quarantine on the Isthmus, with the result that when I tried to return
to New York no steamer would take me to any place to which any white man
would care to go. But I knew that at Valencia there was a direct line to
New York, so I took a tramp steamer down the coast to Valencia. I went
to Valencia only because to me every other port in the world was closed.
My position was that of the man who explained to his wife that he came
home because the other places were shut.

But, because, formerly in Valencia I had held a minor post in our
legation, and because the State Department so constantly consults our
firm on questions of international law, it was believed I revisited
Valencia on some mysterious and secret mission.

As a matter of fact, had I gone there to sell phonographs or to start a
steam laundry, I should have been as greatly suspected. For in Valencia
even every commercial salesman, from the moment he gives up his passport
on the steamer until the police permit him to depart, is suspected,
shadowed, and begirt with spies.

I believe that during my brief visit I enjoyed the distinction of
occupying the undivided attention of three: a common or garden
Government spy, from whom no guilty man escapes, a Walker-Keefe spy, and
the spy of the Nitrate Company. The spy of the Nitrate Company is
generally a man you meet at the legations and clubs. He plays bridge and
is dignified with the title of "agent." The Walker-Keefe spy is
ostensibly a travelling salesman or hotel runner. The Government spy is
just a spy--a scowling, important little beast in a white duck suit and
a diamond ring. The limit of his intelligence is to follow you into a
cigar store and note what cigar you buy, and in what kind of money you
pay for it.