worried; I was
thinking.
"'They're a sharp crowd,' he says, kind of fretful. 'They're
capitalized by a foreign syndicate after rubber, and they're loaded
to the muzzle for bribing. I'm sick,' goes on Mellinger, 'of comic
opera. I want to smell East River and wear suspenders again. At
times I feel loke throwing up my job, but I'm d - n fool enough to
be sort of proud of it. "There's Mellinger," they say here. "~Por
dios!~ you can't touch him with a million." I'd like to take that
record back and show it to Billy Renfrow some day; and that tightens
my grip whenever I see a fat thing that I could corral just by
winking one eye - and losing my graft. By - , they can't monkey
with me. They know it. What money I get I make honest and spend it.
Some day, I'll make a pile and go back and eat caviar with Billy.
Tonight I'll show you how to handle a bunch of corruptionists. I'll
show them what Mellinger, private secretary, means when you spell it
with the cotton and tissue paper off.'
"Mellinger appears shaky, and breaks his glass against the neck of
the bottle.
"I says to myself, 'White man, if I'm not mistaken there's been a
bait laid out where the tail of your eye could see it.'
"That night, according to arrangements, me and Henry took the
phonograph to a room in a 'dobe house in a dirty side street, where
the grass was knee high. 'Twas a long room, lit with smoky oil lamps.
There was plenty of chairs, and a table at the back end. We set the
phonograph on the table. Mellinger was there, walking up and down,
disturbed in his predicaments. He chewed cigars and spat 'em out,
and he bit the thumb nail of his left hand.
"By and by the invitations to the musicale come sliding in by pairs
and threes and spade flushes. Their color was of a diversity, running
from a three-day's smoked meerschaum to a patent-leather polish.
They were as polite as wax, being devastated with enjoyments to give
Senor Mellinger the good evenings. I understood their Spanish talk
- I ran a pumping engine two years in a Mexican silver mine, and had
it pat - but I never let on.
"Maybe fifty of 'em had come, and was seated, when in slid the king
bee, the governor of the district. Mellinger met him at the door,
and escorted him to the grand stand. When I saw that Latin man I
knew that Mellinger, private secretary, had all the dances on his card
taken. That was a big, squashy man, the color of a rubber overshoe,
and he had an eye like a head waiter's.
"Mellinger explained, fluent, in the Castilian idioms, that his soul
was disconcerted with joy at introducing to his respected friends
America's greatest invention, the wonder of the age. Henry got the
cue and run on an elegant brass-band record and the festivities became
initiated. The governor man had a bit of English under his hat, and
when the music was choked off he says:
"'Ver-r-ree fine. ~Gr-r'r-r-racias~, the American gentlemen, the so
esplendeed moosic as to playee.'
"The table was a long one, and Henry and me sat at the end of it next
the wall. The governor sat at the other end. Homer P. Mellinger
stood at the side of it. I was just wondering how Mellinger was
going to handle his crowd, when the home talent suddenly opened the
services.
"That governor man was suitable for uprisings and policies. I judge
he was a ready kind of man, who took his own time. Yes, he was full
of attention and immediateness. He leaned his hands on the table and
imposed his face toward the secretary man.
"'Do the American senors understand Spanish?' he asks in his native
accents.
"'They do not,' says Mellinger.
"'Then listen,' goes on the Latin man, prompt. 'The musics are
of sufficient prettiness, but not of necessity. Let us speak
of business. I well know why we are here, since I observe my
compatriots. You had a whisper yesterday, Senor Mellinger, of our
proposals. Tonight we will speak out. We know that you stand in
the president's favor, and we know your influence. The government
will be changed. We know the worth of your services. We esteem
your friendship and aid so much that' - Mellinger praises his hand,
but the governor man bottles him up. 'Do not speak until I have
done.'
"The governor man then draws a package wrapped in paper from his
pocket, and lays it on the table by Mellinger's hand.
"'In that you will find fifty thousand dollars in money of your
country. You can do nothing against us, but you can be worth that
for us. Go back to the capital and obey our instructions. Take
that money now. We trust you. You will find with it a paper giving
in detail the work you will be expected to do for us. Do not have
the unwiseness to refuse.'
