oved to quit
the sloop. Don Sabas lagged a little behind, looking at the still
form of the late admiral, sprawled in his paltry trappings.

"_Pobrecito loco_," he said softly.

He was a brilliant cosmopolite and a _cognoscente_ of high rank; but,
after all, he was of the same race and blood and instinct as this
people. Even as the simple _paisanos_ of Coralio had said it, so said
Don Sabas. Without a smile, he looked, and said, "The poor little
crazed one!"

Stooping he raised the limp shoulders, drew the priceless and
induplicable flag under them and over the breast, pinning it there
with the diamond star of the Order of San Carlos that he took from
the collar of his own coat.

He followed after the others, and stood with them upon the deck of
the _Salvador_. The sailors that steadied _El Nacional_ shoved her
off. The jabbering Caribs hauled away at the rigging; the sloop
headed for the shore.

And Herr Grunitz's collection of naval flags was still the finest in
the world.

X

THE SHAMROCK AND THE PALM

One night when there was no breeze, and Coralio seemed closer than
ever to the gratings of Avernus, five men were grouped about the door
of the photograph establishment of Keogh and Clancy. Thus, in all the
scorched and exotic places of the earth, Caucasians meet when the
day's work is done to preserve the fulness of their heritage by the
aspersion of alien things.

Johnny Atwood lay stretched upon the grass in the undress uniform
of a Carib, and prated feebly of cool water to be had in the
cucumber-wood pumps of Dalesburg. Dr. Gregg, through the prestige of
his whiskers and as a bribe against the relation of his imminent
professional tales, was conceded the hammock that was swung between
the door jamb and a calabash-tree. Keogh had moved out upon the grass
a little table that held the instrument for burnishing completed
photographs. He was the only busy one of the group. Industriously
from between the cylinders of the burnisher rolled the finished
depictments of Coralio's citizens. Blanchard, the French mining
engineer, in his cool linen viewed the smoke of his cigarette through
his calm glasses, impervious to the heat. Clancy sat on the steps,
smoking his short pipe. His mood was the gossip's; the others were
reduced, by the humidity, to the state of disability desirable in an
audience.

Clancy was an American with an Irish diathesis and cosmopolitan
proclivities. Many businesses had claimed hi