"For a professedly shy person, you certainly take a rather intimate tone."

"Oh, I'm shy only under the baleful influence of the feminine eye. Besides, you set the note of intimacy when you analyzed my personal appearance. And finally, I have a warm regard for young Raimonda."

"So have I," she returned maliciously. "Aren't you jealous?"

He laughed.

"Please be a little bit jealous. It would be so flattering."

"Jealousy is another tradition in which I don't believe."

"Then I can't flirt with you at all?" she sighed. "After taking all this long hot walk to see you!"

PLOP! The sound punctured the silence sharply, though not loudly. Some large fruit pod bursting on a distant tree might have made such a report.

"What was that?" asked the girl curiously.

"That? Oh, that was a revolver shot," he remarked.

"Aren't you casual! Do revolver shots mean nothing to you?"

"That one shakes my soul's foundations." His tone by no means indicated an inner cataclysm. "It may mean that I must excuse myself and leave. Just a moment, please."

Passing across the line of her vision, he disappeared to the left. When she next heard his voice, it was almost directly above her.

"No," it said. "There's no hurry. The flag's not up."

"What flag?"

"The flag in my compound."

"Can you see your home from here?"

"Yes; there's a ledge on the cliff that gives a direct view."

"I want to come up and see it."

"You can't. It's much too hard a climb. Besides, there are rock devilkins on the way."

"And when you hear a shot, you go up there for messages?"

"Yes; it's my telephone system."

"Who's at the other end?"

"The peon who pretends to look after the quinta for me."

"A man! No man can keep a house fit to live in," she said scornfully.

"I know it; but he's all I've got in the servant line."

"How far is the house from here?"

"A mile, by air. Seven by trail from town."

"Isn't it lonely?"

"Yes."

Suddenly she felt very sorry for him. There was such a quiet, conclusive acceptance of cheerlessness in the monosyllable.

"How soon must you go back?"

"Oh, not for an hour, at least."

"If it's a call, it must be an important one, so far from civilization."

"Not necessarily. Don't you ever have calls that are not important?"

No answer came.

"Miss Brewster!" he called. "Oh, Voice! You haven't gone?"

Still no response.

"That isn't fair," he complained, making his way swiftly down, and satisfying himself by a peep about the angle commanding her point of the rock that she had, indeed, vanished. Sadly he descended to his own nook—and jumped back with a half-suppressed yell.

"You needn't jump out of your skin on my account," said Miss Polly Brewster, with a gracious smile. "I'm not a devilkin."

"You are! That is—I mean—I—I—beg your pardon. I—I—"

"The poor man's having another bashful fit," she observed, with malicious glee. "Did the bold, bad, forward American minx scare it almost out of its poor shy wits?"

"You—you startled me."

"No!" she exclaimed, in wide-eyed mock surprise. "Who would have supposed it? You didn't expect me down here, did you?"

Thereupon she got a return shock.

"Yes, I did," he said; "sooner or later."

"Don't fib. Don't pretend that you knew I was here."

"W-w-well, no. Not just now. B-b-but I knew you'd come if—if—if I pretended I didn't want you to long enough."

"Young and budding scientist," said she severely, "you're a gay deceiver. Is it because you have known me in some former existence that you are able thus accurately to read my character?"

"Well, I knew you wouldn't stay up there much longer."

"I'm angry at you; very angry at you. That is, I would be if it weren't that you really didn't mean it when you said that you really didn't want to see my face again."

"Did any one ever see your face once without wanting to see it again?"

"Ah, bravo!" She clapped her hands gayly. "Marvelous improvement under my tutelage! Where, oh, where is your timidity now?"

"I—I—I forgot," he stammered, "As long as I don't think, I'm all right. Now, you—you—you've gone and spoiled me."

"Oh, the pity of it! Let's find some mild, impersonal topic, then, that won't embarrass you. What do you do under the shadow of this rock, in a parched land?"

"Work. Besides, it isn't a parched land. Look on this side."

Half a dozen steps brought her around the farther angle, where, hidden in a growth of shrubbery, lay a little pool of fairy loveliness,

"That's my outdoor laboratory."

"A dreamery, I'd call it. May I sit down? Are there devilkins here? There's an elfkin, anyway," she added, as a silvered dragon- fly hovered above her head inquisitively before darting away on his own concerns.

"One of my friends and specimens. I'm studying his methods of aviation with a view to making some practical use of what I learn, eventually."

"Really? Are you an inventor, too? I'm crazy about aviation."

"Ah, then you'll be interested in this," he said, now quite at his ease. "You know that the mosquito is the curse of the tropics."

"Of other places, as well."

"But in the tropics it means yellow fever, Chagres fever, and other epidemic illness. Now, the mosquito, as you doubtless realize, is a monoplane."

"A monoplane?" repeated the girl, in some puzzlement. "How a monoplane?"

"I thought you claimed some knowledge of aviation. Its wings are all on one plane. The great natural enemy of the mosquito is the dragon-fly, one of which just paid you a visit. Now, modern warfare has taught us that the most effective assailant of the monoplane is a biplane. You know that."

"Y-y-yes," said the girl doubtfully.

"Therefore, if we can breed a biplane dragonfly in sufficient numbers, we might solve the mosquito problem at small expense."

"I don't know much about science," she began, "but I should hardly have supposed—"

"It's curious how nature varies the type of aviation," he continued dreamily. "Now, the pigeon is, of course, a Zeppelin; whereas the sea urchin is obviously a balloon; and the thistledown an undirigible—"

"You're making fun of me!" she accused, with sharp enlightenment.

"What else have you done to me ever since we met?" he inquired mildly.

"Now I AM angry! I shall go home at once."

A second far-away PLOP! set a period to her decision.

"So shall I," said he briskly.

"Does that signal mean hurry up?" she asked curiously.

"Well, it means that I'm wanted. You go first. When will you come again?"

"Not at all."

"Do you mean that?"

"Of course. I'm angry. Didn't I tell you that? I don't permit people to make fun of me. Besides, you must come and see me next. You owe me two calls. Will you?"

"I—I—don't know."

"Afraid?"

"Rather."

"Then you must surely come and conquer this cowardice. Will you come to-morrow?"

"No; I don't think so."

Miss Brewster opened wide her eyes upon him. She was little accustomed to have her invitations, which she issued rather in the manner of royal commands, thus casually received. Had the offender been any other of her acquaintance, she would have dropped the matter and the man then and there. But this was a different species. Graceful and tactful he might not be, but he was honest.

"Why?" she said.

"I've got something more important to do."

"You're reverting to type sadly. What is it that's so important?"

"Work."

"You can work any time."

"No. Unfortunately I have to eat and sleep sometimes."

The implication she accepted quite seriously.

"Are you really as busy as all that? I'm quite conscience-stricken over the time I've wasted for you."

"Not wasted at all. You've cheered me up."

"That's something. But you won't come to the city to be cheered up?"

"Yes, I will. When I get time."

"Perhaps you won't find me at home."

"Then I'll wait."

"Good-bye, then," she laughed, "until your leisure day arrives."

She climbed the rock, stepping as strongly and surely as a lithe animal. At the top, the spirit of roguery, ever on her lips and eyes, struck in and possessed her soul.

"O disciple of science!" she called.

"Well?"

"Can you see me?"

"Not from here."

"Good! I'm a Voice again. So don't be timid. Will you answer a question?"

"I've answered a hundred already. One more won't hurt."

"Have you ever been in love?"

"What?"

"Don't I speak plainly enough? Have—you—ever—been—in—love?"

"With a woman?"

"Why, yes," she railed. "With a woman, of course. I don't mean with your musty science."

"No."

"Well, you needn't be violent. Have you ever been in love with ANYTHING?"

"Perhaps."

"Oh, perhaps!" she taunted. "There are no perhapses in that. With what?"

"With what every man in the world is in love with once in his life," he replied thoughtfully.

She made a little still step forward and peeped down at him. He stood leaning against the face of the rock, gazing out over the hot blue Caribbean, his hat pushed back and his absurd goggles firm and high on his nose. His words and voice were in preposterous contrast to his appearance.

"Riddle me your riddle," she commanded. "What is every man in love with once in his life?"

"An ideal."

"Ah! And your ideal—where do you keep it safe from the common gaze?"

"I tether it to my heart—with a single hair," said the man below.

"Oh," commented Miss Brewster, in a changed tone. And, again, "Oh," just a little blankly. "I wish I hadn't asked that," she confessed silently to herself, after a moment.

Still, the spirit of reckless experimentalism pressed her onward.

"That's a peril to the scientific mind, you know," she warned. "Suppose your ideal should come true?"

"It won't," said he comfortably.

Miss Brewster's regrets sensibly mitigated.

"In that case, of course, your career is safe from accident," she remarked.

He moved out into the open.

"Mr. Beetle Man," she called,

He looked up and saw her with her chin cupped in her hand, regarding him thoughtfully.

"I'm NOT just a casual acquaintance," she said suddenly. "That is, if you don't want me to be."

"That's good," was his hearty comment. "I'm glad you like me better than you did at first."

"Oh, I'm not so sure that I like you, exactly. But I'm coming to have a sort of respectful curiosity about you. What lies under that beetle shell of yours, I wonder?" she mused, in a half breath.

Whether or not he heard the final question she could not tell. He smiled, waved his hand, and disappeared. Below, she watched the motion of the bush-tops where the shrubbery was parted by the progress of his sturdy body down the long slope.



V

AN UPHOLDER OF TRADITIONS

One day passes much like another in Caracuna City. The sun rises blandly, grows hot and angry as it climbs the slippery polished vault of the heavens, and coasts down to its rest in a pleased and mild glow. From the squat cathedral tower the bells clang and jangle defiance to the Adversary, temporarily drowning out the street tumult in which the yells of the lottery venders, the braying of donkeys, the whoops of the cabmen, and the blaring of the little motor cars with big horns, combine to render Caracuna the noisiest capital in the world. Through the saddle-colored hordes on the moot ground of the narrow sidewalks moves an occasional Anglo-Saxon resident, browned and sallowed, on his way to the government concession that he manages; a less occasional Anglo-Saxoness, browned and marked with the seal that the tropics put upon every woman who braves their rigors for more than a brief period; and a sprinkling of tourists in groups, flying on cheek, brow, and nose the stark red of their newness to the climate.

