"'In that case, sir,' said Colorado Charlie, 'I will, with your permission, call for drinks, and we will lower them together in honour of your enterprise.'
"So he called for Bourbon whisky and persuaded me to drink it raw. Raw Bourbon whisky burns the throat, but comforts the stomach and unties the tongue. Until the bottle was empty I talked freely of Nicaraguan affairs. When I had finished it I fell asleep, and when I awoke I found that my companion had descended at a wayside station, leaving me alone, a sufferer from a splitting headache.
"As for the further incidents of my journey, I need not trouble you with them, for they were of no importance. There was a certain delay at San Francisco while I waited for a steamer; and the boat, when it started, travelled slowly and pitched more than I liked. Ultimately, however, I reached Managua, the capital of the country and the seat of the government which I had undertaken to overthrow with no other force than my unaided strength of character. I put up at the best hotel, where I made a favourable impression by engaging the best apartments and—contrary to my usual habit—paying for them in advance. Then I visited the bank, established my identity, furnished an example of my signature, and provided myself with a large book of cheques payable to bearer. Then I dined sumptuously, and after dinner began my campaign by summoning the landlord to my presence. In private life he was, I believe, a colonel in the army; but in his public capacity he stood before me with obsequious bows and smirks.
"'Señor Landlord,' I said to him, 'will you be kind enough to tell me the exact name of the President of this Republic?'
"He told me. It was a long name—longer even than my own—but the essential part of it was Don Juan.
"'Then, Señor Landlord,' I proceeded, 'will you kindly send a boy round to the Palace with my compliments—the compliments of Jean Antoine Stromboli Kosnapulski—to say that it will give me great pleasure if the President will step round and smoke a cigar.'
"The landlord smiled, and shrugged his shoulders, and looked the picture of despair.
"'Alas! milord, it is impossible,' he answered. 'It is now three months since the President last went outside the Palace gates.'
"'How, then? Is he ill?' I asked sympathetically.
"'It is not that, milord. It is that when he shows himself, the leaders of the constitutional party shoot at him. They are bad marksmen, it is true; but the President fears that, as there are so many of them, one of them, by accident, might hit him.'