hthouse which
I speak?" This came with more bows--one almost to the floor.

The mention of Lawton's name brought Mawkum to his senses. He placed
his fat hand on his vest, crooked his back, and without the slightest
allusion to the fact that the original and only Grandioso occupied the
adjoining room, motioned the visitor to a seat and opened the letter.

I thought now it was about time I should assert my rights. Pushing back
my chair, I walked rapidly through my own and Mawkum's room and held
out my hand.

"Ah, Senor, I am delighted to meet you," I broke out in Spanish. (Here
I had Mawkum--he did not understand a word.) "We have been expecting
you; our mutual friend, Mr. Lawton, has given me notice of your
coming--and how is the Senor and his family?" And in a few minutes we
three were seated at my desk with Mawkum unrolling plans, making
sketches on a pad, figuring the cost of this and that and the other
thing; I translating for Mawkum such statements as I thought he ought
to know, thus restoring the discipline and dignity of the office--it
never being wise to have more than one head to a concern.

This partial victory was made complete when his ivory-tinted Excellency
loosened his waistcoat, dived into his inside pocket and, producing a
package of letters tied with a string, the envelopes emblazoned with
the arms and seal of the Republic of Moccador, asked if we might be
alone. I immediately answered, both in Spanish and English, that I had
no secrets from Senor Mawkum, but this did not prove satisfactory and
so Mawkum, with a wink to me, withdrew.

Mawkum gone, the little man--it is inconceivable how small and withered
he was; how yellow, how spidery in many of his motions, especially with
his fingers stained with cigarettes, how punctilious, how polite, how
soft and insinuating his voice, and how treacherous his smile--a smile
that smiled all alone by itself, while the cunning, glittering eyes
recorded an entirely different brain suggestion--Mawkum gone, I say,
the little man examined the door to see that it was tight shut, glanced
furtively about the room, resumed his seat, slowly opened the largest
and most flaringly decorated envelope and produced a document signed
with a name and titles that covered half the page. Then he began to
talk at the rate of fifty words to the second; like the rattle of a
ticker in a panic: of Alvarez, the saviour of his country--his
friend!--his partner; of the future of Moccador