Not of this sorority Miss Polly Brewster. Having blithe regard to her duty as an ornament of this dull world, she had tempered the sun to the foreign cuticle with successively diminishing layers of veils, to such good purpose that the celestial scorcher had but kissed her graduated brownness to a soft glow of color. Not alone in appreciation of her external advantages was Miss Brewster. Such as it was,—and it had its qualities, albeit somewhat unformulated,—Caracuna society gave her prompt welcome. There were teas and rides and tennis at the little club; there were agreeable, presentable men and hospitable women; and always there was Fitzhugh Carroll, suave, handsome, gentle, a polished man of the world among men, a courteous attendant to every woman, but always with a first thought for her. Was it sheer perversity of character, that elfin perversity so shrewdly divined by the hermit of the mountain, that put in her mind, in this far corner of the world, among these strange people, the thought:

"All men are alike, and Fitz, for all that he's so different and the best of them, is the MOST alike."

Which paradox, being too much for her in the heat of the day, she put aside in favor of the insinuating thought of her beetle man. Whatever else he might or might not be, he wasn't alike. She was by no means sure that she found this difference either admirable or amiable. But at least it was interesting.

Moreover, she was piqued. For four days had passed and the recluse had not returned her call. True, there had come to her hotel a wicker full of superb wild tree blooms, and, again, a tiny box, cunning in workmanship of scented wood, containing what at first glance she had taken to be a jewel, until she saw that it was a tiny butterfly with opalescent wings, mounted on a silver wire. But with them had come no word or token of identification. Perhaps they weren't from the queer and remote person at all. Very likely Mr. Raimonda had sent them; or Fitzhugh Carroll was adding secret attention to his open homage; or they might even be a further peace offering from the Hochwald secretary.

That occasionally too festive diplomat had, indeed, made amends both profound and, evidently, sincere. Soliciting the kind offices of both Sherwen and Raimonda, he had presented himself, under their escort, stiff and perspiring in his full official regalia, before Mr. Brewster; then before his daughter, whose solemnity, presently breaking down before his painfully rehearsed English, dissolved in fluent French, setting him at ease and making him her slave. Poor penitent Von Plaanden even apologized to Carroll, fortunately not having heard of the American's threat, and made a most favorable impression upon that precisian.

"Intoxicated, he may be a rough, Miss Polly," Carroll confided to the girl. "But sober, the man is a gentleman. He feels very badly about the whole affair. Offered to your father to report it all through official channels and attach his resignation."

"Not for worlds!" cried Miss Polly. "The poor man was half asleep. And Mr. Bee—Mr. Perkins DID jog him rather sharply."

"Yes. Von Plaanden asked my advice as an American about his attitude toward Cluff and Perkins."

"I hope you told him to let the whole thing drop."

"Exactly what I did. I explained about Cluff; that he was a very good fellow, but of a different class, and probably wouldn't give the thing another thought."

"And Mr. Perkins?"

"Von Plaanden wanted to challenge him, if he could find him. I suggested that he leave me to deal with Mr. Perkins. After some discussion, he agreed."

"Oh! And what are you going to do with him?"

"Find him first, if I can."

"I can tell you where." Carroll stared at her, astonished. "But I don't think I will."

"He announced his intention of keeping out of my way. The man has no sense of shame."

"You probably scared the poor lamb out of his wits, fire-eater that you are."

Carroll would have liked to think so, but an innate sense of justice beneath his crust of prejudice forbade him to accept this judgment.

"The strange part of it is that he doesn't impress me as being afraid. But there is certainly something very wrong with the fellow. A man who will deliberately desert a woman in distress"— Carroll's manner expanded into the roundly rhetorical—"whatever else he may be, cannot be a gentleman."

"There might have been mitigating circumstances."

"No circumstances could excuse such an action. And, after that, the fellow had the effrontery to send you a message."

"Me? What was it?" asked Miss Polly quickly.

"I don't know. I didn't let him finish. I forbade his even mentioning your name."

"Indeed!" cried the girl, in quick dudgeon. "Don't you think you are taking a great deal upon yourself, Fitz? What do you really know about Mr. Perkins, anyway, that you judge him so offhandedly?"

"Very little, but enough, I think. And I hardly think you know more."

"Then you're wrong. I do."

"You KNOW this man?"

"Yes; I do."

"Does your father approve of—"

"Never mind my father! He has confidence enough in me to let me judge of my own friends."

"Friends?" Carroll's handsome face clouded and reddened. "If I had known that he was a friend of yours, Miss Polly, I never would have spoken as I did. I'm most sincerely sorry," he added, with grave courtesy.

The girl's color deepened under the brown.

"He isn't exactly a friend," she admitted. "I've just met and talked with him a few times. But your judgment seemed so unfair, on such a slight basis."

"I'm sorry I can't reverse my judgment," said the Southerner stiffly, "But I know of only one standard for those matters."

"That's just your trouble." Her eyes took on a cold gleam as she scanned the perfection and finish of the man before her. "Fitzhugh, do you wear ready-made clothing?"

"Of course not," he answered, in surprise at this turn.

"Your suits are all made to order?"

"Yes, Miss Polly."

"And your shirts?"

"Yes, and shoes, and various other things." He smiled.

"Why do you have them specially made?"

"Beeause they suit me better, and I can afford it."

"It's really because you want them individualized for you, isn't it?"

"Yes; I suppose so."

"Then why do you always get your mental clothes ready-made?"

"I don't think I understand, Miss Polly," he said gently.

"It seems to me that all your ideas and estimates and standards are of stock pattern," she explained relentlessly. "Inside, you're as just exactly so as a pair of wooden shoes. Can't you see that you can't judge all men on the same plane?"

"I see that you're angry with me, and I see that I'm being punished for what I said about—about Mr. Perkins. If I'd known that you took any interest in him, I'd have bitten my tongue in two before speaking as I did. As for the message, if you wish it, I'll go to him—"

"Oh, that doesn't matter," she interrupted.

"This much I can say, in honesty," continued the Southerner, with an effort: "I had a talk, almost an encounter, with him in the plaza, and I don't believe he is the coward I thought him."

His intent to be fair to the object of his scorn was so genuine that his critic felt a swift access of compunction.

"Oh, Fitz," she said sweetly, "you're not to blame. I should have told you. And you're honest and loyal and a gentleman. Only I wish sometimes that you weren't quite so awfully gentlemanly a gentleman."

The Southerner made a gesture of despair.

"If I could only understand you, Miss Polly!"

"Don't hope it. I've never yet understood myself. But there's a sympathy in me for the under dog, and this Mr. Perkins seems a sort of helpless creature. Yet in another way he doesn't seem helpless at all. Quite the reverse. Oh, dear! I'm tired of Perkins, Perkins, Perkins! Let's talk about something pleasanter— like the plague."

"What's that about Perkins?" Galpy had entered the drawing-room where the conversation had been carried on, and now crossed over to them. "I'll tell you a good one on the little blighteh. D' you know what they call him at the Club Amicitia since his adventure on the street car, Miss Brewster?"

"What?"

"'The Unspeakable Perk.' Rippin', ain't it? Like 'The Unspeakable Turk,' you know."

Despite herself, Polly's lips twitched; in some ways he WAS unspeakable.

"They've nicknamed him that because of his trying to help me, and then—leaving?" she asked.

"Oh, not entirely. There's other things. He's a nahsty, stand- offish way with him, you know. Don't-want-to-know-yeh trick. Wouldn't-speak-to-yeh-if-I-could-help-it twist to his face. 'The Unspeakable Perk.' Stands him right, I should say. There's other reasons, too."

"What are they?"

She saw a quick, warning frown on Carroll's sharply turned face. Galpy noted it, too, and was lost in confusion.

"Oh—ah—just gossip—nothing at all. I say, Miss Brewster, the railway—I'm in the Ferrocarril-del-Norte office, you know—has offered your party a special on an hour's notice, any time you want it."

"That's most kind of your road, Mr. Galpy. But why should we want it?"

"Things might be getting a bit ticklish any day now. I've just taken the message from the manager to your father."

The young Englishman took his leave, and Polly Brewster went to her room, to freshen up for luncheon, carrying with her the sobriquet she had just heard. Certainly, applied to its subject, it had a mucilaginous consistency. It stuck.

"'The Unspeakable Perk,'" she repeated, with a little chuckle. "If I had a month to train him in, eh, what a speakable Perk I'd make him! I'd make him into a Perk that would sit up and speak when I lifted my little finger." She considered this. "I'm not so sure," she concluded, more doubtfully. "How can one tell through those horrid glasses, particularly when one doesn't see him for days and days?"

Without moving, she might, however, have seen him forthwith, for at that precise and particular moment, the Unspeakable Perk was in plain sight of her window, on a bench in the corner of the plaza, engaged in light conversation with a legless and philosophical beggar whom he had just astonished by the presentation of a whole bolivar, of the value of twenty cents gold.

After she had finished luncheon and returned to her room, he was still there. Not until the mid-heat of the afternoon, however, did she observe, first with puzzlement, then with a start of recognition, the patiently rounded brown back of the forward- leaning figure in the corner. Greatly wroth was Miss Polly Brewster. For some hours—two, at least—the man to keep tryst and wager with whom she had tramped up miles of mountain road had been in town and hadn't called upon her! Truly was he an Unspeakable Perk!

Wasn't there possibly a mistake somewhere, though? A second peep at the far-away back interpreted into the curve a suggestion of resigned waiting. Maybe he had called, after all. Thought being usually with Miss Brewster the mother of the twins, Determination and Action, she slipped downstairs and inquired of the three guardians of the door, in such Spanish as she could muster, whether a Mr. Perkins, wearing large glasses—this in the universal sign manual—had been to see her that day.

"Si, Senorita"—he had.

