A RULER OF MEN.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIV, Issue 8, 23 February 1910, Page 49

A RULER OF MEN.

Bi)

O. HENRY.

I WALKED the streets of the City of Insolence, thirsting for the sight of a stranger face. For the City is a desert of familiar types as thick and alike as the grains in a sand-storm; and you grow to hate them as you do a friend who is always by you, or ona of your own kin. And my desire was granted, for I saw, near a corner of Broadway’ and Twenty-ninth-street, a little flaxen-haired man with a face like a scaly-bark hfckorynut, selling to a fast-gathering crowd a tool that omnigeneously proclaimed itself a can-opener, a screw-driver, a ibutton-hook, a nail-file, a shoe-horn, a watch-guard, a potato-peeler, and an ornament to any gentleman’s key-ring. And then a stall-fed cop shoved himself through the congregation of customers. The vender, plainly used to having his seasons of trade thus abruptly curtailed, closed his satchel and slipped like a weasel through the opposite segment of the cardie. The crowd scurried aimlessly away like ants from a disturbed crumb. The cop, suddenly becoming oblivious of the earth and its inhabitants, stood still, swelling his bulk and putting his club through an intricate drill of twirls. I hurried after Kansas Bill Bowers, and caught him by an arm. Without his looking at me or slowing his pace, I found a five-dollar bill crumpled neatly into my hand. “I wouldn’t have thought, Kansas Bill,” I said, “that you'd hold an old friend that cheap.”

Then he turned his head, and the hickory-nut cracked into a wide smile. “Give back, the money,” said he, “or I’ll have the cop after you for false pretences. I thought you was the cop.”

“I want to talk to you, Bill,” I said. “When did you leave Oklahoma? Where ie Heddy McGill now ? Why are you selling those impossible contraptions on the street? How did your Big Horn goldmine pan out? How did you get so badly sunburned? What will you drink?”

“A year ago,” answered Kansas Bill, Systematically. “Putting up windmills in Arizona. For pin money to buy etceteras with. Salted. Been down in tha tropics. Beer.” We foregathered in a propitious place and became Elijahs, while a waiter of dark plumage played the raven to perfection. Reminiscence needs must be had before I could steer Bill into his epic mood.

“Yes,” said he, "I mind the time Timoteo’a rope broke on that sow’s horns while the calf was chasing you. You ■■A Uu>t esw! fd never forget it.”

“The tropics,” said I, “are a broad territory. What part of Cancer or Capricorn have you been honouring with a visit?”

“Down along China or Peru—or maybe the Argentine Confederacy,” said Kansas Bill. “Anyway Twas among a great race of people, off-coloured but progressive. I was there three months.”

“No doubt you are glad to be back among the truly great race,” I surmised. “Especially among New Yorkers, the most progressive and independent citizens of any country in the world,” I continued, with the fatuity of the provincial who has eaten the Broadway lotus.

“Do you want to start an argument?” asked Bill.

“Can there be one?” I answered. “Has an Irishman humour, do you think?” asked he. “I have an hour or two to spare,” said I, looking at the cafe clock. “Not that the Americans aren’t a great commercial nation,” conceded Bill. "But the fault laid with the people who wrote lies for fiction.” “What waa this Irishman’s name!” I asked. “Was that last beer cold enough ?” said he. “I see there is talk of further outbreaks among the Russian peasants,” I remarked. “His name was Barney O’Connor,” said Bill. Thus, because of our ancient prescience of each others trail of thought, we travelled ambiguously to the point where Kansas Bill’s story began: “I met O’Connor in a boarding-hou.se on the West Side. He invited me to his ball-room to have a drink, and we became like a dog and a cat that had been raised together. There he sat, a tall, fine, handsome man, with his feet against one waH and his 'back against the other, looking over a map. On the bed and sticking three feet out of it was a beautiful gold sword with tassels on it and rhinestones in the handle. “ ’What is this?’ says I (for by that time we were well acquainted). ‘The annual parade in vindication of the exsnakes of Ireland? And what’s the line of march? Up Broadway to Forty-sec-ond; thence east to McCarty’s cafe; thence ’

