es was not unacquainted with fallen gentlemen, "beach-combers,"
"remittance men," and vagrants who had known better days, and there had
been something winning in this vagrant's smile, and, moreover, he had
reported that thorn in his flesh, the consular agent, to the proper
authorities.

He conceived an interest in a young man who, though with naked feet, did
not hesitate to correspond with his Minister of Foreign Affairs.

"How long have you been ill?" he asked.

The young man looked up from where he had sunk on the steps, and roused
himself with a shrug. "It doesn't matter," he said. "I've had a touch
of Chagres ever since I was on the Isthmus. I was at work there on the
railroad."

"Did you come here from Colon?"

"No; I worked up the Pacific side. I was clerking with Rossner Brothers
at Amapala for a while, because I speak a little German, and then I
footed it over to Puerto Cortez and got a job with the lottery people.
They gave me twenty dollars a month gold for rolling the tickets, and
I put it all in the drawing, and won as much as ten." He laughed, and
sitting erect, drew from his pocket a roll of thin green papers. "These
are for the next drawing," he said. "Have some?" he added. He held
them towards the negro sergeant, who, under the eye of the Governor,
resisted, and then spread the tickets on his knee like a hand at cards.
"I stand to win a lot with these," he said, with a cheerful sigh. "You
see, until the list's published I'm prospectively worth twenty
thousand dollars. And," he added, "I break stones in the sun." He rose
unsteadily, and saluted the Governor with a nod. "Good-morning, sir," he
said, "and thank you."

"Wait," Sir Charles commanded. A new form of punishment had suggested
itself, in which justice was tempered with mercy. "Can you work one of
your American lawn-mowers?" he asked.

The young man laughed delightedly. "I never tried," he said, "but I've
seen it done."

"If you've been ill, it would be murder to put you on the shell
road." The Governor's dignity relaxed into a smile. "I don't desire
international complications," he said. "Sergeant, take this--him--to the
kitchen, and tell Corporal Mallon to give him that American lawn-mowing
machine. Possibly he may understand its mechanism. Mallon only cuts
holes in the turf with it." And he waved his hand in dismissal, and as
the three men moved away he buried himself again in the perplexities of
the dog-tax.

Ten minutes later the d