ally?" cried Sam. "How our poor fellows are called upon to suffer
for these ungrateful Cubapinos! Still they can feel that they are
suffering for their country, too. That's a consolation."

"There's more consolation than that," said Foster, "for we're spreading
the thing like wildfire among the natives. We'll come out ahead."

"I wish, tho, that they wouldn't fly Old Gory over the house,"
said Sam.

"There was some talk of taking it down, but you see it's the policy of
the Administration never to haul down the flag when it has once been
raised. It presents rather a problem, you see."

"It may wear out in time," said Sam, "altho it looks painfully new.
What will they do then?"

"I confess I don't know," said Foster. "They'll cross the bridge when
they reach it."

"A good many of the shop signs are in English already," remarked Sam.
"That's a good beginning."

"Yes," said Cleary. "But they seem to be almost all saloons, that's
queer."

"So they are," said Sam.

"There are some pretty good ones, too," said Foster. "Just stop in here
for a moment and take a drink."

They entered a drinking-place and found a bar planned on the familiar
lines of home.

"Look at this list of our drinks," said Foster proudly. "Count 'em;
there are eighty-two."

Sam examined the list, which was printed and framed and hanging on the
wall, and they each took a glass of beer, standing. There were about a
dozen men in the place, most of them soldiers.

"Do they do a big business in these places?" asked Sam.

"You'll think so when you see the drunken soldiers in the streets in
the evening," answered Foster. "We're planting our institutions here,
I tell you."

"Not only saloons," said Sam. "There's the post-office, for instance."

"They had a post-office before," said Cleary.

"But ours is surely better," rejoined Sam.

"It's better than it was," said Foster, "now that they've put the new
postmaster in jail. They say he's bagged $75,000."

"It's a good example of the way we treat embezzlers," cried Sam. "It
ought to be a lesson to these Cubapinos. He'll be sent home to be
tried. They ought to do that with every one caught robbing the mails in
any way."

"I'm afraid if they did the force would be pretty well crippled," said
Foster.

"Then there's the custom house," said Sam. "They must be delighted to
get rid of those Castalian swindlers."

"A merchant here told me," said Foster