Then came the cashier's turn, and easy-going Mr. Edlinger rubbed his
nose and polished his glasses nervously under the quick fire of
questions concerning the circulation, undivided profits, bank real
estate, and stock ownership.
Presently Nettlewick was aware of a big man towering above him at
his elbow - a man sixty years of age, rugged and hale, with a rough,
grizzled beard, a mass of gray hair, and a pair of penetrating blue
eyes that confronted the formidable glasses of the examiner without
a flicker.
"Er - Major Kingman, our president - er - Mr. Nettlewick," said the
cashier.
Two men of very different types shook hands. One was a finished
product of the world of straight lines, conventional methods, and
formal affairs. The other was something freer, wider, and nearer to
nature. Tom Kingman had not been cut to any pattern. He had been
mule-driver, cowboy, ranger, soldier, sheriff, prospector, and
cattleman. Now, when he was bank president, his old comrades from
the prairies, of the saddle, tent, and trail found no change in him.
He had made his fortune when Texas cattle were at the high tide of
value, and had organized the First National Bank of San Rosario.
In spite of his largeness of heart and sometimes unwise generosity
toward his old friends, the bank had prospered, for Major Tom
Kingman knew men as well as he knew cattle. Of late years the cattle
business had known a depression, and the major's bank was one of the
few whose losses had not been great.
"And now," said the examiner, briskly, pulling out his watch, "the
last thing is the loans. We will take them up now, if you please."
He had gone through the First National at almost record-breaking
speed - but thoroughly, as he did everything. The running order of
the bank was smooth and clean, and that had facilitated his work.
There was but one other bank in the town. He received from the
Government a fee of twenty-five dollars for each bank that he
examined. He should be able to go over those loans and discounts in
half an hour. If so, he could examine the other bank immediately
afterward, and catch the 11.45, the only other train that day in
the direction he was working. Otherwise, he would have to spend the
night and Sunday in this uninteresting Western town. That was why
Mr. Nettlewick was rushing matters.
"Come with me, sir," said Major Kingman, in his deep voice, that
united the Southern drawl with the rhythmic twang of the West; "We
will go over them together. Nobody in the bank knows those notes as
I do. Some of 'em are a little wobbly on their legs, and some are
mavericks without extra many brands on their backs, but they'll most
all pay out at the round-up."
The two sat down at the president's desk. First, the examiner went
through the notes at lightning speed, and added up their total,
finding it to agree with the amount of loans carried on the book
of daily balances. Next, he took up the larger loans, inquiring
scrupulously into the condition of their endorsers or securities.
The new examiner's mind seemed to course and turn and make
unexpected dashes hither and thither like a bloodhound seeking a
trail. Finally he pushed aside all the notes except a few, which he
arranged in a neat pile before him, and began a dry, formal little
speech.
"I find, sir, the condition of your bank to be very good,
considering the poor crops and the depression in the cattle
interests of your state. The clerical work seems to be done
accurately and punctually. Your past-due paper is moderate in
amount, and promises only a small loss. I would recommend the
calling in of your large loans, and the making of only sixty and
ninety day or call loans until general business revives. And now,
there is one thing more, and I will have finished with the bank.
Here are six notes aggregating something like $40,000. They are
secured, according to their faces, by various stocks, bonds, shares,
etc. to the value of $70,000. Those securities are missing from the
notes to which they should be attached. I suppose you have them in
the safe or vault. You will permit me to examine them."
Major Tom's light-blue eyes turned unflinchingly toward the
examiner.
"No, sir," he said, in a low but steady tone; "those securities are
neither in the safe nor in the vault. I have taken them. You may
hold me personally responsible for their absence."
Nettlewick felt a slight thrill. He had not expected this. He had
struck a momentous trail when the hunt was drawing to a close.
"Ah!" said the examiner. He waited a moment, and then continued:
"May I ask you to explain more definitely?"
"The securities were taken by me," repeated the major. "It was not
for my own use, but to save an old friend in trouble. Come in here,
sir, and we'll talk it over."
He led the examiner into the bank's private office at the rear, and
closed the door. There was a desk, and a table, and half-a-dozen
leather-covered chairs. On the wall was the mounted head of a Texas
steer with horns five feet from tip to tip. Opposite hung the
major's old cavalry saber that he had carried at Shiloh and Fort
Pillow.
