ad expected rough, untaught fellows whose conversation at best
would be pornographic rather than poetic. My astonishment swelled to
the bursting point when the Colombian not only caught up the poem where
the Lieutenant left off but topped it off with that peerless
translation by Bonalde the Venezuelan, beginning:

Una fosca media noche, cuando en tristes reflexiones
Sobre mas de un raro infolio de olvidados cronicones--

And just then the quarantine launch swung around the neighboring
island. I tightened my horse belt and dragged the "Colt" around within
easy reach; and a moment later the doctor and his bulking understudy
stepped ashore--alone.

"They didn't come," said the former; "they were not allowed to leave
their own country."

"Hell and damnation," said the Lieutenant at length in a calm,
conversational tone of voice, with the air of a small boy who has been
wantonly robbed of a long-promised holiday but who is determined not to
make a scene over it. The Corporal seemed indifferent, and stood with
the far-away look in his eyes as if he were already busy with some
other plans or worries. But then, the Corporal was married. As for
myself, I had somehow felt from the first that it was too good to be
true. Adventure has steadily dodged me all my days.

A half-hour later we were pitching across the bay toward Ancon hill,
scaled bare on one end by the work of fortification like a Hindu
hair-cut. The water came spitting inboard now and then, and dejected
silence reigned within the craft. But spirits gradually revived and
before we could make out the details of the wharf the Corporal's hearty
genuine laughter and the Lieutenant's rousing carcajada were again
drifting across the water. At Balboa I unburdened myself of my shooting
hardware and, catching the labor-train, was soon mounting the graveled
walk to Ancon police station. In the second-story squad-room of the
bungalow were eight beds. But there were more than enough policemen to
go round, and the legal occupant of the bunk I fell asleep in returned
from duty at midnight and I transferred to the still warm nest of a man
on the "grave-yard" shift.

"It's customary to put a man in uniform for a while first before
assigning him to plain-clothes duty," the Inspector was saying next
morning when I finished the oath of office that had been omitted in the
haste of my appointment, "but we have waived that in your case because
of the knowledge of the Zone the cens