Why, then, hadn't his name been brought to her?

Extended hands and up-shrugged shoulders that might mean either apology or incomprehension.

Straightway Miss Brewster pinned a hat upon her brown head at an altogether casual and heart-distracting angle and sallied down into the tesselated bowl of the park. Quite unconscious of her approach, until she was close upon him, her objective chatted fluently with the legless one, until she spoke quietly, almost in his ear. Then it was only by a clutch at the bench back that he saved himself from disaster on his return to earth.

"Wh—wh—what—wh—where—how did you come here?" he stuttered.

"Now, now, don't be alarmed," she admonished. "Shut your eyes, draw a deep breath, count three. And, as soon as you are ready I'll give you a talisman against social panic. Are you ready?"

"Y-yes."

"Very well. Whenever I come upon you suddenly, you mustn't try to jump up into a tree as you did just now—"

"I didn't!"

"Oh, yes. Or burrow under a rock, as you did the other day—"

"Miss B-B-Brewster—"

"Wait until I've finished. You must turn your thoughts firmly upon your science, until you've recovered equilibrium and the power of human speech."

"But when you jump at me that way, I c-c-can't think of anything but you."

"That's where the charm comes in. As soon as you see me or hear me approaching, you must repeat, quite slowly, this scientific incantation." She beat time with a pink and rhythmic finger as she chanted:—

"Scarab, tarantula, doodle-bug, flea."

The beggar rapidly made the sign that protects one from the influence of the malign and supernatural. The scientist scowled.

"Repeat it!" she commanded.

"There is no such insect as a doodle-bug," he protested feebly.

"Isn't there? I thought I heard you mention it in your conversation with Mr. Carroll the other night."

"You put that into my head," he accused.

"Truly? Then life is indeed real and earnest. To have introduced something unscientific into that compendium of science—there's triumph enough for any ambition. Besides, see how beautifully it scans."

Again she beat time, and again the beggar crooked defensive fingers as she declaimed:—

"SCAR-ab, tar-ANT-u-la, DOO-dle-bug, FLEA!"

Homeric, I call it. Perhaps you think you could improve on it."

"Would you mind substituting 'neuropter' in the third strophe?" he ventured. "It would be just as good as 'doodle-bug,' and more— more accurate."

"What's a neuropter? You didn't make him up for the occasion?"

"Heaven forbid! The dragon-fly is a neuropter. The dragon-fly we're going to breed to a biplane, you know," he reminded her slyly.

"Indeed! Well, I shall stick to my doodle-bug. He's more euphonious. Now, repeat it."

"Let me off this time," he pleaded. "I'm all right—quite recovered. It's only at the start that it's so bad."

"Very well," she agreed. "But you're not to forget it. And next time we meet you're to be sure and say it over until you're sane."

"Sane!" he said resentfully. "I'm as sane as any one you know. It's the job of KEEPING sane in this madhouse of the tropics that's almost driven me crazy."

"Lovely!" she approved. "Well, now that you've recovered, I'll tell you what I came out to say. I'm sorry that I missed you."

"Missed me?" he repeated. "Oh, you have missed me, then? That's nice. You see, I've been so busy for the last three or four days—"

"No; I haven't missed you a bit," she declared indignantly. "The conceit of the man!"

"But you said you w-w-were sorry you'd—"

"Don't be wholly a beetle! I meant I was sorry not to see you when you came to call on me this morning."

"I didn't come to call on you this morning."

"No? The boy at the door said he'd seen you, or something answering to your description."

"So he did. I came to see your father. He was out."

"What time?"

"From eleven on."

"Father? No, I don't think so."

"His secretary came down and told me so, or sent word each time."

She smiled pityingly at him.

"Of course. That's what a secretary is for."

"To tell lies?"

"White lies. You see, dad is a very busy man, and an important man, and many people come to see him whom he hasn't time to see. So, unless he knew your business, he would naturally be 'out' to you."

The corners of the young man's rather sensitive mouth flattened out perceptibly.

"Ah, I see. My mistake. Living in countries where, however queer the people may be, they at least observe ordinary human courtesies, one forgets—if one ever knew."

"What did you want of dad?"

"Oh, to borrow four dollars of him, of course," he replied dryly.

"You needn't be angry at me. You see, dad's time is valuable."

"Indeed? To whom?"

"Why, to himself, of course."

"Oh, well, my time—However, that doesn't matter. I haven't wholly wasted it." He glanced toward the beggar, who was profoundly regarding the cathedral clock.

"If you like, I'll get you an interview with dad," she offered magnanimously.

"Me? No, I thank you," he said crisply. "I'm not patient of unnecessary red tape."

Miss Brewster looked at him in surprise. It was borne in upon her, as she looked, that this man was not accustomed to being lightly regarded by other men, however busy or important; that his own concerns in life were quite as weighty to him, and in his esteem, perhaps, to others, as were the interests of any magnate; and that, man to man, there would be no shyness or indecision or purposelessness anywhere in his make-up.

"If it was important," she began hesitantly, "my father would be—"

"It was of no importance to me," he cut in. "To others—Perhaps I could see some one else of your party."

"Well, here I am." She smiled. "Why won't I do?"

Behind the obscuring disks she could feel his glance read her. The grimness at the mouth's corners relaxed.

"I really don't know why you shouldn't."

"Dad says I'd have made a man of affairs," she remarked.

"Why, it's just this. You should be planning to leave this country."

Miss Brewster bewailed her harsh lot with drooping lip.

"Every one wants to drive me away!"

"Who else?"

"That railroad man, Mr. Galpy, was offering us special inducements to leave, in the form of special trains any time we liked. It isn't hospitable."

"A jail is hospitable. But one doesn't stay in it when one can get out."

"If Caracuna were the jail and I the 'one,' one might. I quite love it here."

He made a sharp gesture of annoyance.

"Don't be childish," he said.

"Childish? You come down like Freedom from the mountain heights, and unfurl your warnings to the air, and complain of lost time and all that sort of thing, and what does it all amount to?" she demanded, with spirit. "That we should sail away, when you know perfectly well that the Dutch won't let us sail away! Childish, indeed! Don't you be BEETLISH!"

"There's a way out, without much risk, but some discomfort. You could strike south-east to the Bird Reefs, take a small boat, and get over to the mainland. As soon as the blockade is off, the yacht can take your luggage around. The trip would be rough for you, but not dangerous. Not as dangerous as staying here may be."

"Do you really think it so serious?"

"Most emphatically."

"Will you come with us and show us the way?" she inquired, gazing with exaggerated appeal into his goggles.

"I? No."

"What shall you do?"

"Stick."

"Pins through scarabs," she laughed, "while beneath you Caracuna riots and revolutes and massacres foreigners. Nero with his fiddle was nothing to you."

"Miss Brewster, I'm afraid you are suffering from a misplaced sense of humor. Will you believe me when I tell you that I have certain sources of information in local matters both serviceable and reliable?"

"You seem to have bet on a certainty in the Dutch blockade matter."

"Well, it's equally certain that there is bubonic plague here."

"A bola. You told me so yourself."

"Perhaps there was nothing to be gained then by letting you know, as you were bottled up, with no way out. Now, through the good offices of a foreign official, who, of course, couldn't afford to appear, this opportunity to reach the mainland is open to you."

"Had you anything to do with that?" she inquired suspiciously.

"Oh, the official is a friend of mine," he answered carelessly.

"And you really believe that there is an epidemic of plague here? Don't you think that I'd make a good Red Cross nurse?"

His voice was grave and rather stern.

"You've never seen bubonic plague," he said, "or you wouldn't joke about it."

"I'm sorry. But it wasn't wholly a joke. If we were really cooped up with an epidemic, I'd volunteer. What else would there be to do?"

"Nothing of the sort," he cried vehemently. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Anyway, isn't the wonderful Luther Pruyn on his way to exorcise the demon, or something of the sort?"

"What about Luther Pruyn? Who says he's coming here?"

"It's the gossip of the diplomatic set and the clubs. He's the favorite mystery of the day."

"Well, if he does come, it won't improve matters any, for the first case he verifies he'll clap on a quarantine that a mouse couldn't creep through. I know something of the Pruyn method."

"And don't wholly approve it, I judge."

"It may be efficacious, but it's extremely inconvenient at times."

Again the cathedral clock boomed.

"See how I've kept you from your own affairs!" cried Miss Polly contritely. "What are you going to do now? Go back to your mountains?"

"Yes. As soon as you tell me that your father will go out by the reefs."

"Do you expect him to make up his mind, on five minutes' notice, to abandon his yacht?"

"I thought great magnates were supposed to be men of instant and unalterable decisions. I don't know the type."

"Anyway, dad has gone out. I saw him drive away. Wouldn't to- morrow do?"

"Why, yes; I suppose so."

"I'll tell you. The Voice will report at the rock to-morrow, at four."

"No."

"What a very uncompromising 'no'!"

"I can't be there at four. Make it five."

"What a very arbitrary beetle man! Well, as I've wasted so much of your time to-day, I'll accept your orders for to-morrow."

"And please impress your father with the extreme advisability of your getting off this island."

"Yes, sir," she said meekly. "You'll be most awfully glad to get rid of us, won't you?"

"Very greatly relieved."

"And a little bit sorry?"

The begoggled face turned toward her. There was a perceptible tensity in the line of the jaw. But the beetle man made no answer.

"Now, if I could see behind those glasses," said Miss Polly Brewster to her wicked little self, "I'd probably BITE myself rather than say it again. Just the same—And a little bit sorry?" she persisted aloud.

"Does that matter?" said the man quietly.

Miss Polly Brewster forthwith bit herself on her pink and wayward tongue.

"Don't think I'm not grateful," she employed that chastened member to say. "I am, most deeply. So will father be, even if he decides not to leave. I'm afraid that's what he will decide."

"He mustn't."

"Tell him that yourself."

"I will, if it becomes necessary."

"Let me be present at the interview. Most people are afraid of dad. Perhaps you'd be, too."

"I could always run away," he remarked, unsmiling. "You know how well I do it."

