r. Paranoya was an emotional
country, and liked its revolutions with a bit of zip to them.

It was about ten days after he had definitely cast in his lot with the
revolutionary party that Roland was made aware that these things were a
little more complex than he had imagined. He had reconciled himself to
the financial outlay. It had been difficult, but he had done it. That
his person as well as his purse would be placed in peril he had not
foreseen.

The fact was borne in upon him at the end of the second week by the
arrival of the deputation.

It blew in from the street just as he was enjoying his after-dinner
cigar.

It consisted of three men, one long and suave, the other two short,
stout, and silent. They all had the sallow complexion and undue
hairiness which he had come by this time to associate with the native of
Paranoya.

For a moment he mistook them for a drove of exiled noblemen whom he
had not had the pleasure of meeting at the supper-party; and he waited
resignedly for them to make night hideous with the royal anthem. He
poised himself on his toes, the more readily to spring aside if they
should try to kiss him on the cheek.

"Mr. Bleke?" said the long man.

His companions drifted toward the cigar-box which stood open on the
table, and looked at it wistfully.

"Long live the monarchy," said Roland wearily. He had gathered in the
course of his dealings with the exiled ones that this remark generally
went well.

On the present occasion it elicited no outburst of cheering. On the
contrary, the long man frowned, and his two companions helped themselves
to a handful of cigars apiece with a marked moodiness.

"Death to the monarchy," corrected the long man coldly. "And," he added
with a wealth of meaning in his voice, "to all who meddle in the affairs
of our beloved country and seek to do it harm."

"I don't know what you mean," said Roland.

"Yes, Senor Bleke, you do know what I mean. I mean that you will be
well advised to abandon the schemes which you are hatching with the
malcontents who would do my beloved land an injury."

The conversation was growing awkward. Roland had got so into the habit
of taking it for granted that every Paranoyan he met must of necessity
be a devotee of the beloved Alejandro that it came as a shock to him
to realize that there were those who objected to his restoration to
the throne. Till now he had looked on the enemy as something in the
abstract. It had not struc