"Five minutes,' says Perry, cheerful. 'Me and old Buck was having a game of checkers.' "Perry introduces me to Mariana, and they ask me to come in. No, sir-ee. I'd had enough truck with married folks for that day. I says I'll be going along, and that I've spent a very pleasant afternoon with my old partner-especially,' says I, just to jostle Perry, during that game when the table legs came all loose.' But I'd promised him not to let her know anything. "I've been worrying over that business ever since it happened," continued Buck. "There's one thing about it that's got me all twisted up, and I can't figure it out." "What was that?" I asked, as I rolled and handed Buck the last cigarette. "Why, I'll tell you: When I saw the look that little woman give Perry when she turned round and saw him coming back to the ranch safe-why was it I got the idea all in a minute that that look of hers was worth more than the whole caboodle of us-sarsaparilla, checkers, and all, and that the d-n fool in the game wasn't named Perry Rountree at all?" T CABBAGES AND KINGS THE PROEM BY THE CARPENTER HEY will tell you in Anchuria, that President Miraflores, of that volatile republic, died by his own hand in the coast town of Coralio; that he had reached thus far in flight from the inconveniences of an imminent revolution; and that one hundred thousand dollars, government funds, which he earried with him in an American leather valise as a souvenir of his tempestuous administration, was never afterward recovered. For a real, a boy will show you his grave. It is back of the town near a little bridge that spans a mangrove swamp. A plain slab of wood stands at its head. Some one has burned upon the headstone with a hot iron this inscription: RAMON ANGEL DE LAS CRUZES PRESIDENTE DE LA REPUBLICA QUE SEA SU JUEZ DIOS It is characteristic of this buoyant people that they pursue no man beyond the grave. "Let God be his judge!"-Even with the hundred thousand unfound, though they greatly coveted, the hue and ery went no further than that. To the stranger or the guest the people of Coralio will relate the story of the tragic end of their former president; how he strove to escape from the country with the publie funds and also with Doña Isabel Guilbert, the young American opera singer; and how, being apprebended by members of the opposing political party in Coralio, he shot himself through the head rather than give up the funds, and, in consequence, the Señorita Guilbert. They will relate further that Doña Isabel, her adventurous bark of fortune shoaled by the simultaneous loss of her distinguished admirer and the souvenir hundred thousand, dropped anchor on this stagnant coast, awaiting a rising tide. They say, in Coralio, that she found a prompt and prosperous tide in the form of Frank Goodwin, an American resident of the town, an investor who had grown wealthy by dealing in the products of the country-a banana king, a rubber prince, a sarsaparilla, indigo, and mahogany baron. The Señorita Guilbert, you will be told, married Señor Goodwin one month after the president's death, thus, in the very moment when Fortune had ceased to smile, wresting from her a gift greater than the prize withdrawn. Of the American, Don Frank Goodwin, and of his wife the natives have nothing but good to say. Don Frank has lived among them for years, and has compelled their respect. His lady is easily queen of what social life the sober coast affords. The wife of the governor of the district, herself, who was of the proud Castilian family of Monteleon y Dolorosa de los Santos y Mendez, feels honored to unfold |