"I must do it now myself, and get arrayed for the daily tea sacrifice. Au revoir."

"Hasta manana," he said absently.

She had turned to go, but at the word she came slowly back a pace or two, smiling.

"What a strange beetle man you are!" she said softly. "I have no other friends like you. You ARE a friend, aren't you, in your queer way?" She did not wait for an answer, but went on: "You don't come to see me when I ask you. You don't send me any word. You make me feel that, compared to your concerns with beetles and flies, I'm quite hopelessly unimportant. And yet here I find you giving up your own pursuits and wasting your time to plan and watch and think for us."

"For you," he corrected.

"For me," she accepted sweetly. "What an ungrateful little pig you must think me! But truly inside I appreciate it and thank you, and I think—I feel that perhaps it amounts to a lot more than I know."

He made a gesture of negation.

"No great thing," he said. "But it's the best I can do, anyway. Do you remember what the mediaeval mummer said, when he came bearing his poor homage?"

"No. Tell it to me."

"It runs like this: 'Lady, who art nowise bitter to those who serve you with a good intent, that which thy servant is, that he is for you.'"

"Polly Brewster," said the girl to herself, as she walked, slowly and musingly, back to her room, "the busy haunts of men are more suited to your style than the free-and-untrammeled spaces of nature, and well you know it. But you'll go to-morrow and you'll keep on going until you find out what is behind those brown-green goblin spectacles. If only he didn't look so like a gnome!"

The clause conditional, introduced by the word "if," does not always imply a conclusion, even in the mind of the propounder. Miss Brewster would have been hard put to it to round out her subjunctive.



VI

FORKED TONGUES

"Pooh!" said Thatcher Brewster.

Thatcher Brewster's "Pooh!" is generally recognized in the realm of high finance as carrying weight. It is not derisive or contemptuous; it is dismissive. The subject of it simply ceases to exist. In the present instance, it was so mild as scarcely to stir the smoke from his after-dinner cigar, yet it had all the intent, if not the effect, of finality. The reason why it hadn't the effect was that it was directed at Thatcher Brewster's daughter.

"Perhaps not quite so much 'Pooh!' as you think," was that damsel's reception of the pregnant monosyllable.

"A bug-hunter from nowhere! Don't I know that type?" said the magnate, who confounded all scientists with inventors, the capital-seeking inventor being the bane and torment of his life.

"He knew about the Dutch blockade."

"Or pretended he did. I'm afraid my Pollipet has let herself romanticize a little."

"Romanticize!" The girl laughed. "If you could see him, dad! Romance and my poor little beetle man don't live in the same world."

Out of the realm of memory, where the echoes come and go by no known law, sounded his voice in her ear: "'That which thy servant is, that he is for you.'" Dim doubt forthwith began to cloud the bright certainty of Miss Brewster's verdict.

"If he's gone to all the trouble that I told you of, it must be that he has some good reason for wanting to get us safely out," she argued to her father.

"Perhaps he feels that his peace of mind would be more assured if you were in some other country," he teased. "No, my dear, I'm not leaving a full-manned yacht in a foreign harbor and smuggling myself out of a friendly country on the say-so of an unknown adviser, whose chief ability seems to lie in the hundred-yard dash."

"I think that's unfair and ungrateful. If a man with a sword—"

"When I begin a row, I stay with it," said Mr. Brewster grimly. "Quitters and I don't pull well together."

"Then I'm to tell him 'No'?"

"Positively."

"Not so positively at all. I shall say, 'No, thank you,' in my very nicest way, and say that you're very grateful and appreciative and not at all the growly old bear of a dad that you pretend to be when one doesn't know and love you. And perhaps I'll invite him to dine here and go away on the yacht with us—"

"And graciously accept a couple of hundred thousand dollars bonus, and come into the company as first vice-president," chuckled her father. "And then he'll wake up and find he's been sitting on a cactus. See here," he added, with a sharpening of tone, "do you suppose he could get a cablegram for transmission to Washington over to the mainland for us by this mysterious route of his?"

"Very likely."

"You're really sure you want to go, Pollipet? This is your cruise, you know."

"Yes, I do."

Hitherto Miss Polly had been declaring to all and sundry, including the beetle man himself, that it was her firm intent and pleasure to stay on the island and observe the presumptively interesting events that promised. That she had reversed this decision, on the unsolicited counsel of an extremely queer stranger, was a phenomenon the peculiarity of which did not strike her at the time. All that she felt was a settled confidence in the beetle man's sound reason for his advice.

"Very good," said Mr. Brewster. "If I can get through a message to the State Department, they'll bring pressure to bear on the Dutch, and we can take the yacht through the blockade. It's only a question of finding a way to lay the matter before the Dutch authorities, anyway. I've been making inquiries here, and I find there's no intention of bottling up neutral pleasure craft. I dare say we could get out now. Only it's possible that the Hollanders might shoot first and ask questions afterward."

"It would have to be done quickly, dad. They may quarantine at any time."

"Dr. Pruyn ought to be here any day now. Let's leave that matter for him. There's a man I have confidence in."

"Mr. Perkins says that Dr. Pruyn will bottle up the port tighter than the Dutch."

"Let him, so long as we get out first. Now, Polly, you tell this man Perkins that I'll pay all expenses and give him a round hundred for himself if he'll bring me a receipt showing that my cablegram has been dispatched to Washington."

"I don't think I'd quite like to do that, dad. He isn't the sort of man one offers money to."

"Every one's the sort of man one offers money to—if it's enough," retorted her father. "And a hundred dollars will look pretty big to a scientific man. I know something about their salaries. You try him."

"So far as expenses go, I will. But I won't hurt his feelings by trying to pay him for something that he would do for friendship or not at all."

"Have it your own way. When is he coming in?"

"He isn't coming in."

"Then where are you going to see him?"

"Up on the mountain trail, when I ride tomorrow afternoon."

"With Carroll?"

"No; I'm going alone."

"I don't quite like to have you knocking about mountain roads by yourself, though Mr. Sherwen says you're safe anywhere here. Where's that little automatic revolver I gave you?"

"In my trunk. I'll carry that if it will make you feel any easier."

"Yes, do. But I can't see why you can't send word to Perkins that I want to see him here."

"I can. And I can guess just what his answer would be."

"Well, guess ahead."

"He'd tell you to go to the bad place, or its scientific equivalent." She laughed.

"Would he?" Mr. Brewster did not laugh. "And perhaps you'll be good enough to tell me why."

"Because you sent word that you were out when he called."

"Humph! I see people when I want to see THEM, not when they want to see me."

"Then Mr. Perkins is likely to prove permanently invisible to you, if I'm any judge of character."

"Well, well," said Mr. Brewster impatiently, "manage it yourself. Only impress on him the necessity of getting the message on the wire. I'll write it out to-night and give it to you with the money to-morrow."

After luncheon on the following day, Polly, with the cablegram and money in her purse and her automatic safely disposed in her belt, walked in the plaza with Carroll. The legless beggar whined at them for alms. Handing him a quartillo, the Southerner would have passed on, but his companion stood eyeing the mendicant.

"Now, what can there be in that poor wreck to captivate the scientific intellect?" she marveled.

"If you mean Mr. Perkins—" began Carroll.

"I do."

"Then I think perhaps the reason for some of that gentleman's associations will hardly stand inquiry."

The girl turned her eyes on him and searched the handsome, serious face.

"Fitz, you're not the man to say that of another man without some good reason."

"I am not, Miss Polly."

"You think that Mr. Perkins is not the kind of man for me to have anything to do with?"

"I—I'm afraid he isn't."

"Don't you think that, having gone so far, you ought to tell me why?"

Carroll flushed.

"I would rather tell your father."

"Are you implying a scandal in connection with my timid, little dried-up scientist?"

"I'm only saying," said the other doggedly, "that there's something secret and underhanded about that place of his in the mountains. It's a matter of common gossip."

The girl laughed outright.

"The poor beetle man! Why, he's so afraid of a woman that he goes all to pieces if one speaks to him suddenly. Just to see his expression, I'd like to tell him that he's being scandalized by all Caracuna."

"You're going to see him again?"

"Certainly. This afternoon."

"I don't think you should, Miss Polly."

"Have you any actual facts against him? Anything but casual gossip?"

"No; not yet."

"When you have, I'll listen to you. But you couldn't make me believe it, anyway. Why, Fitz, look at him!"

"Take me with you," insisted the other, "and let me ask him a question or two that any honorable man could answer. They don't call him the Unspeakable Perk for nothing, Miss Polly."

"It's just because they don't understand his type. Nor do you, Fitz, and so you mistrust him."

"I understand that you've shown more interest in him than in any one you know," said the other miserably.

Her laugh rang as free and frank as a child's.

"Interest? That's true. But if you mean sentiment, Fitz, after once having looked into the depths of those absurd goggles, can you, COULD you think of sentiment and the beetle man in the same breath?"

"No, I couldn't," he confessed, relieved. "But, then, I never have been able to understand you, Miss Polly."

"Therein lies my fatal charm," she said saucily. "Now, to the beetle man, I'm a specimen. HE understands as much as he wants to. Probably I shall never see him after to-day, anyway. He's going to get a message through for us that will deliver us from this land of bondage."

"He can't do it—too soon for me," declared Carroll. "And, Miss Polly, you don't think the worse of me for having said behind his back what I'm just waiting to say to his face?"

"Not a bit," said the girl warmly. "Only I know it's nonsense."

"I hope so," said Carroll, quite honestly. "I would hate to think anything low-down of a man you'd call your friend."

Carroll had learned more than he had told, but less than enough to give him what he considered proper evidence to lay before Polly's father. After some deliberation as to the point of honor involved, he decided to go to Raimonda, who, alone in Caracuna City, seemed to be on personal terms with the hermit. He found the young man in his office. With entire frankness, Carroll stated his errand and the reason for it. The Caracunan heard him with grave courtesy.

"And now, senior," concluded the American, "here's my question, and it's for you to determine whether, under the circumstances, you are justified in giving me an answer. Is there a woman living in Mr. Perkins's quinta on the mountains?"