“ ‘Sit down on the wash-stand,’ says O’Connor, ‘and listen. And cast no perversions on the sword. Twas me father’s in old Munster. And this map, Bowers, is no diagram of a holiday procession. If ye look again ye’ll Bee that it’s the continent known as South America, comprising fourteen green, blue, red, and yellow countries, all crying out from time to time to be liberated from the yoke of the oppressor.’ “ ‘I know,’ says I to O’Connor. ‘The idea is a literary one. The ten-cent magazines stole it from “Ridpath's History of the World from the Sandstone Period to the Equator.” You’ll find it in every one of ’em. It’s a continued story of a soldier of fortune, generally named O’Keefe, who gets to be dictator while the Spanish-American populace cries “Cospetto!” and other Italian maledictions. I misdoubt if it’s ever been done. You’re not thinking of trying that, are you, Barney?’ I asks. “ ‘Bowers,’ says he, ‘you’re a man of education and courage.’ “ ‘How can I deny it?’ says I. ‘Education runs in my family'; and I have acquired courage by a hard struggle with life.’ “ ‘The O’Connors,’ says he, ‘are a warlike race. There is me father’s sword ; and here is the

map. Jb We of iaacUon ia not foe me. The O’Connors were born to rule, Tis a ruler of men 1 arast be.’ “’Barney,’ I says to him, ‘why don’t! you get on the foree and settle down to a quiet life of carnage and corruption instead of roaming off to foreign parts? In what better way can you indulge your desire to subdue and maltreat the oppressed?’ “‘Look again at the map,’ says he, ‘at the country I have the point of ma knife on. ’Tis that one I have selected to aid and overthrow with me father’s sword.’ “’I see,’ says I. ‘lt's the green one; and that does credit to your patriotism. And it’s the smallest one; and that does credit to your judgment.’ “‘Do ye accuse me of cowardice?’ says Barney, turning pink. “ 'No man,’ says I, ‘who attacks and confiscates a country single-handed couldi be called a coward. The worst you can be charged with is plagiarism or imitation. If Anthony Hope and Roosevelt! let you get away with it, nobody els® will have any right to kick.’ “‘I am not joking,’ says O'Connor. ‘And I've got 1.500 dollars cosh to work the scheme with. I’ve taken a liking to you. Do you want in, or not!’

“ ‘l’m not working,’ I told him; ‘but how is it to be? Do I eat during tha fomentation of the insurrection, or aw I only to be Secretary of War after the country is conquered? Is it to be * pay envelope or only a portfolio?’ “ ‘l’ll pay all expenses,’ says O’Connor. I want a man I ean trust. If we succeed you may pick out any appointment you want in the gift of the government.’

“ ‘All right, then,’ says I. ‘You ean get me a bunch of d raying contracts and then a quick-action consignment to ® seat on the Supreme Court bench so I won’t be in line for the presidency. I wouldn’t mind Unde Joe, but the kind of cannon they chasten their presidents with in that country hurt too much’. You can consider me on the pay roll.’

“Two weeks afterward O'Connor and me took a steamer for the small, green, doomed country. We were three weeks on the trip. O'Connor said lie had his plans all figured out in advance; buti 'being the commanding general, it consorted with his dignity to keep the details concealed from his army and cabinet, commonly known as William T« Bowers. Three dollars a day was ths price for which I joined the cause of liberating an undiscovered country front the ills that threatened or sustained it. Every Saturday night on the steamer 1 stood in line at parade rest, and O’Connor handed over the twenty-one dollars', ‘The town we landed at was named Guayaquerita. so they told me. ‘Nofl for me,’ says I. ‘lt’ll be little old Hilldale or Tompkinsville w Cherry Trefl

Corners ■when I speak of it. It’s a dear ease where Brander Matthews and Andy ought to butt in and disenvowel it.’ “But the town looked fine from th# bay when we sailed in. It was white, •with green niching, and lace ruffles on the skirt when the surf slashed up on Band. It looked as tropical and dole# far ultra as the pictures of Ijake Ronkonkoma in the 'brochure of the passenger department of the Long Island Railroad.

. ' “We went through the quarantine and custom-house indignities; and then D’Connor leads me to a ’dobe house on a street called ‘The Avenue of the Dol'orous Butterflies of the Individual and Collective Saints.’ Ten feet wide it was, and knee-deep in alfalfa and cigar ■stumps.

“ ‘Hooligan Alley,’ says I, rechristf*’'? ing it.

