“Tell us all about it, Bill,” said Higgins, drawing his chair very near, and speaking in a kindly tone.
“Well, the night we left ye fellers and went to Colon, the pirate showed up for the first time, an’ he come with us to the hotel; so the lady said that she wanted a room all to herself, an’ I took a room for myself. In the morning I went and paid the bills, but I didn’t pay his, and he pulled a gun on me; he carried four all ready for use. Then I went an’ bought our ticket an’ she said she wouldn’t go unless I took her dear brother; so, for peace sake, I bought a ticket for him. Then she said she wanted her dear brother to have a stateroom next ours, an’ for peace sake I had to let him have it. Well, sir, they treated me like a nigger waiter during the trip, an’, for peace sake, I couldn’t say nothin’. All the men on the ship was in love with her, but they said that the pirate wan’t her brother at all; that he was a guy that she was in love with, an’ I had to stand for it. They said I was a fool for puttin’ up with things the way I did, an’, say, I sure was; but what could I do, when that guy had a gun in every pocket an’ didn’t think it was any more harm to use one on me than if I was a rat? Well, to make a long story short, they got me in a room in the hotel in Havana the night before I left, an’ they cleaned me out of every cent I had, then he pointed a gun at me an’ told me to leave the hotel without sayin’ anythin’, or he’d riddle me with bullets. I pretended to swaller the diamond ring, an’ they fell for that bluff, so I pawned it the next day to pay my passage down here; an’ here I am. Five thousand of me money is gone, an’ all me clothes, me gold watch and chain, an’ I’m feelin’ like a damn fool. My stomach ain’t workin’ any more, an’ the first thing I’ll have to do will be to see Dr. Deeks, for I’m feelin’ bum.”
During this narration the group exchanged meaning glances. Higgins looked like a man dazed, and beads of perspiration fell from his forehead. For five minutes there was silence, and then the story-teller said, with calmness: “No good ever yet come out of a man bein’ as honorable as Higgins. It ain’t right. If he hadn’t been so darned honorable about that lady he’d a sent her about her business, an’ poor Bill wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“My life is spoiled,” said Bill, with a sob. “I never could trust another lady in this world, an’ besides, I’m married to her now, anyway. Here’s the situation: I’m a ruined an’ broken man, an’ it’s all on account of Higgins.”
“Yes, you’re right, Bill,” said Higgins. “I’m the cause of all your troubles. The lady put it all over us for fair. She got about three thousand dollars out of me, and her bluff prevented me from marrying the best little girl in the U. S. A.”
“ ‘Tis no use talkin’, a woman can make a monkey of a man,” said John Hogan.
“But life is no good without ’em,” said the story-teller.
“I don’t see how I’m goin’ to live without her,” said Bill. “I can’t forget her.”
“You will have to, I’m afraid,” said Higgins, “for that man whom she called her brother was the fellow she used to call husband in the old war days.”
Some months later Bill Wiley was called to the great tribunal at Culebra. When he arrived there he was requested to support his wife, whom he had wilfully abandoned in Havana. Complaint had been made by the American Consul that the wife of Bill Wiley, of the Canal Zone, was suffering for the necessities of life.