“Ah!” shouted the captain, making for me, over the wrecks of the picket-fence. I said:
“How d'ye do?”
“I arrest you!” said he.
“Of course you do. Get into the carriage.”
And off we went bowling toward the city, with the guard plodding far behind in pink uniforms, and very dejected. Captain Lugo himself would answer nothing when I tried to show him that pink uniforms were in bad taste for a city guard.
But, oh, the extravagance of language at the City Hall, and the Mayor with his beautiful temper in ruins!
“Intolerable! The contempt of dignity, the mockery of constituted power! By whose orders were the lights turned off?”
“Mine, your Excellency, of course. Told you all about it last Saturday.”
“Â la carcel!” he shouted, with his official moustache standing up at the ends. “He has despised the city. Take him to jail, hastily.”
“You'd better look out,” I said. “It's an international complication. The United States will be capturing Portate with an extension of the Monroe Doctrine,” I said, fishing wildly for an argument.