■ “ ‘-Twill be our headquarters,’ says D’Connor. ‘My agent here, Don Fernando Pacheco, secured it for us.* “So in that house O’Connor and me established the revolutionary centre. In the front room we had ostensible things Buch as fruit, a guitar, and a table with n conch shell on it. In the back room D’Connor had his desk and a large look-ing-glass and his sword hid in a roll of straw matting. We slept on hammocks Jthat we hung to hooks in the wall; and itook our meals at the Hotel Ingles, a beanery run on the American plan by a. Dorman proprietor with Chinese cooking .served a la Kansas City, Clinton and Springfield Railroad lunch-counter table <l’l rote.

» “It seems that O’Connor really did ;bave some sort of system planned out beforehand. He wrote plenty of letters; 'land every day or two seine na'tive gent : would stroll around to headquarters and ■be shut up in the back room for half-an-,fcour with O'Connor and the interpreter. I noticed that when they went in they were always smoking eight-inch eigars »nd at peace with the world; but when >h ey came out they would be folding up a ten or twenty-dollar bill and cursing 4he go vernment horribly. “One evening after we had been in Xluaya —in this town o-f Smellville-bv-tlic-JSea —about a month, and me and O’Con®or were sitting outside the door helping talong old tem-pus f-ugit with rum and ice and limes, I says to him: ' .' “ ‘lf you’ll excuse a patriot that don’t exactly know what he’s patronizing, for the question—what is your scheme for Subjugating this country? Do you initend to plunge it into bloodshed, or do jyou mean to buy its votes peacefully honourably at the polls?’ ; i “ ‘Bowers.’ says he, c yp’re a fine little man; and 1 intend to make great use of <yc after the conflict. But ye do not 'Understand statecraft. Already by now Ujre have a network of strategy clutehdng with invisible fingers at the throat ©f the tyrant Calderas. We have agents nt work in every town in the republic. The Liberal party is bound to win. On ©ur secret lists we have the names of enough sympathizers to crush the administration forces at a single blow.’ “‘A straw vote,’ says T, ‘only sho-ws mriiiih way the hot air blows.’ “ ‘Who has accomplished this?’ goes •n O’Connor. ‘I have. I have directed everything. The time was ripe when we /tame, so my agents inform me. The .people are groaning under their burden of taxes and levies. Who will be their ' natural leader when they rise? Could it be any one but meself? ’Twas only yesterday that Zaldas, our representative in the province of T>uras-.?as, tells ‘me that the people, in secret, already call me “El Library Door,” which is the Fpanish manner of saying “the Liberator.’ ” “’Was Zaldas that maroon-coloured old Aztec with a paper collar on and unIdeaKihed domestic shoes?’ I asked. “ ‘He was.’ «.ays O’Connor. “ ‘I sa.w him tuckin" a yellowdiack into his vest pocket as he came out.” says ' I. ‘lt may be.’ says T. ‘that they call you a library door, hut they treat you more like the side door of a bank. But let us hope for the worst.’ “‘lt has cost money, of course.’ says O’Connor; ‘hut we’ll have the country in our hands inside a month.’ “In the evenings we walked about in flic plaza and listened to the band playing. and mingled with the populace at its distressing and obnoxious pleasures. There were thirteen vehicles belonging 4o the upper classes, mostly rockawaya and old-style barouches, such as the Mayor rides in at the unveiling of the new poorhouse at Milledgeville. Alabama. Round and round the desiccated fountain in the middle of The plaza they drove, and lifted their high silk

hats to ttieir friends. The common people walked around in barefooted bunches, puffing stogies that a Pittsburg millionaire wouldn’t have chewed for a dry smoke on Ladies’ Day at his club. And the grandest figure in the whole turnout was Barney O’Connor. Six foot two he stood in his Fifth-avenue clothes, with his eagle eye and his Wack moustache that ticked his ears. He was a born dictator and czar and hero and harrier of the human race. It looked tp me that all eyes were turned upon O’Connor, and that every woman there loved him, and every man feared him. Once or twice 1 looked at him, and thought of funnier things that had happened than his winning out in his game; and. I began to feel like a Hildalsro de Officio, de Graf to de South America myself. And then I would come down again to solid bottom and let my imagination gloat, as usual, upon the twenty-one American dollars due me on Saturday night. “ ‘Take note,’ says O’Connor to me as thus we walked, ‘of the mass of the people. Observe their oppressed and melancholy air. Can ye not see that they are ripe ftr revolt? Do ye not perceive that they are disaffected?’

