morning to walk than to ride. May I suggest some refreshments?' says he.

"'Rum,' says Wainwright.

"'Gimme a cigar,' says I.

"Well, sir, the two talked an hour, keeping the generals and equities
all in their good uniforms waiting outside the fence. And while I
smoked, silent, I listened to Clifford Wainwright making a solid
republic out of the wreck of one. I didn't follow his arguments with
any special collocation of international intelligibility; but he had Mr.
Gomez's attention glued and riveted. He takes out a pencil and marks
the white linen tablecloth all over with figures and estimates and
deductions. He speaks more or less disrespectfully of import and export
duties and custom-house receipts and taxes and treaties and budgets and
concessions and such truck that politics and government require; and
when he gets through the Gomez man hops up and shakes his hand and says
he's saved the country and the people.

"'You shall be rewarded,' says the president.

"'Might I suggest another--rum?' says Wainwright.

"'Cigar for me--darker brand,' says I.

"Well, sir, the president sent me and Wainwright back to the town in a
victoria hitched to two flea-bitten selling-platers--but the best the
country afforded.

"I found out afterward that Wainwright was a regular beachcomber--the