Placing a chair for Nettlewick, the major seated himself by the
window, from which he could see the post-office and the carved
limestone front of the Stockmen's National. He did not speak at
once, and Nettlewick felt, perhaps, that the ice could be broken
by something so near its own temperature as the voice of official
warning.
"Your statement," he began, "since you have failed to modify it,
amounts, as you must know, to a very serious thing. You are aware,
also, of what my duty must compel me to do. I shall have to go
before the United States Commissioner and make - "
"I know, I know," said Major Tom, with a wave of his hand. "You
don't suppose I'd run a bank without being posted on national
banking laws and the revised statutes! Do your duty. I'm not asking
any favours. But, I spoke of my friend. I did want you to hear me
tell you about Bob."
Nettlewick settled himself in his chair. There would be no leaving
San Rosario for him that day. He would have to telegraph to the
Comptroller of the Currency; he would have to swear out a warrant
before the United States Commissioner for the arrest of Major
Kingman; perhaps he would be ordered to close the bank on account of
the loss of the securities. It was not the first crime the examiner
had unearthed. Once or twice the terrible upheaval of human emotions
that his investigations had loosed had almost caused a ripple in his
official calm. He had seen bank men kneel and plead and cry like
women for a chance - an hour's time - the overlooking of a single
error. One cashier had shot himself at his desk before him. None of
them had taken it with the dignity and coolness of this stern old
Westerner. Nettlewick felt that he owed it to him at least to listen
if he wished to talk. With his elbow on the arm of his chair, and
his square chin resting upon the fingers of his right hand, the bank
examiner waited to hear the confession of the president of the First
National Bank of San Rosario.
"When a man's your friend," began Major Tom, somewhat didactically,
"for forty years, and tried by water, fire, earth, and cyclones,
when you can do him a little favour you feel like doing it."
("Embezzle for him $70,000 worth of securities," thought the
examiner.)
"We were cowboys together, Bob and I," continued the major, speaking
slowly, and deliberately, and musingly, as if his thoughts were
rather with the past than the critical present, "and we prospected
together for gold and silver over Arizona, New Mexico, and a good
part of California. We were both in the war of 'sixty-one, but in
different commands. We've fought Indians and horse thieves side by
side; we've starved for weeks in a cabin in the Arizona mountains,
buried twenty feet deep in snow; we've ridden herd together when the
wind blew so hard the lightning couldn't strike - well, Bob and I
have been through some rough spells since the first time we met in
the branding camp of the old Anchor-Bar ranch. And during that time
we've found it necessary more than once to help each other out of
tight places. In those days it was expected of a man to stick to his
friend, and he didn't ask any credit for it. Probably next day you'd
need him to get at your back and help stand off a band of Apaches,
or put a tourniquet on your leg above a rattlesnake bite and ride
for whisky. So, after all, it was give and take, and if you didn't
stand square with your pardner, why, you might be shy one when you
needed him. But Bob was a man who was willing to go further than
that. He never played a limit.
"Twenty years ago I was sheriff of this county, and I made Bob my
chief deputy. That was before the boom in cattle when we both made
our stake. I was sheriff and collector, and it was a big thing for
me then. I was married, and we had a boy and a girl - a four and a
six year old. There was a comfortable house next to the courthouse,
furnished by the county, rent free, and I was saving some money. Bob
did most of the office work. Both of us had seen rough times and
plenty of rustling and danger, and I tell you it was great to hear
the rain and the sleet dashing against the windows of nights, and
be warm and safe and comfortable, and know you could get up in the
morning and be shaved and have folks call you 'mister.' And then, I
had the finest wife and kids that ever struck the range, and my old
friend with me enjoying the first fruits of prosperity and white
shirts, and I guess I was happy. Yes, I was happy about that time."
The major sighed and glanced casually out of the window. The bank
examiner changed his position, and leaned his chin upon his other
hand.
"One winter," continued the major, "the money for the county taxes
came pouring in so fast that I didn't have time to take the stuff to
the bank for a week. I just shoved the checks into a cigar box and
the money into a sack, and locked them in the big safe that belonged
to the sheriff's office.
