“He will take Panama with it.”
The unterrified Pedro, meeting this raillery with serene indifference, halted his men before the entrance to the palace and addressed the captain of the guard.
“We have come to see Don Jose.”
“But, muchacho,” replied the captain affably, “that is impossible. His Excellency is busy. Who are you?”
“Pedro, El Rey de los Emboladores!” piped up several volunteers.
“Ah!” said the captain, saluting profoundly. “And what do you want with his Excellency, Majestad?”
“To tell him we will fight the Yankees who have stolen Panama.”
“I will tell his Excellency this,” was the grave reply. “Of course, he will be pleased.”
While these two youths were talking—for after all, the magnificent toy captain was quite as young as the King of Brush and Bottle—the curtains of the large window above were drawn aside and a tall, spare figure, in a long frock coat, stepped slowly forth on the balcony. He was an old man, with a close-clipped beard and moustache, sharp, thin features, and an owlish way of peering through his large, gold-bowed spectacles that made one look involuntarily for the ferule of the schoolmaster held behind his back. This elderly personage had been, indeed, one of the notable pedagogues of Bogota in his day, a fact which, joined to his scholarly achievements in his country’s literature, seemed to his neighbors a sufficient reason for voting him in as the proprietor of San Carlos. To this decision the less powerful and more numerous citizens of the republic could make no effective protest.
On this particular morning it was the schoolmaster, wearing his most indulgent smile, who faced the bootblacks in the street below him. As soon as they caught sight of the familiar figure they gave him an enthusiastic greeting, the democratic flavor of which he seemed to relish. Popular applause had been lacking in Don Jose’s career, and since the troubles over Panama had broken in upon his quiet cultivation of the muses, it looked very much as if his countrymen’s indifference might turn to open hostility. Thus, the friendly greetings of a rabble of bootblacks and peons was not to be despised.