s 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 adm