personal regard for him.

"We found Sterrett in pajamas working at his manuscript with a
bottle of brandy for a paper weight.

"'Englishman,' says Jones, 'let us interrupt your disquisition
on bug houses for a moment. To-morrow is the Fourth of July. We
don't want to hurt your feelings, but we're going to commemorate
the day when we licked you by a little refined debauchery and
nonsense--something that can be heard above five miles off. If you
are broad-gauged enough to taste whisky at your own wake, we'd be
pleased to have you join us.'

"'Do you know,' says Sterrett, setting his glasses on his nose, 'I
like your cheek in asking me if I'll join you; blast me if I don't.
You might have known I would, without asking. Not as a traitor to my
own country, but for the intrinsic joy of a blooming row.'

"On the morning of the Fourth I woke up in that old shanty of an
ice factory feeling sore. I looked around at the wreck of all I
possessed, and my heart was full of bile. From where I lay on my
cot I could look through the window and see the consul's old ragged
Stars and Stripes hanging over his shack. 'You're all kinds of a
fool, Billy Casparis,' I says to myself; 'and of all your crimes
against sense it does look like this idea of celebrating the Fourth
should receive the award of demerit. Your business is busted up,
your thousand dollars is gone into the kitty of this corrupt country
on that last bluff you made, you've got just fifteen Chili dollars
left, worth forty-six cents each at bedtime last night and steadily
going down. To-day you'll blow in your last cent hurrahing for that