“‘I do not.’ says I. ‘Nor disinfected either. I’m beginning to understand these people. When they look unhappy they’re enjoying themselves. When they feel unhappy they go to sleep. They’re not the kind of people to take an interest in revolutions.’ “ ‘They’ll flock to our standard,’ says O’Connor. ‘Three thousand men in this town alone will spring to arms when the signal is given. I am assured of it. But everything is in secret. There is no chance for us to fail.’

“On Hooligan Alley, as I prefer to call the street our headquarters was on, there was a row of flat "dobe houses with red tile roofs, some straw shacks full of Indians and dogs, and one twostorey wooden house with balconies a little farther down. That was where General Tumbalo, the comandante and commander of the military forces, lived. Right across the street was a private residence built like a combination bake-oven and folding-bed. One day O’Connor and me were passing it, single file, on the flange they called a sidewalk, when out of the window flies a big red rose. O’Connor, who is ahead, picks it up, presses it to his fifth rib, and bows to the ground. By carrambos! that man certainly had the Irish drama chauneeyised. I looked around, expecting to see the little boy and girl in white sateen ready to jump on bis shoulder while he jolted their spinal

columns and ribs together through a breakdown and sang: ‘Sleep, Little One, Sleep.’ “As I passed the window, I glanced inside, and caught a glimpse of a white dress and a pair of big, flashing black eyes and gleaming teeth under a dark lace mantilla.

“When we got back to our house, O’Connor began to walk up and down the floor and twist his moustaches.

“ ‘Did ye see her eyes, Bowers ?’ he asks me.

“ ‘I did,’ says I, ‘and I can see more than that. It’s all coming out according to the story-books. I knew there was something missing. ’Twas the love interest). What is it that conies in Chapter VII. to cheer the gallant Irish adventurer? Why, Love, of course —- Love that makes the hat go round. At last we have the eyes of midnight hue and the rose flung from the barred window. Now, what comes next ? The underground passage —the intercepted letter—the traitor in camp—the hero thrown into a dungeon—the mysterious message from the senorita—then the outburst—the fighting on the plaza—the ’

“ ‘Don’t be a fool,’ says O’Connor, in

terrupting. ‘But that’s the only woman in the world for me, Bowers. The O'Connors are as quick to love as they are to fight. I shall wear that rose over me heart when I lead me men into action. For a good battle to be fought there must be some woman to give it power.'

“‘Every time,’ I agreed. ‘lf yen want to have a good, lively scrap. There’s only one thing bothering me. In the novels the light-haired friend of the hero always gets killed. Think ’em all over that you've read, and you’ll see that I’m right. I think I’ll step down to the Botica Espanola, and lay in a bottle of walnut stain before war is declared.’ “‘How will I find out her name?' says O'Connor, laying his chin in his hand. “ ‘Why don’t you go across the street and ask her?’ savs I.

“ ‘Will ye never regard anything in life seriously?’ asks O’Connor, looking down at me like a schoolmaster. “ ‘Maybe she meant the rose for me,* I said, whistling the Spanish Fandango.

“For the first time since I’d known O'Connor, he laughed. He got up and roared and clapped his knees, and leaned against the wall till the tiles on the roof clattered to the noise of his hrngs. He went into the back room, and looked at himself in the glass, and began and laughed all over from the beginning again. Then he looked at me and repeated himself. That’s why I

asked you if you thought an Irishmaa ■had any humour. He’d been doing farce comedy from the day I saw him without knowing it; and the first time he had an idea advanced to him with any intelligence in it, he acted like twotwelfths of the sextet in a ‘Florodora* read company. “The next afternoon he comes in with a triumphant smile, and begins to pull something like ticker tape out of his pocket.

“‘Great!’ says I. ‘This is something like home. How is Amalgamated Copper to-day?’

“ ‘l’ve got her name,’ says O’Connor, and he reads off something like this: ‘Dona Isabel Antonia Inez Lolita Carreras y Buencaminos y Monteleon.* ‘Her father was killed in the last revolution. She is sure to be in sympathy with our cause.”