"I cannot answer that question," said the other, after some deliberation.

"I'm sorry," said Carroll simply.

"I also. The more so in that my attitude may be misconstrued against Mr. Perkins. I am bound by confidence."

"So I infer," returned his visitor courteously. "Then I have only to ask your pardon—"

"One moment, if you please, senor. Perhaps this will serve to make easy your mind. On my word, there is nothing in Mr. Perkins's life on the mountain in any manner dishonorable or—or irregular."

In a flash, the simple solution crossed Carroll's mind. That a woman was there, and a woman not of the servant class, could hardly be doubted, in view of almost direct evidence from eyewitnesses. If there was nothing irregular about her presence, it was because she was Perkins's wife. In view of Raimonda's attitude, he did not feel free to put the direct query. Another question would serve his purpose.

"Is it advisable, and for the best interests of Miss Brewster, that she should associate with him under the circumstances?"

The Caracunan started and shot a glance at his interlocutor that said, as plainly as words, "How much do you know that you are not telling?" had the latter not been too intent upon his own theory to interpret it.

"Ah, that," said Raimonda, after a pause,—"that is another question. If it were my sister, or any one dear to me—but"—he shrugged—"views on that matter differ."

"I hardly think that yours and mine differ, senior. I thank you for bearing with me with so much patience."

He went out with his suspicions hardened into certainty.



VII

"THAT WHICH THY SERVANT IS—"

A man that you'd call your friend. Such had been Fitzhugh Carroll's reference to the Unspeakable Perk. With that characterization in her mind. Miss Brewster let herself drift, after her suitor had left her, into a dreamy consideration of the hermit's attitude toward her. She was not prone lightly to employ the terms of friendship, yet this new and casual acquaintance had shown a readiness to serve—not as cavalier, but as friend—none too common in the experience of the much-courted and a little spoiled beauty. Being, indeed, a "lady nowise bitter to those who served her with good intent," she reflected, with a kindly light in her eyes, that it was all part and parcel of the beetle's man's amiable queerness.

Still musing upon this queerness, she strolled back to find her mount waiting at the corner of the plaza. In consideration of the heat she let her cream-colored mule choose his own pace, so they proceeded quite slowly up the hill road, both absorbed in meditation, which ceased only when the mule started an argument about a turn in the trail. He was a well-bred trotting mule, worth six hundred dollars in gold of any man's money, and he was self-appreciative in knowledge of the fact. He brought a singular firmness of purpose to the support of the negative of her proposition, which was that he should swing north from the broad into the narrow path. When the debate was over, St. John the Baptist—this, I hesitate to state, yet must, it being the truth, was the spirited animal's name—was considerably chastened, and Miss Brewster more than a trifle flushed. She left him tied to a ceiba branch at the exit from the dried creek bed, with strict instructions not to kick, lest a worse thing befall him. Miss Brewster's fighting blood was up, when, ten minutes late, because of the episode, she reached the summit of the rock.

"Oh, Mr. Beetle Man, are you there?" she called.

"Yes, Voice. You sound strange. What is it?"

"I've been hurrying, and if you tell me I'm late, I'll—I'll fall on your neck again and break it."

"Has anything happened?"

"Nothing in particular. I've been boxing the compass with a mule. It's tiresome."

He reflected.

"You're not, by any chance, speaking figuratively of your respected parent?"

"Certainly NOT!" she disclaimed indignantly. "This was a real mule. You're very impertinent."

"Well, you see, he was impertinent to me, saying he was out when he was in. What is his decision—yes or no?"

"No."

A sharp exclamation came from the nook below.

"Is that the entomological synonym for 'damn'?" she inquired.

"It's a lament for time wasted on a—Well, never mind that."

"But he wants you to carry a message by that secret route of yours. Will you do it for him?"

"NO!"

"That's not being a very kind or courteous beetle man."

"I owe Mr. Brewster no courtesy."

"And you pay only where you owe? Just, but hardly amiable. Well, you owe me nothing—but—will you do it for me?"

"Yes."

"Without even knowing what it is?"

"Yes."

"In return you shall have your heart's desire."

"Doubted."

"Isn't the dearest wish of your soul to drive me out of Caracuna?"

"Hum! Well—er—yes. Yes; of course it is."

"Very well. If you can get dad's message on the wire to Washington, he thinks the Secretary of State, who is his friend, can reach the Dutch and have them open up the blockade for us."

"Time apparently meaning nothing to him."

"Would it take much time?"

"About four days to a wire."

She gazed at him in amazement.

"And you were willing to give up four days to carry my message through, 'unsight—unseen,' as we children used to say?"

"Willing enough, but not able to. I'd have got a messenger through with it, if necessary. But in four days, there'll be other obstacles besides the Dutch."

"Quarantine?"

"Yes."

"I thought that had to wait for Dr. Pruyn."

"Pruyn's here. That's a secret, Miss Brewster."

"Do you know EVERYTHING? Has he found plague?"

"Ah, I don't say that. But he will find it, for it's certainly here. I satisfied myself of that yesterday."

"From your beggar friend?"

"What made you think that, O most acute observer?"

"What else would you be talking to him of, with such interest?"

"You're correct. Bubonic always starts in the poor quarters. To know how people die, you have to know how they live. So I cultivated my beggar friend and listened to the gossip of quick funerals and unexplained disappearances. I'd have had some real arguments to present to Mr. Brewster if he had cared to listen."

"He'll listen to Dr. Pruyn. They're old friends."

"No! Are they?"

"Yes. Since college days. So perhaps the quarantine will be easier to get through than the blockade."

"Do you think so? I'm afraid you'll find that pull doesn't work with the service that Dr. Pruyn is in."

"And you think that there will be quarantine within four days?"

"Almost sure to be."

"Then, of course, I needn't trouble you with the message."

"Don't jump at conclusions. There might be another and quicker way."

"Wireless?" she asked quickly.

"No wireless on the island. No. This way you'll just have to trust me for."

"I'll trust you for anything you say you can do."

"But I don't say I can. I say only that I'll try."

"That's enough for me. Ready! Now, brace yourself. I'm coming down."

"Wh—why—wait! Can't you send it down?"

"No. Besides, you KNOW you want to see me. No use pretending, after last time. Remember your verse now, and I'll come slowly."

Solemnly he began:—

"Scarab, tarantula, neurop—" "'Doodle-bug,'" she prompted severely. "—doodle-bug, flea,"—

he concluded obediently.

"Scarab, tarantula, doodle-bug, flea. Scarab, tarantula, doodle—"

"Oof! I—I—didn't think you'd be here so soon!"

He scrambled to his feet, hardly less palpitating than on the occasion of their first encounter.

"Hopeless!" she mourned. "Incurable! Wanted: a miracle of St. Vitus. Do stop nibbling your hat, and sit down."

"I don't think it's as bad as it was," he murmured, obeying. "One gets accustomed to you."

"One gets accustomed to anything in time, even the eccentricities of one's friends."

"Do you think I'm eccentric?"

"Do I think—Have you ever known any one who didn't think you eccentric?"

Upon this he pondered solemnly.

"It's so long since I've stopped to consider what people think of me. One hasn't time, you know."

"Then one is unhuman. I have time."

"Of course. But you haven't anything else to do."

As this was quite true, she naturally felt annoyed.

"Knowing as you do all the secrets of my inner life," she observed sarcastically, "of course you are in a position to judge."

Her own words recalled Carroll's charge, and though, with the subject of them before her, it seemed ridiculously impossible, yet the spirit of mischief, ever hovering about her like an attendant sprite, descended and took possession of her speech. She assumed a severely judicial expression.

"Mr. Beetle Man, will you lay your hand upon your microscope, or whatever else scientists make oath upon, and answer fully and truly the question about to be put to you?"

"As I hope for a blessed release from this abode of lunacy, I will."

"Mr. Beetle Man, have you got an awful secret in your life?"

So sharply did he start that the heavy goggles slipped a fraction of an inch along his nose, the first time she had ever seen them in any degree misplaced. She was herself sensibly discountenanced by his perturbation.

"Why do you ask that?" he demanded.

"Natural interest in a friend," she answered lightly, but with growing wonder. "I think you'd be altogether irresistible if you were a pirate or a smuggler or a revolutionary. The romantic spirit could lurk so securely behind those gloomy soul-screens that you wear. What do you keep back of them, O dark and shrouded beetle man?"

"My eyes," he grunted.

"Basilisk eyes, I'm sure. And what behind the eyes?"

"My thoughts."

"You certainly keep them securely. No intruders allowed. But you haven't answered my question. Have you ever murdered any one in cold blood? Or are you a married man trifling with the affections of poor little me?"

"You shall know all," he began, in the leisurely tone of one who commences a long narrative. "My parents were honest, but poor. At the age of three years and four months, a maternal uncle, who, having been a proofreader of Abyssinian dialect stories for a ladies' magazine, was considered a literary prophet, foretold that I—"

"Help! Wait! Stop!—

"'Oh, skip your dear uncle!' the bellman exclaimed, And impatiently tinkled his bell."

Her companion promptly capped her verse:—

"'I skip forty years,' said the baker in tears,"—

"You can't," she objected. "If you skipped half that, I don't believe it would leave you much."

"When one is giving one's life history by request," he began, with dignity, "interruptions—"

"It isn't by request," she protested. "I don't want your life history. I won't have it! You shan't treat an unprotected and helpless stranger so. Besides, I'm much more interested to know how you came to be familiar with Lewis Carroll."

"Just because I've wasted my career on frivolous trifles like science, you needn't think I've wholly neglected the true inwardness of life, as exemplified in 'The Hunting of the Snark,'" he said gravely.

"Do you know"—she leaned forward, searching his face—"I believe you came out of that book yourself. ARE you a Boojum? Will you, unless I 'charm you with smiles and soap,'

"'Softly and silently vanish away, And never be heard of again'?"

"You're mixed. YOU'D be the one to do that if I were a real Boojum. And you'll be doing it soon enough, anyway," he concluded ruefully.

"So I shall, but don't be too sure that I'll 'never be heard of again.'"

