So, with this he covered
paper with diagrams and figures while he waited for the United States
of America to send down to Coralio a successor to Atwood, resigned.

The new scheme that his mind had conceived, his stout heart indorsed,
and his blue pencil corroborated, was laid around the characteristics
and human frailties of the new president of Anchuria. These
characteristics, and the situation out of which Keogh hoped to wrest
a golden tribute, deserve chronicling contributive to the clear order
of events.

President Losada--many called him Dictator--was a man whose genius
would have made him conspicuous even among Anglo-Saxons, had not
that genius been intermixed with other traits that were petty and
subversive. He had some of the lofty patriotism of Washington (the
man he most admired), the force of Napoleon, and much of the wisdom
of the sages. These characteristics might have justified him in the
assumption of the title of "The Illustrious Liberator," had they not
been accompanied by a stupendous and amazing vanity that kept him in
the less worthy ranks of the dictators.

Yet he did his country great service. With a mighty grasp he shook it
nearly free from the shackles of ignorance and sloth and the vermin
that fed upon it, and all but made it a power in the council of
nations. He established schools and hospitals, built roads, bridges,
railroads and palaces, and bestowed generous subsidies upon the arts
and sciences. He was the absolute despot and the idol of his people.
The wealth of the country poured into his hands. Other presidents had
been rapacious without reason. Losada amassed enormous wealth, but
his people had their share of the benefits.

The joint in his armour was his insatiate passion for monuments and
tokens commemorating his glory. In every town he caused to be erected
statues of himself bearing legends in praise of his greatness. In
the walls of every public edifice, tablets were fixed reciting his
splendour and the gratitude of his subjects. His statuettes and
portraits were scattered throughout the land in every house and hut.
One of the sycophants in his court painted him as St. John, with a
halo and a train of attendants in full uniform. Losada saw nothing
incongruous in this picture, and had it hung in a church in the
capital. He ordered from a French sculptor a marble group including
himself with Napoleon, Alexander the Great, and one or two others
whom he deemed worthy of the honour.