“And sure enough the next day she flung a little bunch of roses clear across the street into our door. O’Connor dived for it and found a piece of paper curled around a stem with a line in Spanish on it. He dragged the interpreter out of his corner and got him busy. The interpreter scratched his head, and gave us as a translation three best bets: “Fortune

has got a face like the man fighting”; “Fortune looks like a brave man"; and “Fortune favours the brave.” We put oar money on the last one. “‘Do ye see?’ said O’Connor. ‘She intends to encourage me sword to sava her country.' “‘lt looks to me like an invitation to supper.’ says I. “So. every day this senorita sits behind the barred windows and exhausts a conservatory or two. one posy at a time. And O’Connor walks like a Dominecker rooster and swells his chest and swears to me he will win her by feats of arms and big deeds on the gory field of battle. “By and by the revolution began to get ripe. One day O'Connor takes me into the back room and tells me all. “ ‘Bcwers.’ says he, ‘at twelve o'clock' one week from to-day the struggle will take place. It has pleased ye to find amusement and diversion in this project fieeause ye have not sense enough to perceive that it is easily accomplished by a man of courage, intelligence, and historical superiority, such as meself. Th# whole world over,’ says he, ‘the O'Connors have ruled men, women, and nations. To subdue a small and indifferent country like this is a trifle. Ye see what little, barefooted manikins' the men of it are. I could lick four of ’em, single-handed.’ “ ‘No doubt,’ says I. ‘But could you lick six? And suppose they hurled aa hrmy of 17 against you?’ “ ‘Listen,’ says O’Connor, ‘to what will

acciir. At noon next Tuesday 25,000

patriots will rise up in the towns of the Republic. The Government will be absolutely unprepared. The publie buildings will be taken, the regular army made prisoners, and the new administration set up. In the capital it will not be so easy on account of most of the army being stationed there. They will occupy the President’s palace and the- strongly fortified Government buildings and stand a siege. But on the very day of the outbreak a body of our troops will begin a march to the capital from every town as soon as the local victory has been won. The thing is so well planned that it is an impossibility for us to fail. I meself will lead the troops from here. The new President will be Senor Espadas, now Minister of Finance in the present Cabinet.’

“ 'What do you get ?’ I asked. “ ’Twill be strange,’ said O’Connor, smiling, ‘if I don’t have all the jobs handed to me on a silver salver to pick what I ehoose. O’ve been the brains of the scheme, and when the fighting opens I guess I won’t be in the rear rank. Who managed it so our troops could get arms smuggled into this country ? Didn't I arrange it with a New York firm before I left them ? Our financial agents inform me that 20.000 stands of Winchester rifles have been delivered a month ago at a secret place up coast and distributed among the towns. I tell you, Bowers, the game is already won.’

"Well, that kind of talk kind of shook my disbelief in the infallibility of the serious Irish gentleman soldier of fortune. It certainly seemed that the patriotic grafters had gone about the thing in a business way. I looked upon O’Connor with more respect, and began to figure on what kind of uniform I might wear as Secretary of War.

“Tuesday, the day set for the revolution, came around according to schedule. O'Connor said that a signal had been agreed upon for the uprising. There was an old eannon on the beach near the national warehouse. That had been secretly loaded, ami promptly at twelve o’clock was to be fired off. Immediately the revolutionists would seize their concealed arms, attack the comandante’s troops in the euartel, and capture the Custom-house and all Government property and supplies.

“I was nervous all the morning. And about eleven o’clock O'Connor became infused with the excitement and martial spirit of murder. He geared his father’s sword around him, and walked up and down in the back room like a lion in the Zoo suffering from corns. I smoked a eouple of dozen cigars, and decided on yellow stripes down the trousers legs of mv uniform.

“At half-past eleven O’Connor asks me to take a short stroll through the streets to see if I could notice any signs of the uprising. I was back in fifteen minutes. “’Did you hear anything?’ he asks.

“ T did,’ says I. ‘At first I thought it was drums. But it wasn’t: it was snoring. Everybody in town’s asleep.’

“O’Connor tears out his watch. “‘Fools!’ says he. ‘They’ve set the time right at the siesta hour, when everybody takes a nap. But the cannon will wake ’em up. Everything will be all right, depend upon it.’

“.Just at twelve o’clock we heard the sound of a cannon—BOOM!—shaking the whole town.

“O'Connor loosens his sword in his scabbard and jumps for the door. I went as far as the door and stood in it.

“People wore sticking their heads out of doors and windows. But there was one grand sight that made the landscape look tame.

“General Tnmbalo. the comandante, was rolling down the steps of bis residential dug-out. waving a five-foot sabre in his hand. He wore his cocked and plumed hat, and his dress-parade coat covered with gold braid and buttons. Skyblue pyjamas, one rubber boot, and one red-,‘‘lush slipper completed his make-up.

