table. His plans were completed for the interception of the
fugitives from the capital; and now it was but a waiting game that
he had to play.

The consul was interested in his report. He was only twenty-four;
and he had not been in Coralio long enough for his enthusiasm to cool
in the heat of the tropics--a paradox that may be allowed between
Cancer and Capricorn.

So many thousand bunches of bananas, so mnay thousand oranges and
coconuts, so many ounces of gold dust, pounds of rubber, coffee,
indigo and sarparilla--actually, exports were twenty per cent greater
than for the previous year!

A little thrill of satisfaction ran through the consul. Perhaps,
he thought, the State Department, upon reading his introduction,
would notice--and then he leaned back in his chair and laughed.
He was getting as bad as the others. For the moment he had forgotten
that Coralio was an insignificant republic lying along the by-ways
of a second-rate sea. He thought of Gregg, the quarantine doctor,
who subscribed for the London ~Lancet~, expecting to find it quoting
his reports to the home Board of Health concerning the yellow fever
germ. The consul knew that not one in fifty of his acquaintances in
the States had ever heard of Coralio. He knew that two men, at any
rate, would have to read his report--some underling in the State
Department and a compositor in the Public Printing Office. Perhaps
the typesticker would note the increase of commerce in Coralio, and
speak of it, over the cheese and beer, to a friend.

He had just written: "Most unaccountable is the supineness of the