was that a dozen good huskies with baseball bats could've landed on
their peninsula any fine, sunny afternoon and in ten minutes rushed the
whole Panamanian army into the Pacific Ocean--that is, if our warships
would let them. If we'd only let the Colombians alone they'd soon've
wound up the Revolution--so Cogan thought, and told Martin so. 'But I
s'pose they've had hundreds of revolutions in South America?' he says to
Martin.

"'Hundreds,' says Martin, and blows more smoke toward the sky. Out in
front of the saloon they were sitting, both of 'em balancing between the
sidewalk and the wall on the hind legs of their chairs.

"'Anybody ever killed?'

"'Oh, not more than maybe a few hundred to a time--sometimes a few
thousand--'

"'Hundreds? Thousands?' says Cogan. 'We hadn't any more than three
hundred killed--that is, killed fighting--in the whole Santiago
campaign.' Cogan had been there.

"'And you have written a library of books about it,' says Martin. 'But
of course when a few hundred are killed down this way--'tis a great
joke. And those little black and tan lads of thirteen or fourteen having
to go off shouldering a rifle and kill or get killed--they're jokes,
too. But if a grown man up in your country does it--the band plays when
he goes and comes, and he makes speeches about it at banquets--and
sometimes he will draw a pension for the next sixty years after it--'
says Martin and said it in his easy way, as if he didn't care much about
it one way or the other; and maybe he didn't.