“The general had heard the cannon, and he puffed down the sidewalk toward the soldiers’ barracks as fast as his rudely awakened two hundred pounds could travel.

“O’Connor sees him and lets out a battle-cry, and draws his father’s sword and tushes across the street and tackles the enemy.

“Bight there in the street he and the general gave an exlfibition of blacksmithing and butchery that put Kyrle Bellew and Phil Armour in the shade. Sparks flew from their blades, the general roared, and O'Connor gave the slogan of his race and proclivities. “Then the general’s sabre broke in two,

and he took to tits ginger-coloured heels crying out ‘ Policios ’ at every jump. <) Connor chased him a block, imbued with the sentiment of manslanghter. and dicing buttons off the general's eoat tails with the paternal weapon. At the corner five barefooted polieemen in cotton undershirts and straw hats climbed oyer O'Connor and subjugated him according to the municipal statutes. ‘'They brought him past the late revolutionary headquarters on the way to gaol. I stood in the door. A policeman had him by each hand and foot, and they dragged him on his back through the grass Mfce a turtle. Twice they stopped, •nd file odd policeman took another’s place while he rolled a cigarette. The great soldier of fortune turned his head and looked at me as they passed. I blushed, and lit another cigar. The procession passed on, and at ten minutes past twelve everybody had gone back to Bleep again. “In the afternoon the interpreter came around, and smiled as he laid his hand on the. big red jar we usually kept icewater in. “ ‘The ice man didn’t call to-day,’ says I. ‘What’s the matter with everything, fianchol’ “ Ah, yes.' says the liver-coloured linguist. ‘They just tell me in the town. Verree bad act that Senor O Connor make fight with General Tumbola. Yes. General Tumbola great soldier and big marts.’ “What'll they do to Mr. O’Connor’’ I asks. ‘“I talk little while presently with the Inez de la Paz —what you call Jus-tice-with-the-peace,’ says Sancho. ‘He tell me it verree bad crime that one Senor Americano try kill General Tumbola. He say they keep Senor O'Connor in gaol six months; then have trial and shoot him with guns. Verree sorree.” “’How about this revolution that was to l»e pulled off F I asks. ‘“Oh,* says this Sancho, “I think too hot weather for revolution. Revolution better in winter-time. Maybe so next winter. Quien saber “‘But the cannon went off,' says I. The signal was given.’ f* That big sound?' says Sancho, grinning. The boiler in ice factory he blow up—BOOM! Wake everybody up from siesta. Verree sorree. No ice. Mucho het day.’ “About sunset I went over to the gaol, and t hey let me talk to O’Connor through the bars, ‘“What's the news. Bowers?’ says he. •Have we taken the town? I’ve been exr:t>ng a rescue party all the afternoon. haven’t heard any firing. Has any jrord been received from the capital ?’ “ ‘Take it easy, Barney,’ says I. ‘I Hi ink there’s been a change of plans. There’s something-more important to talk about. Have you any money?” “‘I have not,’ says O'Connor. ‘The last dollar went to pay our hotel bill yesterday. Did our troops capture the Cus-tom-house ? There ought to be plenty of Government money there.’ “ ‘Segregate your mind from battles,’ Bays I. ‘l've been making inquiries. You’re to be shot six months from date for assault and battery. I'm expecting to receive 50 years at hard labour for vagrancy. All they furnish you while you’re a prisoner is water. You depend on your friends for food. I'll see what 1 can do,’ ‘*l weutawa y and found a silver Chile dollar in an odd vest of O'Connor’s. 1 took him some fried fwh and rice for his supper. In the morning 1 went down to a tagoon and had a drink of water, and then went 'back to the gaol. O’Connor had a porteihouse-6teak Hook in his >ye. *• •Barney,' sax's I, ‘l’ve found a pond lull of the finest kind of water. It’s the grandest, sweetest, purest water in tt.be world. Say the word and I'll go fetch you a ’bucket of it, and you can throw this vile government stuff out ithe window. I’ll do anything 1 can for a friend.’ ‘‘‘Has it come to this?' says O'Connor, raging up and down his cell.- ‘Am 1 to be starved to death and then shot? I'Jl make those traitors feel the weight of •in O’Connor’s -hand when I get out of this.’ And then heroines to the barsand Bpea-kn softer. ’Han nothing been heard from Dona lsa.be! ?’ he asks. ‘Though every one else in the world fail,’ says he, •1 trust those eyes of hers. She will find a way to effect me release. Do ye think ye could communicate with her? One word from her --even a rose would ■make me sorrows light. But don’t let tier know exerp* with the übi nod delicacy. Bowers. 'I n- • high bred Castilians BA- Fen-dive a»J n ou 1 ’

“ ‘Well said, Barney,’ saye I. ‘You’ve given me an idea. I’ll report Hater. Something’s got to be pulled off quick, or we’U both starve.’