"I had been overworked that week, and was about sick, anyway. My
nerves were out of order, and my sleep at night didn't seem to rest
me. The doctor had some scientific name for it, and I was taking
medicine. And so, added to the rest, I went to bed at night with
that money on my mind. Not that there was much need of being
worried, for the safe was a good one, and nobody but Bob and I knew
the combination. On Friday night there was about $6,500 in cash in
the bag. On Saturday morning I went to the office as usual. The safe
was locked, and Bob was writing at his desk. I opened the safe,
and the money was gone. I called Bob, and roused everybody in the
court-house to announce the robbery. It struck me that Bob took it
pretty quiet, considering how much it reflected upon both him and
me.
"Two days went by and we never got a clew. It couldn't have been
burglars, for the safe had been opened by the combination in the
proper way. People must have begun to talk, for one afternoon in
comes Alice - that's my wife - and the boy and girl, and Alice
stamps her foot, and her eyes flash, and she cries out, 'The lying
wretches - Tom, Tom!' and I catch her in a faint, and bring her
'round little by little, and she lays her head down and cries and
cries for the first time since she took Tom Kingman's name and
fortunes. And Jack and Zilla - the youngsters - they were always wild
as tiger cubs to rush at Bob and climb all over him whenever they
were allowed to come to the court-house - they stood and kicked their
little shoes, and herded together like scared partridges. They were
having their first trip down into the shadows of life. Bob was
working at his desk, and he got up and went out without a word. The
grand jury was in session then, and the next morning Bob went before
them and confessed that he stole the money. He said he lost it in a
poker game. In fifteen minutes they had found a true bill and sent
me the warrant to arrest the man with whom I'd been closer than a
thousand brothers for many a year.
"I did it, and then I said to Bob, pointing: 'There's my house,
and here's my office, and up there's Maine, and out that way is
California, and over there is Florida - and that's your range 'til
court meets. You're in my charge, and I take the responsibility.
You be here when you're wanted.'
"'Thanks, Tom,' he said, kind of carelessly; 'I was sort of hoping
you wouldn't lock me up. Court meets next Monday, so, if you don't
object, I'll just loaf around the office until then. I've got one
favour to ask, if it isn't too much. If you'd let the kids come out
in the yard once in a while and have a romp I'd like it.'
"'Why not?' I answered him. 'They're welcome, and so are you. And
come to my house, the same as ever.' You see, Mr. Nettlewick, you
can't make a friend of a thief, but neither can you make a thief of
a friend, all at once."
The examiner made no answer. At that moment was heard the shrill
whistle of a locomotive pulling into the depot. That was the train
on the little, narrow-gauge road that struck into San Rosario from
the south. The major cocked his ear and listened for a moment, and
looked at his watch. The narrow-gauge was in on time - 10.35. The
major continued:
"So Bob hung around the office, reading the papers and smoking. I
put another deputy to work in his place, and after a while, the
first excitement of the case wore off.
"One day when we were alone in the office Bob came over to where I
was sitting. He was looking sort of grim and blue - the same look
he used to get when he'd been up watching for Indians all night or
herd-riding.
"'Tom,' says he, 'it's harder than standing off redskins; it's
harder than lying in the lava desert forty miles from water; but I'm
going to stick it out to the end. You know that's been my style. But
if you'd tip me the smallest kind of a sign - if you'd just say, "Bob
I understand," why, it would make it lots easier.'
"I was surprised. 'I don't know what you mean, Bob,' I said. 'Of
course, you know that I'd do anything under the sun to help you that
I could. But you've got me guessing.'
"'All right, Tom,' was all he said, and he went back to his
newspaper and lit another cigar.
"It was the night before court met when I found out what he meant.
I went to bed that night with that same old, light-headed, nervous
feeling come back upon me. I dropped off to sleep about midnight.
When I awoke I was standing half dressed in one of the court-house
corridors. Bob was holding one of my arms, our family doctor the
other, and Alice was shaking me and half crying. She had sent for
the doctor without my knowing it, and when he came they had found me
out of bed and missing, and had begun a search.
"'Sleep-walking,' said the doctor.
"All of us went back to the house, and the doctor told us some
remarkable stories about the strange things people had done while in
that condition. I was feeling rather chilly after my trip out, and,
as my wife was out of the room at the time, I pulled open the door
of an old wardrobe that stood in the room and dragged out a big
quilt I had seen in there. With it tumbled out the bag of money for
stealing which Bob was to be tried - and convicted - in the morning.
