the balcony of the great restaurant in the Plaza on those nights
when the band played, and the senoritas circled in long lines
between admiring rows of officers and caballeros. And he
imagined how, when the ore-boats had been filled and his work had
slackened, he would be free to ride with her along the rough
mountain roads, between magnificent pillars of royal palms, or to
venture forth in excursions down the bay, to explore the caves
and to lunch on board the rolling paddle-wheel steamer, which he
would have re painted and gilded for her coming. He pictured
himself acting as her guide over the great mines, answering her
simple questions about the strange machinery, and the crew of
workmen, and the local government by which he ruled two thousand
men. It was not on account of any personal pride in the mines
that he wanted her to see them, it was not because he had
discovered and planned and opened them that he wished to show
them to her, but as a curious spectacle that he hoped would
give her a moment's interest.

But his keenest pleasure was when young Langham suggested that
they should build a house for his people on the edge of the hill
that jutted out over the harbor and the great ore pier. If this
were done, Langham urged, it would be possible for him to see
much more of his family than he would be able to do were they
installed in the city, five miles away.

``We can still live in the office at this end of the railroad,''
the boy said, ``and then we shall have them within call at night
when we get back from work; but if they are in Valencia, it will
take the greater part of the evening going there and all of the
night getting back, for I can't pass that club under three hours.