"Are you sure."
"Yes!"
"Haven't we had a reservation here for two months?"
"No."
"Sure?"
"Yes!"
Later I came down and went through the same procedure with another man, with the same results. Not satisfied, I tackled another clerk. He went through the books. Yes, we had had a reservation, but hadn't shown up the proper day. "Any mail?" He rummaged around and threw out a handful, all but one for A.M., . . . also a card noting we had not arrived as per schedule and if we should arrive later to call a certain number.
We did. He was the faithful manager of one of our two faithful conservators. He came around and took us sight-seeing: Through the slums, good residential sections, up and down narrow crowded one-way streets and the Broadway of Panama (Fifth Avenue) past the Oriental stores.
RUINS OF OLD PANAMA
He took us out to the ruins of old Panama—the original Panama. It is on a bluff seven or eight miles up the Pacific to the left of present Panama. The monks who laid it out had an eye to safety. Up there the Pacific deepens very slowly from the shore. The bottom is mud and a sort of quicksand. You can drag one leg after another out nearly a half mile before you get over your head. Invasion ships would have to anchor a long way out, and that would give the town more time to get ready for the assault. On each side and in back was impenetrable jungle.