"'How the jumping rattlesnakes did that get there?' I yelled, and
all hands must have seen how surprised I was. Bob knew in a flash.
"'You darned old snoozer,' he said, with the old-time look on his
face, 'I saw you put it there. I watched you open the safe and take
it out, and I followed you. I looked through the window and saw you
hide it in that wardrobe.'
"'Then, you blankety-blank, flop-eared, sheep-headed coyote, what
did you say you took it, for?'
"'Because,' said Bob, simply, 'I didn't know you were asleep.'
"I saw him glance toward the door of the room where Jack and Zilla
were, and I knew then what it meant to be a man's friend from Bob's
point of view."
Major Tom paused, and again directed his glance out of the window.
He saw some one in the Stockmen's National Bank reach and draw a
yellow shade down the whole length of its plate-glass, big front
window, although the position of the sun did not seem to warrant
such a defensive movement against its rays.
Nettlewick sat up straight in his chair. He had listened patiently,
but without consuming interest, to the major's story. It had
impressed him as irrelevant to the situation, and it could certainly
have no effect upon the consequences. Those Western people,
he thought, had an exaggerated sentimentality. They were not
business-like. They needed to be protected from their friends.
Evidently the major had concluded. And what he had said amounted to
nothing.
"May I ask," said the examiner, "if you have anything further to say
that bears directly upon the question of those abstracted
securities?"
"Abstracted securities, sir!" Major Tom turned suddenly in his
chair, his blue eyes flashing upon the examiner. "What do you mean,
sir?"
He drew from his coat pocket a batch of folded papers held together
by a rubber band, tossed them into Nettlewick's hands, and rose to
his feet.
"You'll find those securities there, sir, every stock, bond, and
share of 'em. I took them from the notes while you were counting the
cash. Examine and compare them for yourself."
The major led the way back into the banking room. The examiner,
astounded, perplexed, nettled, at sea, followed. He felt that he had
been made the victim of something that was not exactly a hoax, but
that left him in the shoes of one who had been played upon, used,
and then discarded, without even an inkling of the game. Perhaps,
also, his official position had been irreverently juggled with. But
there was nothing he could take hold of. An official report of the
matter would be an absurdity. And, somehow, he felt that he would
never know anything more about the matter than he did then.
Frigidly, mechanically, Nettlewick examined the securities, found
them to tally with the notes, gathered his black wallet, and rose to
depart.
"I will say," he protested, turning the indignant glare of his
glasses upon Major Kingman, "that your statements - your misleading
statements, which you have not condescended to explain - do not
appear to be quite the thing, regarded either as business or humour.
I do not understand such motives or actions."
Major Tom looked down at him serenely and not unkindly.
"Son," he said, "there are plenty of things in the chaparral, and
on the prairies, and up the canyons that you don't understand. But
I want to thank you for listening to a garrulous old man's prosy
story. We old Texans love to talk about our adventures and our old
comrades, and the home folks have long ago learned to run when we
begin with 'Once upon a time,' so we have to spin our yarns to the
stranger within our gates."
The major smiled, but the examiner only bowed coldly, and abruptly
quitted the bank. They saw him travel diagonally across the street
in a straight line and enter the Stockmen's National Bank.
Major Tom sat down at his desk, and drew from his vest pocket the
note Roy had given him. He had read it once, but hurriedly, and now,
with something like a twinkle in his eyes, he read it again. These
were the words he read:
DEAR TOM:
I hear there's one of Uncle Sam's grayhounds going through
you, and that means that we'll catch him inside of a couple
of hours, maybe. Now, I want you to do something for me.
We've got just $2,200 in the bank, and the law requires
that we have $20,000. I let Ross and Fisher have $18,000
late yesterday afternoon to buy up that Gibson bunch of
cattle. They'll realise $40,000 in less than thirty days on
the transaction, but that won't make my cash on hand look
any prettier to that bank examiner. Now, I can't show him
those notes, for they're just plain notes of hand without
any security in sight, but you know very well that Pink
Ross and Jim Fisher are two of the finest white men God
ever made, and they'll do the square thing. You remember
Jim Fisher - he was the one who shot that faro dealer in El
Paso. I wired Sam Bradshaw's bank to send me $20,000, and
it will get in on the narrow-gauge at 10.35. You can't let
a bank examiner in to count $2,200 and close your doors.
