n Sea."

"It's a long time between customers," I ventured.

"They're coming faster," said Polk. "Nowadays, when one of the
murdering mutts gets civilised enough to abolish suttee and quit using
his whiskers for a napkin, he calls himself the Roosevelt of the East,
and comes over to investigate our Chautauquas and cocktails. I'll
place 'em all yet. Now look here."

From an inside pocket he drew a tightly folded newspaper with much-
worn edges, and indicated a paragraph.

"Read that," said the saddler to royalty. The paragraph ran thus:

His Highness Seyyid Feysal bin Turkee, Imam of Muskat, is one of
the most progressive and enlightened rulers of the Old World. His
stables contain more than a thousand horses of the purest Persian
breeds. It is said that this powerful prince contemplates a visit
to the United States at an early date.

"There!" said Mr. Polk triumphantly. "My best saddle is as good as
sold--the one with turquoises set in the rim of the cantle. Have you
three dollars that you could loan me for a short time?"

It happened that I had; and I did.

If this should meet the eye of the Imam of Muskat, may it quicken his
whim to visit the land of the free! Otherwise I fear that I shall be
longer than a short time separated from my dollars three.

VII

HYGEIA AT THE SOLITO

If you are knowing in the chronicles of the ring you will recall to
mind an event in the early 'nineties when, for a minute and sundry odd
seconds, a champion and a "would-be" faced each other on the alien
side of an international river. So brief a conflict had rarely imposed
upon the fair promise of true sport. The reporters made what they
could of it, but, divested of padding, the action was sadly fugacious.
The champion merely smote his victim, turned his back upon him,
remarking, "I know what I done to dat stiff," and extended an arm like
a ship's mast for his glove to be removed.

Which accounts for a trainload of extremely disgusted gentlemen in an
uproar of fancy vests and neck-wear being spilled from their pullmans
in San Antonio in the early morning following the fight. Which also
partly accounts for the unhappy predicament in which "Cricket" McGuire
found himself as he tumbled from his car and sat upon the depot
platform, torn by a spasm of that hollow, racking cough so familiar to
San Antonian ears. At that time, in the uncertain light of dawn, that
way passed Curtis Raidler, the Nueces County cattleman--ma