He glanced up at the sun, which was edging behind a dark cloud, over the gap.

"Is your raging thirst for personal information sufficiently slaked?" he asked. "We've still fifteen or twenty minutes left."

"Is that all? And I haven't yet given you the message!" She drew it from the bag and handed it to him.

"Sealed," he observed.

The girl colored painfully.

"Dad didn't intend—You mustn't think—" With a flash of generous wrath she tore the envelope open and held out the inclosure. "But I shouldn't have thought you so concerned with formalities," she commented curiously.

"It isn't that. But in some respects, possibly important, it would be better if—" He stopped, looking at her doubtfully.

"Read it," she nodded.

He ran through the brief document.

"Yes; it's just as well that I should know. I'll leave a copy."

Something in his accent made her scrutinize him.

"You're going into danger!" she cried.

"Danger? No; I think not. Difficulty, perhaps. But I think it can be put through."

"If it were dangerous, you'd do it just the same," she said, almost accusingly.

"It would be worth some danger now to get you away from greater danger later. See here, Miss Brewster"—he rose and stood over her—"there must be no mistake or misunderstanding about this."

"Don't gloom at me with those awful glasses," she said fretfully. "I feel as if I were being stared at by a hidden person."

He disregarded the protest.

"If I get this message through, can you guarantee that your father will take out the yacht as soon as the Dutch send word to him?"

"Oh, yes. He will do that. How are you going to deliver the message?"

Again her words might as well not have been spoken.

"You'd better have your luggage ready for a quick start."

"Will it be soon?"

"It may be."

"How shall we know?"

"I will get word to you."

"Bring it?"

He shook his head.

"No; I fear not. This is good-bye."

"You're very casual about it," she said, aggrieved. "At least, it would be polite to pretend."

"What am I to pretend?"

"To be sorry. Aren't you sorry? Just a little bit?"

"Yes; I'm sorry. Just a little bit—at least."

"I'm most awfully sorry myself," she said frankly. "I shall miss you."

"As a curiosity?" he asked, smiling.

"As a friend. You have been a friend to us—to me," she amended sweetly. "Each time I see you, I have more the feeling that you've been more of a friend than I know."

"'That which thy servant is,'" he quoted lightly. But beneath the lightness she divined a pain that she could not wholly fathom. Quite aware of her power, Miss Polly Brewster was now, for one of the few times in her life, stricken with contrition for her use of it.

"And I—I haven't been very nice," she faltered. "I'm afraid" sometimes I've been quite horrid."

"You? You've been 'the glory and the dream.' I shall be needing memories for a while. And when the glory has gone, at least the dream will remain—tethered."

"But I'm not going to be a dream alone," she said, with wistful lightness. "It's far too much like being a ghost. I'm going to be a friend, if you'll let me. And I'm going to write to you, if you will tell me where. You won't find it so very easy to make a mere memory of me. And when you come home—When ARE you coming home?"

He shook his head.

"Then you must find out, and let me know. And you must come and visit us at our summer place, where there's a mountain-side that we can sit on, and you can pretend that our lake is the Caribbean and hate it to your heart's content—"

"I don't believe I can ever quite hate the Caribbean again."

"From this view you mustn't, anyway. I shouldn't like that. As for our lake, nobody could really help loving it. So you must be sure and come, won't you?"

"Dreams!" he murmured.

"Isn't there room in the scientific life for dreams?"

"Yes. But not for their fulfillment."

"But there will be beetles and dragon-flies on our mountain," she went on, conscious of talking against time, of striving to put off the moment of departure. "You'll find plenty of work there. Do you know, Mr. Beetle Man, you haven't told me a thing, really, about your work, or a thing, really, about yourself. Is that the way to treat a friend?"

"When I undertook to spread before you the true and veracious history of my life," he began, striving to make his tone light, "you would none of it."

"Are you determined to put me off? Do you think that I wouldn't find the things that are real to you interesting?"

"They're quite technical," he said shyly.

"But they are the big things to you, aren't they? They make life for you?"

"Oh, yes; that, of course." It was as if he were surprised at the need of such a question. "I suppose I find the same excitement and adventure in research that other men find in politics, or war, or making money."

"Adventure?" she said, puzzled. "I shouldn't have supposed research an adventurous career, exactly."

"No; not from the outside." His hidden gaze shifted to sweep the far distances. His voice dropped and softened, and, when he spoke again, she felt vaguely and strangely that he was hardly thinking of her or her question, except as a part of the great wonder-world surrounding and enfolding their companioned remoteness.

"This is my credo," he said, and quoted, half under his breath:—

"'We have come in search of truth, Trying with uncertain key Door by door of mystery. We are reaching, through His laws, To the garment hem of Cause. As, with fingers of the blind, We are groping here to find What the hieroglyphics mean Of the Unseen in the seen; What the Thought which underlies Nature's masking and disguise; What it is that hides beneath Blight and bloom and birth and death.'"

Other men had poured poetry into Polly Brewster's ears, and she had thought them vapid or priggish or affected, according as they had chosen this or that medium. This man was different. For all his outer grotesquery, the noble simplicity of the verse matched some veiled and hitherto but half-expressed quality within him, and dignified him. Miss Brewster suffered the strange but not wholly unpleasant sensation of feeling herself dwindle.

"It's very beautiful," she said, with an effort. "Is it Matthew Arnold?"

"Nearer home. You an American, and don't know your Whittier? That passage from his 'Agassiz' comes pretty near to being what life means to me. Have I answered your requirements?"

"Fully and finely."

She rose from the rock upon which she had been seated, and stretched out both hands to him. He took and held them without awkwardness or embarrassment. By that alone she could have known that he was suffering with a pain that submerged consciousness of self.

"Whether I see you again or not, I'll never forget you," she said softly. "You HAVE been good to me, Mr. Perkins."

"I like the other name better," he said.

"Of course. Mr. Beetle Man." She laughed a little tremulously. Abruptly she stamped a determined foot. "I'm NOT going away without having seen my friend for once. Take off your glasses, Mr. Beetle Man."

"Too much radiance is bad for the microscopical eye."

"The sun is under a cloud."

"But you're here, and you'd glow in the dark."

"No; I'm not to be put off with pretty speeches. Take them off. Please!"

Releasing her hand, he lifted off the heavy and disfiguring apparatus, and stood before her, quietly submissive to her wish. She took a quick step backward, stumbled, and thrust out a hand against the face of the giant rock for support.

"Oh!" she cried, and again, "Oh, I didn't think you'd look like that!"

"What is it? Is there anything very wrong with me?" he asked seriously, blinking a little in the soft light.

"No, no. It isn't that. I—I hardly know—I expected something different. Forgive me for being so—so stupid."

In truth, Miss Polly Brewster had sustained a shock. She had become accustomed to regard her beetle man rather more in the light of a beetle than a man. In fact, the human side of him had impressed her only as a certain dim appeal to sympathy; the masculine side had simply not existed. Now it was as if he had unmasked. The visage, so grotesque and gnomish behind its mechanical apparatus, had given place to a wholly different and formidably strange face. The change all centered in the eyes. They were wide-set eyes of the clearest, steadiest, and darkest gray she had ever met; and they looked out at her from sharply angled brows with a singular clarity and calmness of regard. In their light the man's face became instinct with character in every line. Strength was there, self-control, dignity, a glint of humor in the little wrinkles at the corner of the mouth, and, withal a sort of quiet and sturdy beauty.

She had half-turned her face from him. Now, as her gaze returned and was fixed by his, she felt a wave of blood expand her heart, rush upward into her cheeks, and press into her eyes tears of swift regret. But now she was sorry, not for him, but for herself, because he had become remote and difficult to her.

"Have I startled you?" he asked curiously. "I'll put them back on again."

"No, no; don't do that!" She rallied herself to the point of laughing a little. "I'm a goose. You see, I've pictured you as quite different. Have you ever seen yourself in the glass with those dreadful disguises on?"

"Why, no; I don't suppose I have," he replied, after reflection. "After all, they're meant for use, not for ornament."

By this time she had mastered her confusion and was able to examine his face. Under his eyes were circles of dull gray, defined by deep lines,

"Why, you're worn out!" she cried pitifully. "Haven't you been sleeping?"

"Not much."

"You must take something for it." The mothering instinct sprang to the rescue. "How much rest did you get last night?"

"Let me see. Last night I did very well. Fully four hours."

"And that is more than you average?"

"Well, yes; lately. You see, I've been pretty busy."

"Yet you've given up your time to my wretched, unimportant little stupid affairs! And what return have I made?"

"You've made the sun shine," he said, "in a rather shaded existence."

"Promise me that you'll sleep to-night; that you won't work a stroke."

"No; I can't promise that."

"You'll break down. You'll go to pieces. What have you got to do more important than keeping in condition?"

"As to that, I'll last through. And there's some business that won't wait."

Divination came upon her.

"Dad's message!"

"If it weren't that, it would be something else."

Her hand went out to him, and was withdrawn.

"Please put on your glasses," she said shyly.

Smiling, he did her bidding.

"There! Now you are my beetle man again. No, not quite, though. You'll never be quite the same beetle man again."

"I shall always be," he contradicted gently.

"Anyway, it's better. You're easier to say things to. Are you really the man who ran away from the street car?" she asked doubtfully.

"I really am."

"Then I'm most surely sure that you had good reason." She began to laugh softly. "As for the stories about you, I'd believe them less than ever, now."

"Are there stories about me?"

"Gossip of the club. They call you 'The Unspeakable Perk'!"

"Not a bad nickname," he admitted. "I expect I have been rather unspeakable, from their point of view."

A desire to have the faith that was in her supported by this man's own word overrode her shyness.

"Mr. Beetle Man," she said, "have you got a sister?"

"I? No. Why?"

"If you had a sister, is there anything—Oh, DARN your sister!" broke forth the irrepressible Polly. "I'll be your sister for this. Is there anything about you and your life here that you'd be afraid to tell me?"

"No."

