an excellent record. His official reports, in a quaint,
stately hand, were models of English; full of information, intelligent,
valuable, well observed. And those few of his countrymen, who stumbled
upon him in the out-of-the-world places to which of late he had been
banished, wrote of him to the department in terms of admiration and awe.
Never had he or his friends petitioned for promotion, until it was
at last apparent that, save for his record and the memory of his dead
patron, he had no friends. But, still in the department the tradition
held and, though he was not advanced, he was not dismissed.

"If that old man's been feeding from the public trough ever since the
Civil War," protested a "practical" politician, "it seems to me, Mr.
Secretary, that he's about had his share. Ain't it time he give some
one else a bite? Some of us that has, done the work, that has borne the
brunt----"

"This place he now holds," interrupted the Secretary of State suavely,
"is one hardly commensurate with services like yours. I can't pronounce
the name of it, and I'm not sure just where it is, but I see that, of
the last six consuls we sent there, three resigned within a month and
the other three died of yellow-fever. Still, if you insist----"

The practical politician reconsidered hastily. "I'm not the sort,"
he protested, "to turn out a man appointed by our martyred President.
Besides, he's so old now, if the fever don't catch him, he'll die of old
age, anyway."

The Secretary coughed uncomfortably. "And they say," he murmured,
"republics are ungrateful."

"I don't quite get that," said the practical politician.

Of Porto Banos, of the Republic of Colombia, where as consul Mr.
Marshall was upholding the dignity of the United States, little could
be said except that it possessed a sure harbor. When driven from the
Caribbean Sea by stress of weather, the largest of ocean tramps, and
even battle-ships, could find in its protecting arms of coral a safe
shelter. But, as young Mr. Aiken, the wireless operator, pointed out,
unless driven by a hurricane and the fear of death, no one ever visited
it. Back of the ancient wharfs, that dated from the days when Porto
Banos was a receiver of stolen goods for buccaneers and pirates, were
rows of thatched huts, streets, according to the season, of dust or
mud, a few iron-barred, jail-like barracks, customhouses, municipal
buildings, and the whitewashed adobe houses of the consuls. The backyar