nines. And after you get yours ready," he added, as he turned
into his room for the night, "I'll train one that will sweep
yours off the face of the island. For THIS American consul
can pitch three curves."

The best laid plans of men go far astray, sometimes, and the
great and beautiful city that was to rise on the coast of
Opeki was not built in a day. Nor was it ever built. For
before the Bradleys could mark out the foul-lines for the
base-ball field on the plaza, or teach their standing army the
goose step, or lay bamboo pipes for the water-mains, or clear
away the cactus for the extension of the King's palace, the
Hillmen paid Opeki their quarterly visit.

Albert had called on the King the next morning, with Stedman
as his interpreter, as he had said he would, and, with maps
and sketches, had shown his Majesty what he proposed to do
toward improving Opeki and ennobling her king, and when the
King saw Albert's free-hand sketches of wharves with tall
ships lying at anchor, and rows of Opekian warriors with the
Bradleys at their head, and the design for his new palace, and
a royal sedan chair, he believed that these things were already
his, and not still only on paper, and he appointed
Albert his Minister of War, Stedman his Minister of Home
Affairs, and selected two of his wisest and oldest subjects to
serve them as joint advisers. His enthusiasm was even greater
than Gordon's, because he did not appreciate the difficulties.
He thought Gordon a semi-god, a worker of miracles, and urged
the putting up of a monument to him at once in the public
plaza, to which Albert objected, on the ground that it would