"I knew there wasn't," she said contentedly. She hesitated a moment, then put a hand on his arm. "Does this HAVE to be good- bye, Mr. Beetle Man?" she said wistfully.

"I'm afraid so."

"No!" She stamped imperiously. "I want to see you again, and I'm going to see you again. Won't you come down to the port and bring me another bunch of your mountain orchids when we sail—just for good-bye?"

Through the dull medium of the glasses she could feel his eyes questioning hers. And she knew that once more before she sailed away, she must look into those eyes, in all their clarity and all their strength—and then try to forget them. The swift color ran up into her cheeks.

"I—I suppose so," he said. "Yes."

"Au revoir, then!" she cried, with a thrill of gladness, and fled up the rock.

The Unspeakable Perk strode down his path, broke into a trot, and held to it until he reached his house. But Miss Polly, departing in her own direction, stopped dead after ten minutes' going. It had struck her forcefully that she had forgotten the matter of the expense of the message. How could she reach him? She remembered the cliff above the rock, and the signal. If a signal was valid in one direction, it ought to work equally well in the other. She had her automatic with her. Retracing her steps, she ascended the cliff, a rugged climb. Across the deep-fringed chasm she could plainly see the porch of the quinta with the little clearing at the side, dim in the clouded light. Drawing the revolver, she fired three shots.

"He'll come," she thought contentedly.

The sun broke from behind the obscuring cloud and sent a shaft of light straight down upon the clearing. It illumined with pitiless distinctness the shimmering silk of a woman's dress, hanging on a line and waving in the first draft of the evening breeze. For a moment Polly stood transfixed. What did it mean? Was it perhaps a servant's dress. No; he had told her that there was no woman servant.

As she sought the solution, a woman's figure emerged from the porch of the quinta, crossed the compound, and dropped upon a bench. Even at that distance, the watcher could tell from the woman's bearing and apparel that she was not of the servant class. She seemed to be gazing out over the mountains; there was something dreary and forlorn in her attitude. What, then, did she do in the beetle man's house?

Below the rock the shrubbery weaved and thrashed, and the person who could best answer that question burst into view at a full lope.

"What is it?" he panted. "Was it you who fired?"

She stared at him mutely. The revolver hung in her hand. In a moment he was beside her.

"Has anything happened?" he began again, then turned his head to follow the direction of her regard. He saw the figure in the compound.

"Good God in heaven!" he groaned.

He caught the revolver from her hand and fired three slow shots. The woman turned. Snatching off his hat, he signalled violently with it. The woman rose and, as it seemed to Polly Brewster, moved in humble submissiveness back to the shelter.

White consternation was stamped on the Unspeakable Perk's face as he handed the revolver to its owner.

"Do you need me?" he asked quickly. "If not, I must go back at once."

"I do not need you," said the girl, in level tones. "You lied to me."

His expression changed. She read in it the desperation of guilt.

"I can explain," he said hurriedly, "but not now. There isn't time. Wait here. I'll be back. I'll be back the instant I can get away."

As he spoke, he was halfway down the rock, headed for the lower trail. The bushes closed behind him.

Painfully Polly Brewster made her way down the treacherous footing of the cliff path to her place on the rock. From her bag she drew one of her cards, wrote slowly and carefully a few words, found a dry stick, set it between two rocks, and pinned her message to it. Then she ran, as helpless humans run from the scourge of their own hearts.

Half an hour later the hermit, sweat-covered and breathless, returned to the rock. For a moment he gazed about, bewildered by the silence. The white card caught his eye. He read its angular scrawl.

"I wish never to see you again. Never! Never! Never!"

A sulphur-yellow inquisitor, of a more insinuating manner than the former participant in their conversation, who had been examining the message on his own account, flew to the top of the cliff.

"Qu'est-ce qu'elle dit? Qu'est-ce qu'elle dit?" he demanded.

For the first time in his adult life the beetle man threw a stone at a bird.



VIII

LOS YANKIS

Luncheon on the day following the kiskadee bird's narrow squeak for his life was a dreary affair for Mr. Fitzhugh Carroll. Business had called Mr. Brewster away. This deprivation the Southerner would have borne with equanimity. But Miss Brewster had also absented herself, which was rather too much for the devoted, but apprehensive, lover. Thus, ample time was given him to consider how ill his suit was prospering. The longer he stayed, the less he saw of Miss Polly. That she was kinder and more gentle, less given to teasing him than of yore, was poor compensation. He was shrewd enough to draw no good augury from that. Something had altered her, and he was divided between suspicion of the last week's mail, the arrival of which had been about contemporaneous with her change of spirit, and some local cause. Was a letter from Smith, the millionaire, or Bobby, the friend of her childhood, responsible? Or was the cause nearer at hand?

For one preposterous moment he thought of the Unspeakable Perk. A quick visualization of that gnomish, froggish face was enough to dispel the suspicion. At least the petted and rather fastidious Miss Brewster's fancy would be captured only by a gentleman, not by any such homunculus as the mountain dweller. Her interest, perhaps; the man possessed the bizarre attraction of the freakish. But anything else was absurd. And the knight was inclined to attaint his lady for a certain cruelty in the matter; she was being something less than fair to the Unspeakable Perk.

The searchlight of his surmise ranged farther. Raimonda! The young Caracunan was handsome, distinguished, manly, with a romantic charm that the American did not underestimate. He, at least, was a gentleman, and the assiduity of his attentions to the Northern beauty had become the joke of the clubs—except when Raimonda was present. By the same token, half of the gilded youth of the capital, and most of the young diplomats, were the sworn slaves of the girl. It was a confused field, indeed. Well, thank Heaven, she would soon be out of it! Word had come down from her that she was busy packing her things. Carroll wandered about the hotel, waiting for the news that would explain this preparation.

It came, at mid-afternoon, in the person of Miss Polly herself. Why packing trunks, with the aid of an experienced maid, should, even in a hot climate, produce heavy circles under the eyes, a droop at the mouth corners, and a complete submersion of vivacity, is a problem which Carroil then and there gave up. He had too much tact to question or comment.

"Oh, I'm so tired!" she said, giving him her hand. "Have you much packing to do, Fitzhugh?"

"No one has given me any notice to get ready, Miss Polly."

"How very neglectful of me! We may leave at any time."

"Yes; you may. But my ship doesn't seem to be coming in very fast."

The double entente was unintentional, but the girl winced.

"Aren't you coming with us on the yacht?"

"Am I?" His handsome face lighted hopefully.

"Of course. Dad expects you to. What kind of people should we be to leave any friend behind, with matters as they are?"

"Ah, yes." The hope passed out of his face. "Dictates of humanity, and that sort of thing. I think, if you and Mr. Brewster—"

"Please don't be silly, Fitz," she pleaded. "You know it would make me most unhappy to leave you."

Rarely did the scion of Southern blood and breeding lose the self- control and reserve on which he prided himself, but he had been harassed by events to an unwonted strain of temper.

"Is it making you unhappy to leave any one else here?" he blurted out.

The challenge stirred the girl's spirit.

"No, indeed! I wouldn't care if I never saw any of them again. I'm tired of it all. I want to go home," she said, like a pathetic child.

"Oh, Miss Polly," he began, taking a step toward her, "if you'd only let me—"

She put up one little sunburned hand.

"Please, Fitz! I—I don't feel up to it to-day."

Humbly he subsided.

"I'd no right to ask you the question," he apologized. "It was kind of you to answer me at all."

"You're really a dear, Fitz," she said, smiling a little wanly. "Sometimes I wish—"

She did not finish her sentence, but wandered over to the window, and gazed out across the square. On the far side something quite out of the ordinary seemed to be going on.

"The legless beggar seems to have collected quite an audience," she remarked idly.

Her suitor joined her on the parlor balcony.

"Possibly he's starting a revolution. Any one can do it down here."

Vehement adjuration, in a high, strident voice, came floating across to them.

"Listen!" cried the girl. "He's speaking. English, isn't he?"

"It seems to be a mixture of English, French, and Spanish. Quite a polyglot the friend of your friend Perkins appears to be."

She turned steady eyes upon him.

"Mr. Perkins is not my friend."

"No?"

"I never want to see him, or to hear his name again."

"Ah, then you've found out about him?"

"Yes." She flushed. "Yes—at least—Yes," she concluded.

"He admitted it to you?"

"No, he lied about it."

"I think I shall go up and make a call on Mr. Perkins," said Carroll, with formidable quiet.

"Oh, it doesn't matter," she answered wearily. "He'd only run away and hide." As she said it, her inner self convicted her tongue of lying.

"Very likely. Yet, see here, Miss Polly,—I want to be fair to that fellow. It doesn't follow that because he's a coward he's a cad."

"He isn't a coward!" she flashed.

"You just said yourself that he'd run and hide."

"Well, he wouldn't, and he IS a cad."

"As you like. In any case, I shall make it a point to see him before I leave. If he can explain, well and good. If not—" He did not conclude.

"Our orator seems to have finished," observed the girl. "I shall go back upstairs and write some good-bye notes to the kind people here."

"Just for curiosity, I think I'll drive across and look at the legless Demosthenes," said her companion. "I was going to do a little shopping, anyway. So I'll report later, if he's revoluting or anything exciting."

From her own balcony, when she reached it, Polly had a less obstructed view of the beggar's appropriated corner, and she looked out a few minutes after she reached the room to see whether he had resumed his oratory. Apparently he had not, for the crowd had melted away. The legless one was rocking himself monotonously upon his stumps. His head was sunk forward, and from his extraordinary mouthings the spectator judged that he must be talking to himself with resumed vehemence. From what next passed before her astonished vision, Miss Brewster would have suspected herself of a hallucination of delirium had she not been sure of normal health.

One of the well-horsed, elegant little public victorias with which the city is so well supplied stopped at the curb, and the handsome head of Preston Fairfax Fitzhugh Carroll was thrust forth. At almost the same moment the Unspeakable Perk appeared upon the steps. He was wearing a pair of enormous, misfit white gloves. He went down to the beggar, reached forth a hand, and, to the far- away spectator's wonder-struck interpretation, seemed to thrust something, presumably a document, into the breast of the mendicant's shirt. Having performed this strange rite, he leaped up the steps, hesitated, rushed over to Carroll's equipage, and laid violent hands upon the occupant, with obvious intent to draw him forth. For a moment they seemed to struggle upon the sidewalk; then both rushed upon the unfortunate beggar and proceeded to kidnap him and thrust him bodily into the cab.