"'The governor man paused, with his eyes fixed on Mellinger, full
of expressions and observances. I looked at Mellinger, and was glad
Billy Renfrew couldn't see him then. The sweat was popping out on his
forehead, and he stood dumb, tapping the little package with the ends
of his fingers. The colorado-maduro gang was after his graft. He had
only to change his politics, and stuff five fingers in his inside
pocket.
"Henry whispers to me and wants the pause in the program interpreted.
I whisper back: 'H. P. is up against a bribe, senator's size, and the
coons have got him going.' I saw Mellinger's hand moving closer to
the package. 'He's weakening,' I whispered to Henry. 'We'll remind
him,' says Henry, 'of the peanut-roaster on Thirty-fourth Street,
New York."
"Henry stooped down and got a record from the basketful we'd brought,
slid it in the phonograph, and started her off. It was a cornet solo,
very neat and beautiful, and the name of it was 'Home, Sweet Home.'
Not one of them fifty odd men in the room moved while it was playing,
and the governor man kept his eyes steady on Mellinger. I saw
Mellinger's head go up little by little and his hand came creeping
away from the package. Not until the last note sounded did anybody
stir. And there Homer P. Mellinger takes up the bundle of boodle
and slams it in the governor man's face.
"'That's my answer,' says Mellinger, private secretary, 'and there'll
be another in the morning. I have proofs of conspiracy against every
man of you. The show is over, gentlemen.'
"'There's one more act,' puts in the governor man. 'You are a
servant, I believe, employed by the president to copy letters and
answer raps at the door. I am governor here. Senores, I call upon
you in the name of the cause to seize this man.'
"That brindled gang of conspirators shoved back their chairs and
advanced in force. I could see where Mellinger had made a mistake in
massing his enemy so as to make a grand-stand play. I think he made
another one, too; but we can pass that, Mellinger's idea of a graft
and mine being different, according to estimations and points of view.
"There was only one window and door in that room, and they were in
the front end. Here was fifty odd Latin men coming in a bunch to
obstruct the legislation of Mellinger. You may say there were three
of us, for me and Henry, simultaneous, declared New York City and
the Cherokee Nation in sympathy with the weaker party.
"Then it was that Henry Horsecollar rose to a point of disorder and
intervened, showing, admirable, the advantages of education as applied
to the American Indian's natural intellect and native refinement.
He stood up and smoothed back his hair on each side with his hands
as you have seen little girls do when they play.
"'Get behind me, both of you,' says Henry
"'What's it to be, chief?' I asked.
"'I'm going to buck center,' says Henry, in his football idioms.
There isn't a tackle in the lot of them. Follow me close, and rush
the game.'
"'Then that cultured Red Man exhaled an arrangement of sounds with
his mouth that made the Latin aggregation pause, with thoughtfulness
and hesitations. The matter of his proclamation seemed to be a
cooperation of the Carlisle war-whoop with the Cherokee college yell.
He went at the chocolate team like a bean out of a little boy's nigger
shooter. His right elbow laid out the governor man on the gridiron,
and he made a lane the length of the crowd so wide that a woman
could have carried a stepladder through it without striking against
anything. All Mellinger and me had to do was to follow.
"It took us just three minutes to get out of that street around
to military headquarters, where Mellinger had things his own way.
A colonel and a battalion of bare-toed infantry turned out and went
back to the scene of the musicale with us, but the conspirator gang
was gone. But we recaptured the phonograph with honors of war, and
marched back to the ~cuartel~ with it playing 'All Coons Look Alike
to Me.'
"The next day Mellinger takes me and Henry to one side, and begins
to shed tens and twenties.
"'I want to buy that phonograph,' says he. I liked that last tune
it played at the ~soiree~.'
"'This is more money than the machine is worth,' says I.
"'Tis government expense money,' says Mellinger. The government pays
for it, and it's getting the tune-grinder cheap.'
"Me and Henry knew that pretty well. We knew that it had saved Homer
P. Mellinger's graft when he was on the point of losing it; but we
never let him know we knew it.
"'Now you boys better slide off further down the coast for a while,'
says Mellinger, 'till I get the screws put on these fellows here.
