“I’ve met him. But, you see, I was hardly ever in the office, nor in the city, either. I always worked on the outside.”
“The Globe had a man in San Salvador last year, named Wilcox, I think,” Elliott continued, recalling another fact.
“Yes. I reckon he was before me. San Salvador—I sunk a heap of money there!”
“Mining?”
“Yes—or not exactly actually mining. I got a concession for a sulphur mine, and I was going to sell it in New York. It was a mighty good mine, too. There would have been dollars in it, and it cost me five thousand to get it. You know how concessions are got down there, I expect?”
“How did it pan out?”
“It never panned out at all, sir. There was a revolution next month, and the new government annulled everything the old one had done. I hadn’t the money to go through the business over again, but I did make something out of the revolution, after all.”
“How?”
“Selling rifles to the revolutionists. I didn’t think at the time that I was helping to beat my own game. There’s money in revolutionizing, too. Down there a man can’t keep clear of graft, you know; it’s in the air.”
In spite of the apologetic tone of the last sentence, Elliott recognized the mental attitude of the adventurer, which was becoming very familiar to him. He had heard a good deal from Henninger of the business of supplying a revolution with war material, in which Henninger had participated more than once. As often as not, it is done by buying up the officers of a ragged government regiment, and transferring, sometimes not only the rifles and cartridges but also the officers and men as well, to the equally ragged force in opposition.