Portate, running the Hotel Helen Mar. Three years we ran her
altogether, and made money. I had a thought that by-and-by I'd go to
the Isthmus, and charter some kind of sloop, and dig out Clyde's
canvas bags, and so go back to Greenough sticky with glory. Whether
it was laziness or ambition kept me so long at Portate I couldn't
say. It was a pleasant life. It's a country where you don't notice
time. Yet its politics are lively, and the very land has malaria, as
you might say; it has periodic shakes, earthquakes, "tremblors," they
call them, or "trembloritos," according to size.

It was early one morning, in the spring of the year '73, that Stevey
Todd woke me up, and he says:

"I'm feeling unsteady like. Seems like the _Helen Mar_ wobbled."

"She's took sick," I says, sarcastic, "she's got the toothache."

The only thing I had against Stevey Todd was, he was timid and had
bad dreams. He rode a tidal wave every two or three nights, according
to account. But it wasn't right to be messing another man's sleep
with tidal waves that didn't belong to the other man. I never set any
tidal waves on him. I spoke up to Stevey Todd that time, and went on
deck, and saw the Sarasara with an umbrella over her head, and I
thought, maybe, there had been a little shake, and maybe she was out
looking for trouble.

It came on the middle of the morning. The drivers that put up with
us that night were gone down the valley with their mules. I heard
Stevey Todd whoop down below, and he came on deck and he says, "She's
wobbling again!" meaning the _Helen Mar_. She was swaying to and