If you don't they'll give you trouble. And if you ever happen to see
Billy Renfrew again before I do, tell him I'm coming back to New York
as soon as I can make a stake - honest.'
"Me and Henry laid low until the day the steamer came back. When we
saw the captain's boat on the beach we went down and stood in the edge
of the water. The captain grinned when he saw us.
"'I told you you'd be waiting,' he says. 'Where's the Hamburger
machine?'
"'It stays behind,' I says, 'to play "Home, Sweet Home."'
"'I told you so,' says the captain again. 'Climb in the boat.'
"And that," said Keogh, "is the way me and Henry Horsecollar
introduced the phonograph into this country. Henry went back to
the States, but I've been rummaging around in the tropics ever since.
They say Mellinger never travelled a mile after that without his
phonograph. I guess it kept him reminded about his graft whenever
he saw the siren voice of the boodler tip him the wink with a bribe
in his hand."
"I suppose he's taking it home with him as a souvenir, remarked the
consul.
"Not as a souvenir," said Keogh. "He'll need two of 'em in New York,
running day and night."
VII
Money Maze
The new administration of Anchuria entered upon its duties and
privileges with enthusiasm. Its first act was to send an agent
to Coralio with imperative orders to recover, if possible, the sum
of money ravished from the treasury by the ill-fated Miraflores.
Colonel Emilio Falcon, the private secretary of Losada, the new
president, was despatched from the capital upon this important
mission.
The position of private secretary to a tropical president is
a responsible one. He must be a diplomat, a spy, a ruler of men,
a body-guard to his chief, and a smeller-out of plots and nascent
revolutions. Often he is the power behind the throne, the dictator
of policy; and a president chooses him with a dozen times the care
with which he selects a matrimonial mate.
Colonel Falcon, a handsome and urbane gentleman of Castilian courtesy
and debonnaire manners, came to Coralio with the task before him of
striking upon the cold trail of the lost money. There he conferred
with the military authorities, who had received instructions to
cooperate with him in the search.
Colonel Falcon established his headquarters in one of the rooms of
the Casa Morena. Here for a week he held informal sittings - much as
if he were a kind of unified grand jury - and summoned before him all
those whose testimony might illumine the financial tragedy that had
accompanied the less momentous one of the late president's death.
Two or three who were thus examined, among whom was the barber
Esteban, declared that they had identified the body of the president
before its burial.
"Of a truth," testified Esteban before the mighty secretary, "it was
he, the president. Consider! - how could I shave a man and not see his
face? He sent for me to shave him in a small house. He had a beard
very black and thick. Had I ever seen the president before? Why not?
I saw him once ride forth in a carriage from the ~vapor~ in Solitas.
When I shaved him he gave me a gold piece, and said there was to be no
talk. But I am a Liberal - I am devoted to my country - and I spake of
these things to Senor Goodwin."
"It is known," said Colonel Falcon, smoothly, "that the late President
took with him an American leather valise, containing a large amount of
money. Did you see that?"
"~De veras~ - no," Esteban answered. "The light in the little house
was but a small lamp by which I could scarcely see to shave the
President. Such a thing there may have been, but I did not see it.
No. Also in the room was a young lady - a senorita of much beauty -
that I could see even in so small a light. But the money, senor, or
the thing in which it was carried - that I did not see."
The ~comandante~ and other officers gave testimony that they had been
awakened and alarmed by the noise of a pistol-shot in the Hotel de
los Extranjeros. Hurrying thither to protect the peace and dignity
of the republic, they found a man lying dead, with a pistol clutched
in his hand. Beside him was a young woman, weeping sorely. Senor
Goodwin was also in the room when they entered it. But of the valise
of money they saw nothing.
Madame Timotea Ortiz, the proprietress of the hotel in which the game
of Fox-in-the-Morning had been played out, told of the coming of the
two guests to her house.
"To my house they came," said she - "one ~senor~ not quite old, and
one ~senorita~ of sufficient handsomeness. They desired not to eat
or to drink - not even of my ~aguardiente~, which is the best. To
their rooms they ascended - ~Numero Nueve~ and ~Numero Diez~. Later
came Senor Goodwin, who ascended to speak with them. Then I heard
a great noise like that of a ~canon~, and they said that the ~pobre
Presidente~ had shot himself. ~Esta bueno~. I saw nothing of money
or of the thing you call ~veliz~ that you say he carried it in."
