ly,
and there would be leaves rustling there, and the scent of flowers, and
the senoritas walking with their mothers, while the young men hung
around the edges, striving to get a word, a look. And there would be the
arched jets of a fountain playing under colored lights, and back in
Portland, Oregon, by this time was perhaps Tommie Jones married to his
plump waitress.

"It was a good band--playing something he had never heard before, but
something very soothing. He looked toward the Pacific. He knew where the
harbor of Callao should lie, and in the middle of the harbor he could
see them, one great cluster of lights, the lights of the battle fleet.
And there were the fleet's search-lights playing on the great stone
pier.

"The band was playing again--something fine.

"And then the monastery bell tolled. And presently he heard a
chanting--a slow sad chanting! And then the chanting also died away.

"He had been lying on the wall with his hat in his hand and staring up
at the sky. Now he sat up, put on his hat, took another look to the
lights in the harbor, and hummed softly the Philippine service song--

"It's home, boy, home, it's home you ought to be."

"And you've no kick coming. Dreams dreams, always dreams, but you've had
your hour, too.' He took another look at the lights of the
fleet--another to the lights of the city below him--'Good night, Lima,'
he whispered, and dropped off the wall."

The pump-man had begun his story this evening while sitting with back to
the rail and feet stretched out on the deck before him. He finished
while lying on his back, hands clasped under the back of his head, and
wide eyes on the sky.

The passenger leaned on the rail, studied the stem of the ship, and
listened to the surge of back wash against the ship's bow as she drove
on. Abeam, the young moon drooped.

Kieran said nothing more. The passenger nothing for a long time. Then it
was:

"And they were married?"

"I don't know--Cogan didn't wait to see--but of course."

"Of course," echoed the passenger, and in silence resumed his study of
the ship's bow cutting through the little seas.

The passenger turned inboard. "But Cogan--where is he?"

"There was no Cogan."

"No Cogan."

"No, no Cogan."

"And no bull-fight, and no Valera, and no Torellas, nor Juan, and it
never happened?"

"Why, of course it happened, and just as I've told it. But not to
anybody named Cogan. There was no Cogan, or rather"--Kieran rol