m, but not for long.
The roadster's blood was in his veins. The voice of the tintype was
but one of the many callings that had wooed him upon so many roads.
Sometimes he could be persuaded to oral construction of his voyages
into the informal and egregious. To-night there were symptoms of
divulgement in him.

"'Tis elegant weather for filibusterin'," he volunteered. "It reminds
me of the time I struggled to liberate a nation from the poisonous
breath of a tyrant's clutch. 'Twas hard work. 'Tis strainin' to the
back and makes corns on the hands."

"I didn't know you had ever lent your sword to an oppressed people,"
murmured Atwood, from the grass.

"I did," said Clancy; "and they turned it into a ploughshare."

"What country was so fortunate as to secure your aid?" airily
inquired Blanchard.

"Where's Kamchatka?" asked Clancy, with seeming irrelevance.

"Why, off Siberia somewhere in the Arctic regions," somebody
answered, doubtfully.

"I thought that was the cold one," said Clancy, with a satisfied nod.
"I'm always gettin' the two names mixed. 'Twas Guatemala, then--the
hot one--I've been filibusterin' with. Ye'll find that country on the
map. 'Tis in the district known as the tropics. By the foresight of
Providence, it lies on the coast so the geography man could run the
names of the towns off into the water. They're an inch long, small
type, composed of Spanish dialects, and, 'tis my opinion, of the same
system of syntax that blew up the _Maine_. Yes, 'twas that country I
sailed against, single-handed, and endeavoured to liberate it from
a tyrannical government with a single-barreled pickaxe, unloaded
at that. Ye don't understand, of course. 'Tis a statement demandin'
elucidation and apologies.

"'Twas in New Orleans one morning about the first of June; I was
standin' down on the wharf, lookin' about at the ships in the river.
There was a little steamer moored right opposite me that seemed about
ready to sail. The funnels of it were throwin' out smoke, and a gang
of roustabouts were carryin' aboard a pile of boxes that was stacked
up on the wharf. The boxes were about two feet square, and somethin'
like four feet long, and they seemed to be pretty heavy.

"I walked over, careless, to the stack of boxes. I saw one of them
had been broken in handlin'. 'Twas curiosity made me pull up the
loose top and look inside. The box was packed full of Winchester
rifles. 'So, so,' says I to myself; 'somebody's gettin' a