Hope walked away frowning in much perplexity.



V

The visit to the city was imitated on the three succeeding
evenings by similar excursions. On one night they returned to
the plaza, and the other two were spent in drifting down the
harbor and along the coast on King's yacht. The President and
Madame Alvarez were King's guests on one of these moonlight
excursions, and were saluted by the proper number of guns, and
their native band played on the forward deck. Clay felt that
King held the centre of the stage for the time being, and
obliterated himself completely. He thought of his own paddle-
wheel tug-boat that he had had painted and gilded in her honor,
and smiled grimly.

MacWilliams approached him as he sat leaning back on the rail and
looking up, with the eye of a man who had served before the mast,
at the lacework of spars and rigging above him. MacWilliams came
toward him on tiptoe and dropped carefully into a wicker chair.
``There don't seem to be any door-mats on this boat,'' he said.
``In every other respect she seems fitted out quite
complete; all the latest magazines and enamelled bathtubs,
and Chinese waiter-boys with cock-tails up their sleeves. But
there ought to be a mat at the top of each of those stairways
that hang over the side, otherwise some one is sure to soil the
deck. Have you been down in the engine-room yet?'' he asked.
``Well, don't go, then,'' he advised, solemnly. ``It will only