stated that fact, the more satisfied was everyone at the capital that I
had come on some secret mission. Even the venerable politician who acted
as our minister, the night of my arrival, after dinner, said
confidentially, "Now, Mr. Crosby, between ourselves, what's the game?"

"What's what game?" I asked.

"You know what I mean," he returned. "What are you here for?"

But when, for the tenth time, I repeated how I came to be marooned in
Valencia he showed that his feelings were hurt, and said stiffly: "As
you please. Suppose we join the ladies."

And the next day his wife reproached me with: "I should think you could
trust your own minister. My husband _never_ talks--not even to me."

"So I see," I said.

And then her feelings were hurt also, and she went about telling people
I was an agent of the Walker-Keefe crowd.

My only reason for repeating here that my going to Valencia was an
accident is that it was because Schnitzel disbelieved that fact, and to
drag the hideous facts from me followed me back to New York. Through
that circumstance I came to know him, and am able to tell his story.

The simple truth was that I had been sent by the State Department to
Panama to "go, look, see," and straighten out a certain conflict of
authority among the officials of the canal zone. While I was there the
yellow-fever broke out, and every self-respecting power clapped a