ks,' says Denver; 'he's the dark-horse candidate
for president of a South American republic.'

"'Well,' says I, 'he didn't look quite that bad to me.'

"Then Denver draws his chair up close and gives out his scheme.

"'Sully,' says he, with seriousness and levity, 'I've been a manager
of one thing and another for over twenty years. That's what I was
cut out for--to have somebody else to put up the money and look
after the repairs and the police and taxes while I run the business.
I never had a dollar of my own invested in my life. I wouldn't know
how it felt to have the dealer rake in a coin of mine. But I can
handle other people's stuff and manage other people's enterprises.
I've had an ambition to get hold of something big--something higher
than hotels and lumber-yards and local politics. I want to be
manager of something way up--like a railroad or a diamond trust
or an automobile factory. Now here comes this little man from the
tropics with just what I want, and he's offered me the job.'

"'What job?' I asks. 'Is he going to revive the Georgia Minstrels or
open a cigar store?'

"'He's no 'coon,' says Denver. 'He's General Rompiro--General Josey
Alfonso Sapolio Jew-Ann Rompiro--he has his cards printed by a
news-ticker. He's the real thing, Sully, and he wants me to manage
his campaign--he wants Denver C. Galloway for a president-maker.
Think of that, Sully! Old Denver romping down to the tropics,
plucking lotus-flowers and pineapples with one hand and making
presidents with the other! Won't it make Uncle Mark Hanna mad? And I
want you to go too, Sully. You can help me more than any man I know.
I've been herding that brown man for a month in the hotel so he
wouldn't stray down Fourteenth Street and get roped in by that crowd
of refugee tamale-eaters down there. And he's landed, and D. C. G.
is manager of General J. A. S. J. Rompiro's presidential campaign in
the great republic of--what's its name?'

"Denver gets down an atlas from a shelf, and we have a look at the
afflicted country. 'Twas a dark blue one, on the west coast, about
the size of a special delivery stamp.

"'From what the General tells me,' says Denver, 'and from what I
can gather from the encyclopaedia and by conversing with the janitor
of the Astor Library, it'll be as easy to handle the vote of that
country as it would be for Tammany to get a man named Geoghan
appointed on the White Wings force.'

"'Why don't General Rumptyro stay at home,' s