Colonel Falcon soon came to the reasonable conclusion that if any one
in Coralio could furnish a clue to the vanished money, Frank Goodwin
must be the man. But the wise secretary pursued a different course
in seeking information from the American. Goodwin was a powerful
friend to the new administration, and one who was not to be carelessly
dealt with in respect to either his honesty or his courage. Even
the private secretary of His Excellency hesitated to have this rubber
prince and mahogany baron haled before him as a common citizen
of Anchuria. So he sent Goodwin a flowery epistle, each word-petal
dripping with honey, requesting the favor of an interview. Goodwin
replied with an invitation to dinner at his own house.
Before the hour named the American walked over to the Casa Morena,
and greeted his guest frankly and friendly. Then the two strolled,
in the cool of the afternoon, to Goodwin's home in the environs.
The American left Colonel Falcon in a big, cool, shadowed room
with a floor of inlaid and polished woods that any millionaire
in the States Would have envied, excusing himself for a few minutes.
He crossed a ~patio~, shaded with deftly arranged awnings and plants,
and entered a long room looking upon the sea in the opposite wing
of the house. The broad jalousies were opened wide, and the ocean
breeze flowed in through the room, an invisible current of coolness
and health. Goodwin's wife sat near one of the windows, making
a water-color sketch of the afternoon seascape.
Here was a woman who looked to be happy. And more - she looked to
be content. Had a poet been inspired to pen just similes concerning
her favor, he would have likened her full, clear eyes, with their
white-encircled, gray irises, to moonflowers. With none of the
goddesses whose traditional charms have become coldly classic
would the discerning rhymester have compared her. She was purely
Paradisaic, not Olympian. If you can imagine Eve, after the eviction,
beguiling the flaming warriors and serenely reentering the Garden,
you will have her. Just so human, and still so harmonious with Eden
seemed Mrs. Goodwin.
When her husband entered she looked up, and her lips curved and
parted; her eyelids fluttered twice or thrice - a movement remindful
(Proesy forgive us!) of the tail-wagging of a faithful dog - and a
little ripple went through her like the commotion set up in a weeping
willow by a puff of wind. Thus she ever acknowledged his coming,
were it twenty times a day. If they who sometimes sat over their wine
in Coralio, reshaping old, diverting stories of the madcap career
of Isabel Guilbert, could have seen the wife of Frank Goodwin that
afternoon in the estimable aura of her happy wifehood, they might
have disbelieved, or have agreed to forget, those graphic annals of
the life of the one for whom their president gave up his country and
his honor.
"I have brought a guest to dinner," said Goodwin. "One Colonel
Falcon, from San Mateo. He is come on government business. I do not
think you will care to see him, so I prescribe for you one of those
convenient and indisputable feminine headaches."
"He has come to inquire about the lost money, has he not?" asked
Mrs. Goodwin, going on with her sketch.
"A good guess!" acknowledged Goodwin. "He has been holding an
inquisition among the natives for three days. I am next on his list
of witnesses, but as he feels shy about dragging one of Uncle Sam's
subjects before him, he consents to give it the outward appearance
of a social function. He will apply the torture over my own wine
and provender."
"Has he found any one who saw the valise of money?"
"Not a soul. Even Madama Ortiz, whose eyes are so sharp for the sight
of a revenue official, does not remember that there was any baggage."
Mrs. Goodwin laid down her brush and sighed.
"I am so sorry, Frank," she said, "that they are giving you so much
trouble about the money. But we can't let them know about it, can
we?"
"Not without doing our intelligence a great injustice," said Goodwin,
with a smile and a shrug that he had picked up from the natives.
"~Americano~, though I am, they would have me in the ~calaboza~ in
half an hour if they knew we had appropriated that valise. No; we
must appear as ignorant about the money as the other ignoramuses in
Coralio."
"Do you think that this man they have sent suspects you?" she asked,
with a little pucker of her brows. "He'd better not," said the
American, carelessly. "It's lucky that no one caught a sight of the
valise except myself. As I was in the rooms when the shot was fired,
it is not surprising that they should want to investigate my part
in the affair rather closely. But there's no cause for alarm.
