"They sprang to their feet, thrust their cigarettes between their teeth, took up their rifles, and pointed their fixed bayonets truculently towards my stomach.
"I calmed them with a friendly gesture.
"I calmed them with a friendly gesture."
"'I mean your President no harm; and, as a token of the integrity of my purpose, I would like to present you with these little cheques. You will observe that they are payable to bearer.'
"The men took the slips of pale green paper, and looked carefully at them, at me, and at each other. Smiles came out upon their faces and gradually broadened into grins. With slow and deliberate movement they leant their rifles up against the walls, and then, without a word of explanation, or even of thanks, they started together at the double for the bank.
"'It is a good beginning,' I said to myself, and walked on up the Palace garden to the front door.
"Two other sentinels were on guard here; and they also were smoking cigarettes and playing cards. To them, too, I handed cheques with a few sympathetic words, and had the satisfaction of seeing them run off, like happy children, in chase of their fellow-soldiers.
"'We are making progress,' I said to myself, and passed on unimpeded into the entrance-hall.
"There, various servants—first footmen in livery, and then cooks and housemaids—came out and crowded round me. I had expected it and I was prepared. The cheques to bearer, as I have told you, were already filled up and signed. It was only the work of a minute to sit down at a table, tear them out of the book, and push them into the eager, outstretched hands. The reputation of my cheques to bearer had reached them perhaps a quarter of an hour before. They snatched them from me, and, without waiting to put on their hats, men, women, and even boys, started off in rapid procession down the street towards the bank.