by pulling some wire with his finger.

She recalled one day when they were all on board of this same launch,
and the machinery had broken down, and MacWilliams had gone forward to
look at it. He had called Clay to help him, and she remembered how
they had both gone down on their knees and asked the engineer and
fireman to pass them wrenches and oil-cans, while King protested
mildly, and the rest sat helplessly in the hot glare of the sea, as the
boat rose and fell on the waves. She resented Clay's interest in the
accident, and his pleasure when he had made the machinery right once
more, and his appearance as he came back to them with oily hands and
with his face glowing from the heat of the furnace, wiping his grimy
fingers on a piece of packing. She had resented the equality with
which he treated the engineer in asking his advice, and it rather
surprised her that the crew saluted him when he stepped into the launch
again that night as though he were the owner. She had expected that
they would patronize him, and she imagined after this incident that she
detected a shade of difference in the manner of the sailors toward
Clay, as though he had cheapened himself to them--as he had to her.

VII

At ten o'clock that same evening Clay began to prepare himself for the
ball at the Government palace, and MacWilliams, who was not invited,
watched him dress with critical approval that showed no sign of envy.

The better to do honor to the President, Clay had brought out several
foreign orders, and MacWilliams helped him to tie around his neck the
collar of the Red Eagle which the German Emperor had given him, and to
fasten the ribbon and cross of the Star of Olancho across his breast,
and a Spanish Order and the Legion of Honor to the lapel of his coat.
MacWilliams surveyed the effect of the tiny enamelled crosses with his
head on one side, and with the same air of affectionate pride and
concern that a mother shows over her daughter's first ball-dress.

"Got any more?" he asked, anxiously.

"I have some war medals," Clay answered, smiling doubtfully. "But I'm
not in uniform."

"Oh, that's all right," declared MacWilliams. "Put 'em on, put 'em all
on. Give the girls a treat. Everybody will think they were given for
feats of swimming, anyway; but they will show up well from the front.
Now, then, you look like a drum-major or a conjuring chap."

"I do not," said Clay. "I look like a French Ambassador, and I hardly