This colonel is down on the list of events for a good dinner, with
a dessert of American 'bluff' that will end the matter, I think."
Mrs. Goodwin rose and walked to the window. Goodwin followed and
stood by her side. She leaned to him, and rested in the protection
of his strength, as she had always rested since that dark night
on which he had first made himself her tower of refuge. Thus they
stood for a little while.
Straight through the lavish growth of tropical branch and leaf and
vine that confronted them had been cunningly trimmed a vista, that
ended at the cleared environs of Coralio, on the banks of the mangrove
swamp. At the other end of the aerial tunnel they could see the grave
and wooden headpiece that bore the name of the unhappy President
Miraflores. From this window when the rains forbade the open,
and from the green and shady slopes of Goodwin's fruitful lands when
the skies were smiling, his wife was wont to look upon that grave
with a gentle sadness that was now scarcely a mar to her happiness.
"I loved him so, Frank!" she said, "even after that terrible flight
and its awful ending. And you have been so good to me, and have made
me so happy. It has all grown into such a strange puzzle. If they
were to find out that we got the money do you think they would force
you to make the amount good to the government?"
"They would undoubtedly try," answered Goodwin. "You are right about
its being a puzzle. And it must remain a puzzle to Falcon and all
his countrymen until it solves itself. You and I, who know more than
any one else, only know half of the solution. We must not let even
a hint about this money get abroad. Let them come to the theory that
the president concealed it in the mountains during his journey, or
that he found means to ship it out of the country before he reached
Coralio. I don't think that Falcon suspects me. He is making
a closer investigation, according to his orders, but he will find out
nothing."
Thus they spake together. Had any one overheard or overseen them
as they discussed the lost funds of Anchuria there would have been
a second puzzle presented. For upon the faces and in the bearing
of each of them was visible (if countenances are to be believed) Saxon
honesty and pride and honorable thoughts. In Goodwin's steady eye
and firm lineaments, molded into material shape by the inward spirit
of kindness and generosity and courage, there was nothing reconcilable
with his words.
As for his wife, physiognomy championed her even in the face of their
accusive talk. Nobility was in her guise; purity was in her glance.
The devotion that she manifested had not even the appearance of that
feeling that now and then inspires a woman to share the guilt of
her partner out of the pathetic greatness other love. No, there was
a discrepancy here between what the eye would have seen and the ear
have heard.
Dinner was served to Goodwin and his guest in the patio, under cool
foliage and flowers. The American begged the illustrious secretary
to excuse the absence of Mrs. Goodwin, who was suffering, he said,
from a headache brought on by a slight ~calentura~.
After the meal they lingered, according to the custom, over their
coffee and cigars. Colonel Falcon, with true Castilian delicacy,
waited for his host to open the question that they had met to discuss.
He had not long to wait. As soon as the cigars were lighted,
the American cleared the way by inquiring whether the secretary's
investigations in the town had furnished him with any clue to
the lost funds.
"I have found no one yet," admitted Colonel Falcon, "who even had
sight of the valise or the money. Yet I have persisted. It has
been proven in the capital that President Miraflores set out
from San Mateo with one hundred thousand dollars belonging to the
government, accompanied by Senorita Isabel Guilbert, the opera singer.
The Government, officially and personally, is loathe to believe,"
concluded Colonel Falcon, with a smile, "that our late President's
tastes would have permitted him to abandon on the route, as excess
baggage, either of the desirable articles with which his flight was
burdened."
"I suppose you would like to hear what I have to say about the
affair," said Goodwin, coming directly to the point. "It will not
require many words."
"On that night, with others of our friends here, I was keeping
a lookout for the president, having been notified of his flight
by a telegram in our national cipher from Englehart, one of our
leaders in the capital. About ten o'clock that night I saw a man
and a woman hurrying along the streets. They went to the Hotel de
los Extranjeros, and engaged rooms. I followed them upstairs, leaving
Esteban, who had come up, to watch outside. The barber had told me
that he had shaved the beard from the president's face that night;
therefore I was prepared, when I entered the rooms, to find him
with a smooth face. When I apprehended him in the name of the people
he drew a pistol and shot himself instantly. In a few minutes many
officers and citizens were on the spot. I suppose you have been
informed of the subsequent facts."
