Cabbages and Kings | Page 5

to call its master.
Pizarro, Balboa, Sir Francis Drake, and Bolivar did what they could to
make it a part of Christendom. Sir John Morgan, Lafitte and other
eminent swashbucklers bombarded and pounded it in the name of
Abaddon.
The game still goes on. The guns of the rovers are silenced; but the
tintype man, the enlarged photograph brigand, the kodaking tourist and
the scouts of the gentle brigade of fakirs have found it out, and carry on
the work. The hucksters of Germany, France, and Sicily now bag in
small change across their counters. Gentlemen adventurers throng the
waiting-rooms of its rulers with proposals for railways and concessions.
The little ~opera-bouffe~ nations play at government and intrigue until
some day a big, silent gunboat glides into the offing and warns them
not to break their toys. And with these changes comes also the small
adventurer, with empty pockets to fill, light of heart, busy-brained--the
modern fairy prince, bearing an alarm clock with which, more surely
than by the sentimental kiss, to awaken the beautiful tropics from their
centuries' sleep. Generally he wears a shamrock, which he matches
pridefully against the extravagant palms; and it is he who had driven
Melpomene to the wings, and set Comedy to dancing before the
footlights of the Southern Cross.
So, there is a little tale to tell of many things. Perhaps to the
promiscuous ear of the Walrus it shall come with most avail; for in it
there are indeed shoes and ships and sealing-wax and cabbage-palms
and presidents instead of kings.
Add to these a little love and counterplotting, and scatter everywhere
throughout the maze a trail of tropical dollars--dollars warmed no more
by the torrid sun than by the hot palms of the scouts of Fortune--and,
after all, here seems to be Life, itself, with talk enough to weary the
most garrulous of Walruses.

I
"Fox-in-the-Morning"
Coralio reclined, in the mid-day heat, like some vacuous beauty
lounging in a guarded harem. The town lay at the sea's edge on a strip
of alluvial coast. It was set like a little pearl in an emerald band. Behind
it, and seeming almost to topple, imminent, above it, rose the
sea-following range of the Cordilleras. In front the sea was spread, a
smiling jailer, but even more incorruptible than the frowning mountains.
The waves swished along the smooth beach; the parrots screamed in the
orange and ceiba-trees; the palms waved their limber fronds foolishly
like an awkward chorus at the prima donna's cue to enter.
Suddenly the town was full of excitement. A native boy dashed down a
grass-grown street, shrieking: "~Busca el Senor~ Goodwin. ~Ha venido
un telegrafo por el!~"
The word passed quickly. Telegrams do not come to any one in Coralio.
The cry for Senor Goodwin was taken up by a dozen officious voices.
The main street running parallel to the beach became populated with
those who desired to expedite the delivery of the dispatch. Knots of
women with complexions varying from palest olive to deepest brown
gathered at street corners and plaintively carolled: "~Un telegrafo por
Senor~ Goodwin!" The ~comandante~, Don Senor el Coronel
Encarnacion Rios, who was loyal to the Ins and suspected Goodwin's
devotion to the Outs, hissed: "Aha!" and wrote in his secret
memorandum book the accusive fact that Senor Goodwin had on that
momentous date received a telegram.
In the midst of the hullabaloo a man stepped to the door of a small
wooden building and looked out. Above the door was a sign that read
"Keogh and Clancy"--a nomenclature that seemed not to be indigenous
to that tropical soil. The man in the door was Billy Keogh, scout of
fortune and progress and latter-day rover of the Spanish Main. Tintypes
and photographs were the weapons with which Keogh and Clancy were

at that time assailing the hopeless shores. Outside the shop were set two
large frames filled with specimens fo their art and skill.
Keogh leaned in the doorway, his bold and humorous countenance
wearing a look of interest at the unusual influx of life and sound in the
street. When the meaning of the disturbance became clear to him he
placed a hand beside his mouth and shouted: "Hey! Frank!" in such a
robustious voice that the feeble clamor of the natives was drowned and
silenced.
Fifty yards away, on the seaward side of the street, stood the abode of
the consul for the United States. Out from the door of this building
tumbled Goodwin at the call. He had been smoking with Willard
Geddie, the consul, on the back porch of the consulate, which was
conceded to be the coolest spot in Coralio.
"Hurry up," shouted Keogh. "There's a riot in town on account of a
telegram that's come for you. You want to be