Tom, you hold that examiner. Hold him. Hold him if you have
to rope him and sit on his head. Watch our front window
after the narrow-gauge gets in, and when we've got the cash
inside we'll pull down the shade for a signal. Don't turn
him loose till then. I'm counting on you, Tom.
Your Old Pard,
BOB BUCKLY,
_Prest. Stockmen's National_.
The major began to tear the note into small pieces and throw them
into his waste basket. He gave a satisfied little chuckle as he did
so.
"Confounded old reckless cowpuncher!" he growled, contentedly, "that
pays him some on account for what he tried to do for me in the
sheriff's office twenty years ago."
XIII
THE FOURTH IN SALVADOR
On a summer's day, while the city was rocking with the din and red
uproar of patriotism, Billy Casparis told me this story.
In his way, Billy is Ulysses, Jr. Like Satan, he comes from going
to and fro upon the earth and walking up and down in it. To-morrow
morning while you are cracking your breakfast egg he may be off with
his little alligator grip to boom a town site in the middle of Lake
Okeechobee or to trade horses with the Patagonians.
We sat at a little, round table, and between us were glasses holding
big lumps of ice, and above us leaned an artificial palm. And
because our scene was set with the properties of the one they
recalled to his mind, Billy was stirred to narrative.
"It reminds me," said he, "of a Fourth I helped to celebrate down in
Salvador. 'Twas while I was running an ice factory down there, after
I unloaded that silver mine I had in Colorado. I had what they
called a 'conditional concession.' They made me put up a thousand
dollars cash forfeit that I would make ice continuously for six
months. If I did that I could draw down my ante. If I failed to do
so the government took the pot. So the inspectors kept dropping in,
trying to catch me without the goods.
"One day when the thermometer was at 110, the clock at half-past
one, and the calendar at July third, two of the little, brown, oily
nosers in red trousers slid in to make an inspection. Now, the
factory hadn't turned out a pound of ice in three weeks, for a
couple of reasons. The Salvador heathen wouldn't buy it; they said
it made things cold they put it in. And I couldn't make any more,
because I was broke. All I was holding on for was to get down my
thousand so I could leave the country. The six months would be up
on the sixth of July.
"Well, I showed 'em all the ice I had. I raised the lid of a darkish
vat, and there was an elegant 100-pound block of ice, beautiful and
convincing to the eye. I was about to close down the lid again when
one of those brunette sleuths flops down on his red knees and lays
a slanderous and violent hand on my guarantee of good faith. And in
two minutes more they had dragged out on the floor that fine chunk
of molded glass that had cost me fifty dollars to have shipped down
from Frisco.
"'Ice-y?' says the fellow that played me the dishonourable trick;
'verree warm ice-y. Yes. The day is that hot, señor. Yes. Maybeso it
is of desirableness to leave him out to get the cool. Yes.'
"'Yes,' says I, 'yes,' for I knew they had me. 'Touching's
believing, ain't it, boys? Yes. Now there's some might say the seats
of your trousers are sky blue, but 'tis my opinion they are red.
Let's apply the tests of the laying on of hands and feet.' And so I
hoisted both those inspectors out the door on the toe of my shoe,
and sat down to cool off on my block of disreputable glass.
"And, as I live without oats, while I sat there, homesick for money
and without a cent to my ambition, there came on the breeze the most
beautiful smell my nose had entered for a year. God knows where it
came from in that backyard of a country - it was a bouquet of soaked
lemon peel, cigar stumps, and stale beer - exactly the smell of
Goldbrick Charley's place on Fourteenth Street where I used to play
pinochle of afternoons with the third-rate actors. And that smell
drove my troubles through me and clinched 'em at the back. I began
to long for my country and feel sentiments about it; and I said
words about Salvador that you wouldn't think could come legitimate
out of an ice factory.
"And while I was sitting there, down through the blazing sunshine in
his clean, white clothes comes Maximilian Jones, an American
interested in rubber and rosewood.
"'Great carrambos!' says I, when he stepped in, for I was in a bad
temper, 'didn't I have catastrophes enough? I know what you want.
You want to tell me that story again about Johnny Ammiger and the
widow on the train. You've told it nine times already this month.'
