my hand.

"Ah, Senor, I am delighted to meet you," I broke
out in Spanish. (Here I had Mawkum--he did not
understand a word.) "We have been expecting you;
our mutual friend, Mr. Lawton, has given me notice
of your coming--and how is the Senor and his
family?" And in a few minutes we three were
seated at my desk with Mawkum unrolling plans,
making sketches on a pad, figuring the cost of this
and that and the other thing; I translating for Mawkum
such statements as I thought he ought to know,
thus restoring the discipline and dignity of the office
--it never being wise to have more than one head to a
concern.

This partial victory was made complete when his
ivory-tinted Excellency loosened his waistcoat, dived
into his inside pocket and, producing a package of letters
tied with a string, the envelopes emblazoned with
the arms and seal of the Republic of Moccador, asked
if we might be alone. I immediately answered, both
in Spanish and English, that I had no secrets from
Senor Mawkum, but this did not prove satisfactory
and so Mawkum, with a wink to me, withdrew.

Mawkum gone, the little man--it is inconceivable
how small and withered he was; how yellow, how
spidery in many of his motions, especially with his
fingers stained with cigarettes, how punctilious, how