his father's sword around him, and walked up and down in the back room
like a lion in the Zoo suffering from corns. I smoked a couple of dozen
cigars, and decided on yellow stripes down the trouser legs of my
uniform.

"At half-past eleven O'Connor asks me to take a short stroll through the
streets to see if I could notice any signs of the uprising. I was back
in fifteen minutes.

"'Did you hear anything?' he asks.

"'I did,' says I. 'At first I thought it was drums. But it wasn't; it
was snoring. Everybody in town's asleep.'

"O'Connor tears out his watch.

"'Fools!' says he. 'They've set the time right at the siesta hour when
everybody takes a nap. But the cannon will wake 'em up. Everything will
be all right, depend upon it.'

"Just at twelve o'clock we heard the sound of a cannon--BOOM!--shaking
the whole town.

"O'Connor loosens his sword in its scabbard and jumps for the door. I
went as far as the door and stood in it.

"People were sticking their heads out of doors and windows. But there
was one grand sight that made the landscape look tame.

"General Tumbalo, the comandante, was rolling down the steps of his