extremely busy during the next two days buying empty rifle cases and
filling them with bricks, which were then stored in a warehouse rented
for that purpose. As still another, when the General returned to the
Hotel Espanol, Mrs. O'Brien went up to him, plucked a thread from his
lapel, and said:

"Say, senor, I don't want to 'butt in,' but what does that monkey-faced,
cat-eyed, rubber-necked tin horn tough want with you?"

"Sangre de mi vida!" exclaimed the General. "Impossible it is that you
speak of my good friend, Senor Kelley."

"Come into the summer garden," said Mrs. O'Brien. "I want to have a talk
with you."

Let us suppose that an hour has elapsed.

"And you say," said the General, "that for the sum of $18,000 can be
purchased the furnishment of the house and the lease of one year with
this garden so lovely--so resembling unto the patios of my cara
Colombia?"

"And dirt cheap at that," sighed the lady.

"Ah, Dios!" breathed General Falcon. "What to me is war and politics?
This spot is one paradise. My country it have other brave heroes to
continue the fighting. What to me should be glory and the shooting of
mans? Ah! no. It is here I have found one angel. Let us buy the Hotel
Espanol and you shall be mine, and the money shall not be waste on
guns."