Cabbages and Kings | Page 8

please, to the opportunities of the great and hilarious
class of ganders and geese? Not that I would be a president, Frank--and
the boodle he's got is too big for me to handle --but in some ways I feel
my conscience hurting me for addicting myself to photographing a
nation instead of running away with it. Frank, did you ever see the
'bundle of muslin' that His Excellency has wrapped up and carried off?"

"Isabel Guilbert?" said Goodwin, laughing. "No, I never did. From
what I've heard of her, though, I imagine that she wouldn't stick at
anything to carry her point. Don't get romantic, Billy. Sometimes I
begin to fear that there's Irish blood in your ancestry."
"I never saw her either," went on Keogh; "but they say she's got all the
ladies of mythology, sculpture, and fiction reduced to chromos. They
say she can look at a man once, and he'll turn monkey and climb trees
to pick coconuts for her. Think of that president man with Lord know
how many hundreds of thousands of dollars in one hand, and this
muslin siren in the other, galloping down the hill on a sympathetic
mule amid songbirds and flowers! And here is Billy Keogh, because he
is virtuous, condemned to the unprofitable swindle of slandering the
faces of missing links on tin for an honest living! 'Tis an injustice of
nature."
"Cheer up," said Goodwin. "You are a pretty poor fox to be envying a
gander. Maybe the enchanting Guilbert will take a fancy to you and
your tintypes after we impoverish her royal escort."
"She could do worse," reflected Keogh; "but she won't. 'Tis not a
tintype gallery, but a gallery of the gods that she's fitted to adorn. She's
a very wicked lady, and the president man is in luck. But I hear Clancy
swearing in the back room for having to do all the work." And Keogh
plunged for the rear of the "gallery," whistling gaily in a spontaneous
way that belied his recent sigh over the questionable good luck of the
flying president.
Goodwin turned from the main street into a much narrower one that
intersected it at a right angle.
These side streets were covered by a growth of thick, rank grass, which
was kept to a navigable shortness by the machetes of the police. Stone
sidewalks, little more than a ledge in width, ran along the base of the
mean and monotonous adobe houses. At the outskirts of the village
these streets dwindled to nothing; and here were set the palm-thatched
huts of the Caribs and the poorer natives, and the shabby cabins of
negroes from Jamaica and the West India islands. A few structures

raised their heads above the red-tiled roofs of the one-story houses--the
bell tower of the ~Calaboza~, the Hotel de los Extranjeros, the
residence of the Vesuvius Fruit Company's agent, the store and
residence of Bernard Brannigan, a ruined cathedral in which Columbus
had once set foot, and, most imposing of all, the Casa Morena--the
summer "White House" of the President of Anchuria. On the principal
street running along the beach--the Broadway of Coralio--were the
larger stores, the government ~bodega~ and post-office, the ~cuartel~,
the rum-shops and the market place.
On his way Goodwin passed the house of Bernard Brannigan. It was a
modern wooden building, two stories in height. The ground floor was
occupied by Brannigan's store, the upper one contained the living
apartments. A wide cool porch ran around the house half way up its
outer walls. A handsome, vivacious girl neatly dressed in flowing white
leaned over the railing and smiled down upon Goodwin. She was no
darker than many an Andalusian of high descent; and she sparkled and
glowed like a tropical moonlight.
"Good evening, Miss Paula," said Goodwin, taking off his hat, with his
ready smile. There was little difference in his manner whether he
addressed women or men. Everybody in Coralio liked to receive the
salutation of the big American.
"Is there any news, Mr. Goodwin? Please don't say no. Isn't it warm? I
feel just like Mariana in her moated grange--or was it a range?--it's hot
enough."
"No, there's no news to tell, I believe," said Goodwin, with a
mischievous look in his eye, "except that old Geddie is getting
grumpier and crosser every day. If something doesn't happen to relieve
his mind I'll have to quit smoking on his back porch--and there's no
other place available that is cool enough."
"He isn't grumpy," said Paula Brannigan, impulsively, "when he--"
But she ceased suddenly, and drew back with a deepening color; for her
mother had been a ~mestizo~ lady, and the Spanish blood had brought

to Paula a certain shyness that was an adornment to the other half of her
demonstrative nature.

II
The