One morning news was brought to me that the little old doctor was arrested and was sent to Chiriqui prison. Maitland burst out crying when I asked him about it, and declared that, as there was a God, the doctor would soon be again free to cure the evil and all the other ills to which black humanity is heir.
ARRIVAL AT PANAMA NINE YEARS AGO.
(PART III.)
HE new official and his wife, to whom I have already alluded, had both been in Cuba during the war between the United States and the Spaniards. The woman had some years before the war had a manicuring and shampooing establishment at Havana, but when the American troops came pouring in she decided to turn her parlors into a barber shop. So she shaved troops with much success, and married a Rough Rider in T. R.’s famous troops of cavaliers.
When T. R. became President of the U. S. A. he gave this particular Rough Rider the only position that he could fill. He was an illiterate man, but he was imbued with a social bug, and he had a dream of becoming a prominent social lion on the Isthmus. The fair barberess was good-looking, vivacious, a good dancer, and a lady of good style. Judge of the surprise of the official pair upon their arrival on Ancon Hill to find that virgin spot was dotted with tents in which lived the soldiers of fortune whom the lady had shaved in the dreaming old war days.
“We sure are in bad,” said the official. “Here’s the whole bunch of chumps that used to be in Havana.”
“Goodness gracious!” exclaimed the lady; “what shall we do? Even old Dr. Moll is here. Now he’ll tell every one that I was a barber and that he lovingly called me the little shaver.”
“If he does I’ll have the old devil put in jail,” said the official.
The presence of the old-time acquaintances had been made known to the official pair by Martin Luther, upon their request to have me sent to them as a servant.
“What—what do you suppose?” said the little old doctor to Martin Luther. “Mike is here, and is now an official. We were all awfully fond of her when she used to shave us. I wonder will she notice us now.”