dexterously dodged the necessity of lining the Zone with the
offensive signs "Black" and "White." 'T would not be exactly the
distinction desired anyway. Hence the line has been drawn between
"Gold" and "Silver" employees. The first division, paid in gold
coin, is made up, with a few exceptions, of white American
citizens. To the second belong any of the darker shade, and all
common laborers of whatever color, these receiving their wages in
Panamanian silver. 'T is a deep and sharp-drawn line. The story
runs that Liza Lawsome, not long arrived from Jamaica, entering
the office of a Zone dentist, paused suddenly before the
announcement:

Crownwork. Gold and Silver Fillings.
Extractions wholly without Pain.

There was deep disappointment in face and voice as she sat down
with a flounce of her starched and snow-white skirt, gasping:

"Oh, Doctah, does I HAVE to have silver fillings?"

My room-mates, "Mitch" and "Tom," sat respectively at the throttle
of a locomotive that jerked dirt-trains out of the "cut" and
straddled a steam-shovel that ate its way into Culebra range.
Whence, of course, they were covered with the grease and grime
incident to those occupations. Which did not make them any the
less companionable--though it did promise a distinct increase in
my laundry bill. When they had descended again to the labor-train
and been snatched away to their appointed tasks, I sat a short
hour in one of the black "Mission" rocking-chairs on the screened
veranda puzzling over a serious problem. The quarters of the