"'It must be the heat,' says Jones, stopping in at the door, amazed.
'Poor Billy. He's got bugs. Sitting on ice, and calling his best
friends pseudonyms. Hi! - _muchacho!_' Jones called my force of
employees, who was sitting in the sun, playing with his toes, and
told him to put on his trousers and run for the doctor.
"'Come back,' says I. 'Sit down, Maxy, and forget it. 'Tis not
ice you see, nor a lunatic upon it. 'Tis only an exile full of
homesickness sitting on a lump of glass that's just cost him a
thousand dollars. Now, what was it Johnny said to the widow first?
I'd like to hear it again, Maxy - honest. Don't mind what I said.'
"Maximilian Jones and I sat down and talked. He was about as sick of
the country as I was, for the grafters were squeezing him for half
the profits of his rosewood and rubber. Down in the bottom of a tank
of water I had a dozen bottles of sticky Frisco beer; and I fished
these up, and we fell to talking about home and the flag and Hail
Columbia and home-fried potatoes; and the drivel we contributed
would have sickened any man enjoying those blessings. But at that
time we were out of 'em. You can't appreciate home till you've left
it, money till it's spent, your wife till she's joined a woman's
club, nor Old Glory till you see it hanging on a broomstick on the
shanty of a consul in a foreign town.
"And sitting there me and Maximilian Jones, scratching at our
prickly heat and kicking at the lizards on the floor, became
afflicted with a dose of patriotism and affection for our country.
There was me, Billy Casparis, reduced from a capitalist to a pauper
by over-addiction to my glass (in the lump), declares my troubles
off for the present and myself to be an uncrowned sovereign of the
greatest country on earth. And Maximilian Jones pours out whole drug
stores of his wrath on oligarchies and potentates in red trousers
and calico shoes. And we issues a declaration of interference in
which we guarantee that the fourth day of July shall be celebrated
in Salvador with all the kinds of salutes, explosions, honours
of war, oratory, and liquids known to tradition. Yes, neither me
nor Jones breathed with soul so dead. There shall be rucuses in
Salvador, we say, and the monkeys had better climb the tallest
cocoanut trees and the fire department get out its red sashes and
two tin buckets.
"About this time into the factory steps a native man incriminated
by the name of General Mary Esperanza Dingo. He was some pumpkin
both in politics and colour, and the friend of me and Jones. He was
full of politeness and a kind of intelligence, having picked up
the latter and managed to preserve the former during a two years'
residence in Philadelphia studying medicine. For a Salvadorian he
was not such a calamitous little man, though he always would play
jack, queen, king, ace, deuce for a straight.
"General Mary sits with us and has a bottle. While he was in the
States he had acquired a synopsis of the English language and the
art of admiring our institutions. By and by the General gets up
and tiptoes to the doors and windows and other stage entrances,
remarking 'Hist!' at each one. They all do that in Salvador before
they ask for a drink of water or the time of day, being conspirators
from the cradle and matinee idols by proclamation.
"'Hist!' says General Dingo again, and then he lays his chest on
the table quite like Gaspard the Miser. 'Good friends, señores,
to-morrow will be the great day of Liberty and Independence. The
hearts of Americans and Salvadorians should beat together. Of your
history and your great Washington I know. Is it not so?'
"Now, me and Jones thought that nice of the General to remember when
the Fourth came. It made us feel good. He must have heard the news
going round in Philadelphia about that disturbance we had with
England.
"'Yes,' says me and Maxy together, 'we knew it. We were talking
about it when you came in. And you can bet your bottom concession
that there'll be fuss and feathers in the air to-morrow. We are few
in numbers, but the welkin may as well reach out to push the button,
for it's got to ring.'
"'I, too, shall assist,' says the General, thumping his collar-bone.
'I, too, am on the side of Liberty. Noble Americans, we will make
the day one to be never forgotten.'
"'For us American whisky,' says Jones - 'none of your Scotch smoke or
anisada or Three Star Hennessey to-morrow. We'll borrow the consul's
flag; old man Billfinger shall make orations, and we'll have a
barbecue on the plaza.'
"'Fireworks,' says I, 'will be scarce; but we'll have all the
cartridges in the shops for our guns. I've got two navy sixes I
brought from Denver.'
"'There is one cannon,' said the General; 'one big cannon that will
go "BOOM!" And three hundred men with rifles to shoot.'
