nected with railway
development, and the colonization of vast tracts of land in one great
financial scheme.

And his French friends would remark that evidently this little fellow
_Decoud connaissait la question a fond_. An important Parisian review
asked him for an article on the situation. It was composed in a
serious tone and in a spirit of levity. Afterwards he asked one of his
intimates--

"Have you read my thing about the regeneration of Costaguana--_une bonne
blague, hein_?"

He imagined himself Parisian to the tips of his fingers. But far
from being that he was in danger of remaining a sort of nondescript
dilettante all his life. He had pushed the habit of universal raillery
to a point where it blinded him to the genuine impulses of his own
nature. To be suddenly selected for the executive member of the
patriotic small-arms committee of Sulaco seemed to him the height of
the unexpected, one of those fantastic moves of which only his "dear
countrymen" were capable.

"It's like a tile falling on my head. I--I--executive member! It's
the first I hear of it! What do I know of military rifles? _C'est
funambulesque!_" he had exclaimed to his favourite sister; for the Decoud
family--except the old father and mother--used the French language
amongst themselves. "And you should see the explanatory and confidential
letter! Eight pages of it--no less!"

This letter, in Antonia's handwriting, was signed by Don Jose, who
appealed to the "young and gifted Costaguanero" on public grounds, and
privately opened his heart to his talented god-son, a man of wealth
and leisure, with wide relations, and by his parentage and bringing-up
worthy of all confidence.

"Which means," Martin commented, cynically, to his sister, "that I am
not likely to misappropriate the funds, or go blabbing to our _Charge
d'Affaires_ here."

The whole thing was being carried out behind the back of the War
Minister, Montero, a mistrusted member of the Ribiera Government, but
difficult to get rid of at once. He was not to know anything of it till
the troops under Barrios's command had the new rifle in their hands. The
President-Dictator, whose position was very difficult, was alone in the
secret.

"How funny!" commented Martin's sister and confidante; to which the
brother, with an air of best Parisian blague, had retorted:

"It's immense! The idea of that Chief of the State engaged, with the
help of private citizens, in digging a mine under his o