Thus, because of our ancient prescience of each other's trail of
thought, we travelled ambiguously to the point where Kansas Bill's story
began:

"I met O'Connor in a boarding-house on the West Side. He invited me to
his hall-room to have a drink, and we became like a dog and a cat that
had been raised together. There he sat, a tall, fine, handsome man, with
his feet against one wall and his back against the other, looking over a
map. On the bed and sticking three feet out of it was a beautiful gold
sword with tassels on it and rhinestones in the handle.

"'What's this?' says I (for by that time we were well acquainted). 'The
annual parade in vilification of the ex-snakes of Ireland? And what's
the line of march? Up Broadway to Forty-second; thence east to McCarty's
café; thence--'

"'Sit down on the wash-stand,' says O'Connor, 'and listen. And cast no
perversions on the sword. 'Twas me father's in old Munster. And this
map, Bowers, is no diagram of a holiday procession. If ye look again.
ye'll see that it's the continent known as South America, comprising
fourteen green, blue, red, and yellow countries, all crying out from
time to time to be liberated from the yoke of the oppressor.'

"'I know,' says I to O'Connor. 'The idea is a literary one. The
ten-cent magazine stole it from "Ridpath's History of the World from the
Sand-stone Period to the Equator." You'll find it in every one of 'em.
It's a continued story of a soldier of fortune, generally named O'Keefe,
who gets to be dictator while the Spanish-American populace cries
"Cospetto!" and other Italian maledictions. I misdoubt if it's ever been