raise it?'

"'I've negotiated a stand-off at a delicatessen hut downtown,' I tells
him. 'Rest easy. If there's anything to be done I'll do it.'

"So things went along that way for some weeks. Izzy was a great cook;
and if she had had a little more poise of character and smoked a little
better brand of tobacco we might have drifted into some sense of
responsibility for the honor I had conferred on her. But as time went on
I began to hunger for the sight of a real lady standing before me in a
street-car. All I was staying in that land of bilk and money for was
because I couldn't get away, and I thought it no more than decent to
stay and see O'Connor shot.

"One day our old interpreter drops around and after smoking an hour
says that the judge of the peace sent him to request me to call on him.
I went to his office in a lemon grove on a hill at the edge of the
town; and there I had a surprise. I expected to see one of the usual
cinnamon-colored natives in congress gaiters and one of Pizzaro's
cast-off hats. What I saw was an elegant gentleman of a slightly
claybank complexion sitting in an upholstered leather chair, sipping a
highball and reading Mrs. Humphry Ward. I had smuggled into my brain a
few words of Spanish by the help of Izzy, and I began to remark in a
rich Andalusian brogue:

"'Buenas dias, señor. Yo tengo--yo tengo--'

"'Oh, sit down, Mr. Bowers,' says he. 'I spent eight years in your
country in colleges and law schools. Let me mix you a highball. Lemon
peel, or not?'