“I walked put, and down to Hooligan Alley, and then on the other side of the etreet. As I went past the -window of Dona Isabel Antonia Concha Regalia., out flies the rose as usual, and hits me on the ear.

“The door was open, and I took off my hat and walked in. It wasn’t very light inside, hut there she sat in a rock-ing-chair by the window smoking a tolack cheroot. And when I got closer I saw that she was about thirty-nine, and had never seen a straight front in her life. I sat down on the arm of her chair, and took the cheroot out of her mouth and stole a kiss.

“ ‘Hullo, Izzy,’ I says. ‘Excuse my unconventionality, but I feeil like I have known you for a month. Whose Izzy is oo?”

“The lady ducked her head under he? mantilla, and drew in a long breath. I thought she was going to scream, but with all that intake of air she only came out with: ‘Me like Americanos.’ “As soon as she said that I knew that O'Connor and me would be doing things ■with a knife and fork before uhe day was over. I drew a ehair beside her, and inside of half an hour we were engaged. Then I too-k my hat and said I must go out for a while. “ ‘You come back?’ said Izzy, in alarm.

“ ‘Me got Ibiiing rpreaeher,’ says I. ‘Oome baek twenty minutes. We marry now. How yo>u likee?” “ ‘Marry to-day?’ says Izzy. ‘Good!’ “I went down on the beach to the United States consul’s shack. He was a grizzly man, eighty-two pounds, smoked glasses, five foot efcven, pickled. He was playing chess with an india-ruibber man in white clothes. “ ‘Excuse me for interrupting,’ says I, ‘but can you tell me how a man could get married quick?” “The consul gets up and fingers in a pigeonhole. “ ‘I believe I had a license to perform the ceremony .myself, a year or two ago,’ he said. ‘J’ll look, and—— ’ “I caught hold of his arm. “ ‘Don't look it up,’ says I. ‘Marriage is a lottery, anyway. I'm willing to take the risk about the license if you are.’ “The consul went back to Hooligan Alley with me. Izzy called her ma to come in, but the old woman was picking a chicken in the patio and 'begged to be excused. So we stood up and the consul performed the ceremony. “That evening Mrs. Bowers cooked a great supper of stewed goat, tamales, baked bananas, fricasseed red peppers, and coffee. Afterward I sat in the rock-ing-chair by the front window, and she sat on the floor plunking on a guitar and

happy, as she should be, as Mrs. William T. B.

“AH at once I sprang up in a hurry. I’d forgotten all about (/Connor. I asked Izzy to fix up a lot of truck for him to eat.

“That big, oogly man?’ says Izzy. ‘But all right—he your friend.’ “I pulled a rose put of a bunch in a jar, and took the grub-basket around to the gaol. O’Connor ate like a wolf. Them he wiped his face with a banana peel and sail: ‘Have you heard nothing from Dona Isabel yet?’ “ ‘Hist!’ says I, slipping the rose between the bans. ‘She sends you this. She bids you take courage. At nightfall two masked men 'brought it to the ruined chateau in the orange grove. How did you like that goat hash, Barney?’ “O’Connor pressed the rose to his lips.

“ This is more to me than all the food in the world,’ says he. ‘But the supper was fine. Where did you raise it?’

“ ‘l’ve negotiated a stand-off at a delicatessen hut down-town,’ I tells him. ‘Rest easy. If there's anything to be done I’ll do it.’

“So things went along that way for some weeks. Izzy was a great cook; and if she had had a little more poise of character and smoked a tittle better brand of tobacco, we might have drifted into some sense of responsibility for the honour I’d conferred on her. But as time went on I began to hunger for the sight of a real lady standing before in

a street-car. All I was staying in that land of bulk and money for was because I couldn’t get away, and I thought it no more than decent to stay and sea O’Connor shot.

