company, nor how much money they had paid Alvarez and the judges for
that decision. Instead they urged that Garcia, a native of the
country, had submitted to the decree of the courts and had joined
Alvarez, and that now the only people fighting against the Isthmian
Line were foreign adventurers. They asked, Was it likely such men
would risk their lives to benefit the natives? Was it not evident that
they were fighting only for their own pockets? And they warned Fiske
that while Laguerre was still urging his claim against this company,
it would be unwise for the president of that company to show himself
in Tegucigalpa.

But Fiske laughed at the idea of danger to himself. He said a
revolution, like cock-fighting, was a national pastime, and no more
serious, and that should anyone attempt to molest the property of the
company, he would demand the protection of his own country as
represented by the Raleigh.

He accordingly rode back to the capital, and with his son and daughter
and the company's representatives and the Copan people, returned to
the same rooms in the Hotel Continental he had occupied three days
before, when Alvarez was president. This made it embarrassing for us,
as the Continental was the only hotel in the city, and as it was there
we had organized our officers' mess. In consequence, while there was
no open war, the dining-room of the hotel was twice daily the meeting-
place of the two opposing factions, and Von Ritter told me that until
matters had been arranged with the seconds of young Fiske I could not
appear there, as it would be "contrary to the code."

But our officers were not going to allow the Copan and Isthmian people
to drive them out of their head-quarters, so at the table d'hote