"'Oh, say!' says Jones, 'Generalissimo, you're the real silk
elastic. We'll make it a joint international celebration. Please,
General, get a white horse and a blue sash and be grand marshal.'
"'With my sword,' says the General, rolling his eyes. 'I shall ride
at the head of the brave men who gather in the name of Liberty.'
"'And you might,' we suggest 'see the commandante and advise him
that we are going to prize things up a bit. We Americans, you know,
are accustomed to using municipal regulations for gun wadding when
we line up to help the eagle scream. He might suspend the rules for
one day. We don't want to get in the calaboose for spanking his
soldiers if they get in our way, do you see?'
"'Hist!' says General Mary. 'The commandant is with us, heart and
soul. He will aid us. He is one of us.'
"We made all the arrangements that afternoon. There was a buck coon
from Georgia in Salvador who had drifted down there from a busted-up
coloured colony that had been started on some possumless land in
Mexico. As soon as he heard us say 'barbecue' he wept for joy and
groveled on the ground. He dug his trench on the plaza, and got half
a beef on the coals for an all-night roast. Me and Maxy went to see
the rest of the Americans in the town and they all sizzled like a
seidlitz with joy at the idea of solemnizing an old-time Fourth.
"There were six of us all together - Martin Dillard, a coffee
planter; Henry Barnes, a railroad man; old man Billfinger, an
educated tintype taker; me and Jonesy, and Jerry, the boss of the
barbecue. There was also an Englishman in town named Sterrett, who
was there to write a book on Domestic Architecture of the Insect
World. We felt some bashfulness about inviting a Britisher to help
crow over his own country, but we decided to risk it, out of our
personal regard for him.
"We found Sterrett in pajamas working at his manuscript with a
bottle of brandy for a paper weight.
"'Englishman,' says Jones, 'let us interrupt your disquisition
on bug houses for a moment. To-morrow is the Fourth of July. We
don't want to hurt your feelings, but we're going to commemorate
the day when we licked you by a little refined debauchery and
nonsense - something that can be heard above five miles off. If you
are broad-gauged enough to taste whisky at your own wake, we'd be
pleased to have you join us.'
"'Do you know,' says Sterrett, setting his glasses on his nose, 'I
like your cheek in asking me if I'll join you; blast me if I don't.
You might have known I would, without asking. Not as a traitor to my
own country, but for the intrinsic joy of a blooming row.'
"On the morning of the Fourth I woke up in that old shanty of an
ice factory feeling sore. I looked around at the wreck of all I
possessed, and my heart was full of bile. From where I lay on my
cot I could look through the window and see the consul's old ragged
Stars and Stripes hanging over his shack. 'You're all kinds of a
fool, Billy Casparis,' I says to myself; 'and of all your crimes
against sense it does look like this idea of celebrating the Fourth
should receive the award of demerit. Your business is busted up,
your thousand dollars is gone into the kitty of this corrupt country
on that last bluff you made, you've got just fifteen Chili dollars
left, worth forty-six cents each at bedtime last night and steadily
going down. To-day you'll blow in your last cent hurrahing for that
flag, and to-morrow you'll be living on bananas from the stalk and
screwing your drinks out of your friends. What's the flag done for
you? While you were under it you worked for what you got. You wore
your finger nails down skinning suckers, and salting mines, and
driving bears and alligators off your town lot additions. How much
does patriotism count for on deposit when the little man with the
green eye-shade in the savings-bank adds up your book? Suppose
you were to get pinched over here in this irreligious country
for some little crime or other, and appealed to your country for
protection - what would it do for you? Turn your appeal over to a
committee of one railroad man, an army officer, a member of each
labour union, and a coloured man to investigate whether any of your
ancestors were ever related to a cousin of Mark Hanna, and then
file the papers in the Smithsonian Institution until after the next
election. That's the kind of a sidetrack the Stars and Stripes would
switch you onto.'
"You can see that I was feeling like an indigo plant; but after
I washed my face in some cool water, and got out my navys and
ammunition, and started up to the Saloon of the Immaculate Saints
where we were to meet, I felt better. And when I saw those other
American boys come swaggering into the trysting place - cool, easy,
conspicuous fellows, ready to risk any kind of a one-card draw, or
to fight grizzlies, fire, or extradition, I began to feel glad I was
one of 'em. So, I says to myself again: 'Billy, you've got fifteen
dollars and a country left this morning - blow in the dollars and
blow up the town as an American gentleman should on Independence
Day.'