“One day our old interpreter drops around, and after smoking an hour says that the judge of the peace sent him to request me to call on him. I went to his office in a lemon grove on a hill at the edge of the town; and there I had a surprise. I expected to see one of the usual cinnamon-coloured natives in congress gaiters and one of Pizarro’s castoff hats. What I saw was an elegant gentleman of a elightly claybank complexion sitting in an upholstered leather chair, sipping a highball and reading Mrs. Humphrey Ward. I had smuggled into my brain a few words of Spanish ■by the help of Izzy, and I began to remark in a rich Andalusian brogue: “ ‘Buenas dias, senor. Yo .tengo—yo tengo ’

“ ‘Oh, sit down, Mr. Bowers,’ says he. “I spent eight years in your country in colleges and law schools. J-et me mix you a highball. Lemon peel, or not?’ “Thus we got along. In about half an hour I was beginning to tell him about the scandal in our family when Aunt Elvira ran away with a Cumberland Presbyterian preacher. Then he says to me; • ’

“‘I sent for you, Mr. Bowers, to let you know that you can Tiave your friend Mr. O’Connor now. Of course we had to make a show of punishing him On account of his attack on General Tumbalo. It is arranged that lie shall be released to-morrow night. Y’ou and he will be conveyed on board the fruit steamer Voyager, bound for New York, which lies in the harbour. Your passage will be arranged for.’

“‘One moment, judge,’ says I; ‘that revolution— ’

“’Hie judge lays back in his chair and howls.

“ ‘Why,’ says he presently, ‘that was all a little joke fixed up by the boys around the court room, and one or two of our cut-ups, and a few clerks in the stores. The town is bursting its sides with laughing. The boys made themselves up to be conspirators, and they—what you call it?—stick Senor O'Connor for his money. It is very funny.’ ‘ ‘lt was,’ says I. ‘I saw the joke all along. I'll take another highball, if your Honor don’t mind.’ “The next evening, just at dark, a cot pie of soldiers brought O’Connor down to the beach where I was waiting under a cocoanut-tree. “‘Hist!’ says 1 in his ear; ‘Dona Isabel has arranged our escape. Not a wcrdl’ “They rowed us in a boat out to a little steamer that smelled of table d’hote salad oil and bone phosphate. “The great, mellow, tropical moon was rising as we steamed away. O'Connor leaned on the taffrail or rear balcony of the ship and gazed silently at Guaya—at Puncoville-on-the-Beach. He had the red rose in his hand. “ ‘She will wait.’ Y beard him say. ‘I ves like hers never deceive. But I shall s-’e her again. Traitors cannot keep an O'Connor down forever.’ “‘You talk like a sequel,’ says I. ‘But in Volume 11. please omit the lightF.aired friend who totes the grub to the heio in his dungeon cell.’ “And thus reminiscing, we came back to New York.”

There was a little silence broken only by the familiar roar of the streets after Kansas Bill Bowers ceased talking. “Did O’Connor ever go back?” I asked. “He attained his heart’s desire,” said Bill. “Can you walk two blocks? I’ll show you.” He led me eastward and down a flight of stairs that was covered by a curiousshaped, glowing, pagoda-like structure. Signs and figures on the tiled walls and supporting columns attested that we were in the Grand Central station of the subway. Hundreds of people were on the midway platform.

An up-town express dashed up and halted. It was crowded. There was a rush for it by a still larger crowd.

Towering above every one there a magnificent;, broad-shouldered, athletic Iran leaped into the centre of the struggle. Men and women he seized in either hand and hurled them like manikins towards the open gates of the train. Now and then some passenger with a shred of soul and self-respect left to him turned to offer remonstrance; but the b’ue uniform on the towering figure, the fierce and conquering glare of his eye, and the ready impact of his ham-like hands glued together the lips that would have spoken complaint.

When the train was full, then he exhibited to all who might observe and admire his irresistible genius as a ruler of men. With his knees, with his elbows, with his shoulders, with his resistless feet he shoved, crushed, slammed, heaved, kicked, flung, pounded the overplus of passengers aboard. Then with the sounds of its wheels drowned by the moans, shrieks, prayers, and curses of its unfortunate crew, the express dashed away.

“That's him. Ain’t he a wonder?” said Kansas Bill, admiringly. “That tropical country wasn’t the place for him. I wish the distinguished traveller, writer, war correspondent, and playwright, Richmond Hobson Davis, could see him now. OVonnor ought to be dramatised.”