The driver turned in his seat at this point, his cue in the mad farce having been given, and opened speech with many gestures, whereupon Carroll arose and embraced him warmly. And with this grouping, the vehicle, bearing its lunatic load, sped around the corner and disappeared, while the sole interested witness retired to obscurity, with her reeling head between her hands.

One final touch of phantasy was given to the whole affair when, two hours later, she met Carroll, soiled and grimy, coming across the plaza, smoking—he, the addict to thirty-cent Havanas!—an awful native cheroot, whose incense spread desolation about him. Further and more extraordinary, when she essayed to obtain a solution of the mystery from him, he repelled her with emphatic gestures and a few half-strangled words with whose unintelligibility the cheroot fumes may have had some connection, and hurried into the hotel, where he remained in seclusion the rest of the day.

What in the name of all the wonders could it mean? On Mr. Brewster's return, she laid the matter before him at the dinner table.

"Touch of the sun, perhaps," he hazarded. "Nothing else I know of would explain it."

"Do two Americans, a half-breed beggar, and a local coachman get sunstruck at one and the same time?" she inquired disdainfully.

"Doesn't seem likely. By your account, though, the crippled beggar seems to have been the little Charlie Ross of melodrama."

"Then why didn't he shout for help? I listened, but didn't hear a sound from him."

"Movie-picture rehearsal," grunted Mr. Brewster. "I can't quite see the heir of all the Virginias in the part. Isn't he coming down to dinner this evening?"

"His dinner was sent up to his room. Isn't it extraordinary?"

"Ask Sherwen about it. He's coming around this evening for coffee in our rooms."

But the American representative had something else on his mind besides casual kidnapings.

"I've just come from a talk with the British Minister," he remarked, setting down his cup. "He's officially in charge of American interests, you know."

"Thought you were," said Mr. Brewster.

"Officially, I have no existence. The United States of America is wiped off the map, so far as the sovereign Republic of Caracuna is concerned. Some of its politicians wouldn't be over-grieved if the local Americans underwent the same process. The British Minister would, I'm sure, sleep easier if you were all a thousand miles away from here."

"Tell Sir Willet that he's very ungallant," pouted Miss Polly. "When I sat next to him at dinner last week he offered to establish woman suffrage here and elect me next president if I'd stay."

Sherwen hardly paid this the tribute of a smile.

"That was before he found out certain things. The Hochwald Legation"—he lowered his voice—"is undoubtedly stirring up anti- American sentiment."

"But why?" inquired Mr. Brewster. "There's enough trade for them and for us?"

"For one thing, they don't like your concessions, Mr. Brewster. Then they have heard that Dr. Pruyn is on his way, and they want to make all the trouble they can for him, and make it impossible for him to get actual information of the presence of plague. I happen to know that their consul is officially declaring fake all the plague rumors."

"That suits me," declared the magnate. "We don't want to have to run Dutch and quarantine blockade both."

"Meantime, there are two or three cheap but dangerous demagogues who have been making anti-'Yanki,' as they call us, speeches in the slums. Sir Willet doesn't like the looks of it. If there were any way in which you could get through, and to sea, it would be well to take it at once. Am I correct in supposing that you've taken steps to clear the yacht, Mr. Brewster?"

"Yes. That is, I've sent a message. Or, at least, so my daughter, to whose management I left it, believes."

"Don't tell me how," said Sherwen quickly. "There is reason to believe that it has been dispatched."

"You've heard something?"

"I have a message from our consul at Puerto del Norte, Mr. Wisner."

"For me?" asked the concessionaire.

"Why, no," was the hesitant reply. "It isn't quite clear, but it seems to be for Miss Brewster."

"Why not?" inquired that young lady coolly. "What is it?"

"The best I could make of it over the phone—Wisner had to be guarded—was that people planning to take Dutch leave would better pay their parting calls by to-morrow at the latest."

"That would mean day after to-morrow, wouldn't it?" mused the girl.

"If it means anything at all," substituted her father testily.

"Meantime, how do you like the Gran Hotel Kast, Miss Brewster?" asked Sherwen.

"It's awful beyond words! I've done nothing but wish for a brigade of Biddies, with good stout mops, and a government permit to clean up. I'd give it a bath!"

"Yes, it's pretty bad. I'm glad you don't like it."

"Glad? Is every one ag'in' poor me?"

"Because—well, the American Legation is a very lonely place. Now, the presence of an American lady—"

"Are you offering a proposal of marriage, Mr. Sherwen?" twinkled the girl. "If so—Dad, please leave the room."

"Knock twenty years off my battle-scarred life and you wouldn't be safe a minute," he retorted. "But, no. This is a measure of safety. Sir Willet thinks that your party ought to be ready to move into the American Legation on instant notice, if you can't get away to sea to-morrow."

"What's the use, if the legation has no official existence?" asked Mr. Brewster.

"In a sense it has. It would probably be respected by a mob. And, at the worst, it adjoins the British Legation, which would be quite safe. If it weren't that Sir Willet's boy has typhoid, you'd be formally invited to go there."

"It's very good of you," said Miss Polly warmly. "But surely it would be an awful nuisance to you."

"On the contrary, you'd brace up my far-too-casual old housekeeper and get the machinery running. She constantly takes advantage of my bachelor ignorance. If you say you'll come, I'll almost pray for the outbreak."

"Certainly we'll come, at any time you notify us," said Mr. Brewster. "And we're very grateful. Shall you have room for Mr. Carroll, too?"

"By all means. And I've notified Mr. Cluff. You won't mind his being there? He's a rough diamond, but a thoroughly decent fellow."

"Useful, too, in case of trouble, I should judge," said the magnate. "Then I'll wait for further word from you."

"Yes. I've got my men out on watch."

"Wouldn't it be—er—advisable for us to arm ourselves?"

"By no means! There's just one course to follow; keep the peace at any price, and give the Hochwaldians not the slightest peg on which to hang a charge that Americans have been responsible for any trouble that might arise. May I ask you," he added significantly, "to make this clear to Mr. Carroll?"

"Leave that to me," said Miss Brewster, with superb confidence.

"Content, indeed! You'll find our locality very pleasant, Miss Brewster. Three of the other legations are on the same block, not including the Hochwaldian, which is a quarter of a mile down the hill. On our corner is a house where several of the English railroad men live, and across is the Club Amicitia, made up largely of the jeunesse doree, who are mostly pro-American. So you'll be quite surrounded by friends, not to say adherents."

"Call on me to housekeep for you at any time," cried Polly gayly. "I'll begin to roll up my sleeves as soon as I get dressed to- morrow."



IX

THE BLACK WARNING

That weird three-part drama in the plaza which had so puzzled Miss Polly Brewster had developed in this wise:—

Coincidently with the departure of Preston Fairfax Fitzhugh Carroll from the hotel in his cab, the Unspeakable Perk emerged from a store near the far corner of the square, which exploited itself in the purest Castilian as offering the last word in the matter of gentlemen's apparel. "Articulos para Caballeros" was the representation held forth upon its signboard.

If it had articled Mr. Perkins, it must be confessed that it had done its job unevenly, not to say fantastically. His linen was fresh and new, quite conspicuously so, and, therefore, in sharp contrast to the frayed and patched, but scrupulously clean and neatly pressed khaki suit, which set forth rather bumpily his solid figure. A serviceable pith helmet barely overhung the protrusive goggles. His hands were encased in white cotton gloves, a size or two too large. Dismal buff spots on the palms impaired their otherwise virgin purity. As the wearer carried his hands stiffly splayed, the blemishes were obtrusive. Altogether, one might have said that, if he were going in for farce, he was appropriately made up for it.

At the corner above the beggar's niche he was turning toward a pharmacist's entrance, when the mirth of the departing crowd that had been enjoying the free oratory attracted his attention. He glanced across at the beggar, now rocking rhythmically on his stumps, hesitated a moment, then ran down the steps.

At the same moment Carroll's cab stopped on the other angle of the curb. The occupant put forth his head, saw the goggled freak descending to the legless freak, and sat back again.

"Hola, Pancho! Are you ill?" asked the newcomer.

The beggar only swung back and forth, muttering with frenzied rapidity. With one hand the Unspeakable Perk stopped him, as one might intercept the runaway pendulum of a clock, setting the other on his forehead. Then he bent and brought his goblin eyes to bear on the dark face. The features were distorted, the eyelids tremulous over suffused eyes, and the teeth set. Opening the man's loose shirt, Perkins thrust his hand within. It might have been supposed that he was feeling for the heart action, were it not that his hand slid past the breast and around under the arm. When he drew it out, he stood for a moment with chin dropped, in consideration.

Midday heat had all but cleared the plaza. As he looked about, the helper saw no aid, until his eye fell upon the waiting cab. He fairly bounded up the stairs, calling something to the coachman.

"No," grunted that toiler, with the characteristic discourtesy of the Caracunan lower class, and jerked his head backward toward his fare.

"I beg your pardon," said the Unspeakable Perk eagerly, in Spanish, turning to the dim recess of the victoria. "Might I—Oh, it's you!" He seized Carroll by the arm. "I want your cab."

"Indeed!" said Carroll. "Well, you're cool enough about it."

"And your help," added the other.

"What for?"

"Do you have to ask questions? The man may be dying—is dying, I think."

"All right," said Carroll promptly. "What's to be done?"

"Get him home. Help me carry him to the cab."

Between them, the two men lifted the heavy, mumbling cripple, carried him up the steps with a rush, and deposited him in the cab, while the driver was still angrily expostulating. The beggar was shivering now, and the cold sweat rolled down his face. His bearers placed themselves on each side of him. Perkins gave an order to the driver, who seemed to object, and a rapid-fire argument ensued.