Goodwin paused. Losada's agent maintained an attitude of waiting,
as if he expected a continuance.
"And now," went on the American, looking steadily into the eyes of
the other man, and giving each word a deliberate emphasis, "you will
oblige me by attending carefully to what I have to add. I saw no
valise or receptacle of any kind, or any money belonging to the
Republic of Anchuria. If President Miraflores decamped with any funds
belonging to the treasury of this country, or to himself, or to any
one else, I saw no trace of it in the house or elsewhere, at that time
or at any other. Does that statement cover the ground of the inquiry
you wished to make of me?"
Colonel Falcon bowed, and described a fluent curve with his cigar.
His duty was performed. Goodwin was not to be disputed. He was
a loyal supporter of the government, and enjoyed the full confidence
of the new president. His rectitude had been the capital that had
brought him fortune in Anchuria, just as it had formed the lucrative
"graft" of Mellinger, the secretary of Miraflores.
"I thank you, ~Senor~ Goodwin, " said Falcon, "for speaking plainly.
But, ~Senor~ Goodwin, I am instructed to pursue every clue that
presents itself in this matter. There is one that I have not yet
touched upon. Our friends in France, senor, have a saying, '~Cherchez
la femme~,' when there is a mystery without a clue. But here we do
not have to search. The woman who accompanied the late President
in his flight must surely - "
"I must interrupt you there," interposed Goodwin. "It is true that
when I entered the hotel for the purpose of intercepting President
Miraflores I found a lady there. I must beg of you to remember that
that lady is now my wife. I speak for her as I do for myself. She
knows nothing of the fate of the valise or of the money that you
are seeking. You will say to his excellency that I guarantee her
innocence. I do not need to add to you, Colonel Falcon, that I do
not care to have her questioned or disturbed."
Colonel Falcon bowed again.
"~Por supuesto~, no!" he cried. And to indicate that the inquiry
was ended he added: "And now, senor, let me beg of you to show me
that sea view from your galeria of which you spoke. I am a lover
of the sea."
In the early evening Goodwin walked back to the town with his guest,
leaving him at the corner of the Calle Grande. As he was returning
homeward one "Beelzebub" Blythe, with the air of a courtier and
the outward aspect of a scarecrow, pounced upon him hopefully from
the door of a ~pulperia~.
Blythe had been re-christened "Beelzebub" as an acknowledgement of
the greatness of his fall. Once in some distant Paradise Lost, he had
foregathered with the angels of the earth. But Fate had hurled him
headlong down to the tropics, where flamed in his bosom a fire that
was seldom quenched. In Coralio they called him a beach-comber; but
he was, in reality, a categorical idealist who strove to anamorphosize
the dull verities of life by the means of brandy and rum. As
Beelzebub, himself, might have held in his clutch with unwitting
tenacity his harp or crown during his tremendous fall, so his namesake
had clung to his gold-rimmed eyeglasses as the only souvenir of his
lost estate. These he wore with impressiveness and distinction while
he combed beaches and extracted toll from his friends. By some
mysterious means he kept his drink-reddened face always smoothly
shaven. For the rest he sponged gracefully upon whomsoever he could
for enough to keep him pretty drunk, and sheltered from the rains and
night dews.
"Hallo, Goodwin!" called the derelict, airily. "I was hoping I'd
strike you. I wanted to see you particularly. Suppose we go where
we can talk. Of course you know there's a chap down here looking up
the money old Miraflores lost."
"Yes," said Goodwin, "I've been talking with him. Let's go into
Espada's place. I can spare you ten minutes."
They went into the ~pulperia~ and sat at a little table upon stools
with rawhide tops.
"Have a drink?" said Goodwin.
"They can't bring it too quickly," said Blythe. "I've been in
a drought ever since morning. Hi! - ~muchacho! - el aguardiente por
aca~."
"Now, what do you want to see me about?" asked Goodwin, when the
drinks were before them.
