these changes comes also the small adventurer, with empty pockets to
fill, light of heart, busy-brained--the modern fairy prince, bearing
an alarm clock with which, more surely than by the sentimental
kiss, to awaken the beautiful tropics from their centuries' sleep.
Generally he wears a shamrock, which he matches pridefully against
the extravagant palms; and it is he who had driven Melpomene to
the wings, and set Comedy to dancing before the footlights of the
Southern Cross.

So, there is a little tale to tell of many things. Perhaps to the
promiscuous ear of the Walrus it shall come with most avail; for in
it there are indeed shoes and ships and sealing-wax and cabbage-palms
and presidents instead of kings.

Add to these a little love and counterplotting, and scatter
everywhere throughout the maze a trail of tropical dollars--dollars
warmed no more by the torrid sun than by the hot palms of the scouts
of Fortune--and, after all, here seems to be Life, itself, with talk
enough to weary the most garrulous of Walruses.



I

"Fox-in-the-Morning"

Coralio reclined, in the mid-day heat, like some vacuous beauty
lounging in a guarded harem. The town lay at the sea's edge on
a strip of alluvial coast. It was set like a little pearl in an
emerald band. Behind it, and seeming almost to topple, imminent,