hton, contrary to his habit, retired early in the evening
firmly convinced that his nephew was suffering from an acute attack of
lunacy which took the form of a mania for everything that was wild and
bizarre; everything in fact that was contrary to the Colonel's views of
life.

How unfortunate that his nephew had not shown signs of madness earlier!
It would have been so easy with the assistance of the family physician
and lawyer to have confined him in a private sanitarium. And the Colonel
fondly pictured his nephew wandering distractedly through a long suite
of padded cells--but, alas! the bird had flown. Such things were always
expedited with such felicitous despatch in those parts of the earth
inhabited by civilized men, but here where everybody was equally mad,
where chaos reigned, and nobody either recognized or respected beings of
a superior order, what could be done to check the headlong career of his
nephew who with twenty millions was rushing straight to destruction?

No wonder God had long since abandoned this land to his majesty, the
devil who, as in the days of Scripture, roamed and roared at will. No
one having passed twenty-four hours in the country could possibly doubt
that his cup of joy was running over. Where his nephew had concealed his
fortune was also a source of mystery to him. He certainly had displayed
the diabolical cunning that is characteristic of the mentally deranged.
Possibly he had concealed it in Mexico, but to combat the institutions
of that land was like attempting to stem the tides.

The thought of those twenty millions tortured the Colonel's mind almost
beyond endurance, and he groaned aloud as his imagination pictured them
rolling in a bright, glittering stream of gold and silver coins into the
gutter for the swine that waited to devour them.

Such were the Colonel's reflections as he sat on the edge of his bed in
his shirt sleeves and wearily removed his tight fitting, dust-begrimed,
patent-leather shoes with the assistance of his valet.

How his feet and back ached! He wanted sympathy, but got none, the
others being too much occupied with their own woes to think of his
comfort. On the walls of the room were hung numerous cheap biblical
prints--the very things he abominated most. Among them, just over the
foot of the bed, on the very spot where first his gaze would alight on
opening his eyes in the morning, hung a small colored print of the
Madonna. No wonder the people of this