"Confound it, old man," drawled Blythe, "why do you spoil a golden
moment like this with business? I wanted to see you - well, this
has the preference." He gulped down his brandy, and gazed longingly
into the empty glass.
"Have another?" suggested Goodwin.
"Between gentlemen," said the fallen angel, "I don't quite like
your use of that word 'another.' It isn't quite delicate. But
the concrete idea that the word represents is not displeasing."
The glasses were refilled. Blythe sipped blissfully from his, as
he began to enter the state of a true idealist.
"I must trot along in a minute or two," hinted Goodwin. "Was there
anything in particular?"
Blythe did not reply at once.
"Old Losada would make it a hot country," he remarked at length, "for
the man who swiped that gripsack of treasury boodle, don't you think?"
"Undoubtedly, he would," agreed Goodwin calmly, as he rose leisurely
to his feet. "I'll be running over to the house, now old man. Mrs.
Goodwin is alone. There was nothing important you had to say, was
there?"
"That's all," said Blythe. "Unless you wouldn't mind sending in
another drink from the bar as you go out. Old Espada has closed my
account to profit and loss. And pay for the lot, will you, like a
good fellow?"
"All right," said Goodwin. "~Buenas noches~."
"Beezlebub" Blythe lingered over his cups, polishing his eyeglasses
with a disreputable handkerchief.
"I thought I could do it, but I couldn't," he muttered to himself
after a time. "A gentleman can't blackmail the man that he drinks
with."
VIII
The Admiral
Spilled milk draws few tears from an Anchurian administration.
Many are its lacteal sources; and the clocks' hands point forever
to milking time. Even the rich cream skimmed from the treasury by
the bewitched Miraflores did not cause the newly installed patriots
to waste time in unprofitable regrets. The government philosophically
set about supplying the deficiency by increasing the import duties
and by "suggesting" to wealthy private citizens that contributions
according to their means would be considered patriotic and in order.
Prosperity was expected to attend the reign of Losada, the new
president. The ousted office-holders and military favorites
organized a new "Liberal" party, and began to lay their plans
for a re-succession. Thus the game of Anchurian politics began, like
a Chinese comedy, to unwind slowly its serial length. Here and there
Mirth peeps for an instant from the wings and illumines the florid
lines.
A dozen quarts of champagne in conjunction with an informal sitting
of the president and his cabinet led to the establishment of the navy
and the appointment of Felipe Carrera as its admiral.
Next to the champagne the credit of the appointment belongs to Don
Sabas Placido, the newly confirmed Minister of War.
The president had requested a convention of his cabinet for the
discussion of questions politic and for the transaction of certain
routine matters of state. The session had been signally tedious;
the business and the wine prodigiously dry. A sudden, prankish humor
of Don Sabas, impelling him to the deed, spiced the grave affairs
of state with a whiff of agreeable playfulness. In the dilatory
order of business had come a bulletin from the coast department
of Orilla del Mar reporting the seizure by the custom-house officers
at the town of Coralio of the sloop ~Estrella del Noche~ and her cargo
of drygoods, patent medicines, granulated sugar and three-star brandy.
Also six Martini rifles and a barrel of American whiskey. Caught
in the act of smuggling, the sloop with its cargo was now, according
to law, the property of the republic.
The Collector of Customs, in making his report, departed from the
conventional forms so far as to suggest that the confiscated vessel
be converted to the use of the government. The prize was the first
capture to the credit of the department in ten years. The collector
took opportunity to pat his department on the back.
It often happened that government officers required transportation
from point to point along the coast, and means were usually lacking.
Furthermore, the sloop could be manned by a loyal crew and employed
as a coast guard to discourage the pernicious art of smuggling. The
collector also ventured to nominate one to whom the charge of the boat
could be safely intrusted - a young man of Coralio, Felipe Carrera -
not, be it understood, one of extreme wisdom, but loyal and the best
sailor along the coast.
It was upon this hint that the Minister of War acted, executing a
rare piece of drollery that so enlivened the tedium of the executive
session.
In the consultation of this small, maritime banana republic was
a forgotten section that provided for the maintenance of a navy.
This provision - with many other wiser ones - had lain inert since
the establishment of the republic. Anchuria had no navy and had
no use for one. It was characteristic of Don Sabas