"It is my recollection that we began the day along conventional
lines. The six of us - for Sterrett was along - made progress among
the cantinas, divesting the bars as we went of all strong drink
bearing American labels. We kept informing the atmosphere as to
the glory and preeminence of the United States and its ability to
subdue, outjump, and eradicate the other nations of the earth. And,
as the findings of American labels grew more plentiful, we became
more contaminated with patriotism. Maximilian Jones hopes that our
late foe, Mr. Sterrett, will not take offense at our enthusiasm. He
sets down his bottle and shakes Sterrett's hand. 'As white man to
white man,' says he, 'denude our uproar of the slightest taint of
personality. Excuse us for Bunker Hill, Patrick Henry, and Waldorf
Astor, and such grievances as might lie between us as nations.'
"'Fellow hoodlums,' says Sterrett, 'on behalf of the Queen I ask
you to cheese it. It is an honour to be a guest at disturbing the
peace under the American flag. Let us chant the passionate strains
of "Yankee Doodle" while the señor behind the bar mitigates the
occasion with another round of cochineal and aqua fortis.'
"Old Man Billfinger, being charged with a kind of rhetoric, makes
speeches every time we stop. We explained to such citizens as we
happened to step on that we were celebrating the dawn of our own
private brand of liberty, and to please enter such inhumanities as
we might commit on the list of unavoidable casualties.
"About eleven o'clock our bulletins read: 'A considerable rise in
temperature, accompanied by thirst and other alarming symptoms.' We
hooked arms and stretched our line across the narrow streets, all
of us armed with Winchesters and navys for purposes of noise and
without malice. We stopped on a street corner and fired a dozen or
so rounds, and began a serial assortment of United States whoops and
yells, probably the first ever heard in that town.
"When we made that noise things began to liven up. We heard a
pattering up a side street, and here came General Mary Esperanza
Dingo on a white horse with a couple of hundred brown boys following
him in red undershirts and bare feet, dragging guns ten feet long.
Jones and me had forgot all about General Mary and his promise to
help us celebrate. We fired another salute and gave another yell,
while the General shook hands with us and waved his sword.
"'Oh, General,' shouts Jones, 'this is great. This will be a real
pleasure to the eagle. Get down and have a drink.'
"'Drink?' says the general. 'No. There is no time to drink. _Viva
la Libertad!_'
"'Don't forget _E Pluribus Unum!_' says Henry Barnes.
"'_Viva_ it good and strong,' says I. 'Likewise, _viva_ George
Washington. God save the Union, and,' I says, bowing to Sterrett,
'don't discard the Queen.'
"'Thanks,' says Sterrett. 'The next round's mine. All in to the bar.
Army, too.'
"But we were deprived of Sterrett's treat by a lot of gunshots
several squares sway, which General Dingo seemed to think he ought
to look after. He spurred his old white plug up that way, and the
soldiers scuttled along after him.
"'Mary is a real tropical bird,' says Jones. 'He's turned out the
infantry to help us do honour to the Fourth. We'll get that cannon
he spoke of after a while and fire some window-breakers with it.
But just now I want some of that barbecued beef. Let us on to the
plaza.'
"There we found the meat gloriously done, and Jerry waiting,
anxious. We sat around on the grass, and got hunks of it on our tin
plates. Maximilian Jones, always made tender-hearted by drink, cried
some because George Washington couldn't be there to enjoy the day.
'There was a man I love, Billy,' he says, weeping on my shoulder.
'Poor George! To think he's gone, and missed the fireworks. A little
more salt, please, Jerry.'
"From what we could hear, General Dingo seemed to be kindly
contributing some noise while we feasted. There were guns going off
around town, and pretty soon we heard that cannon go 'BOOM!' just as
he said it would. And then men began to skim along the edge of the
plaza, dodging in among the orange trees and houses. We certainly
had things stirred up in Salvador. We felt proud of the occasion and
grateful to General Dingo. Sterrett was about to take a bite off a
juicy piece of rib when a bullet took it away from his mouth.
"'Somebody's celebrating with ball cartridges,' says he, reaching