“O’Connor pressed the rose to his lips. “‘This is more to me than all the food in the world,’ says he. ‘But the supper was fine. Where did you raise it?’
“‘I’ve negotiated a stand-off at a delicatessen hut downtown,’ I tells him. ‘Rest easy. If there’s anything to be done I’ll do it.’
“So things went along that way for some weeks. Izzy was a great cook; and if she had had a little more poise of character and smoked a little better brand of tobacco we might have drifted into some sense of responsibility for the honor I had conferred on her. But as time went on I began to hunger for the sight of a real lady standing before me in a street-car. All I was staying in that land of bilk and money for was because I couldn’t get away, and I thought it no more than decent to stay and see O’Connor shot.
“One day our old interpreter drops around and after smoking an hour says that the judge of the peace sent him to request me to call on him. I went to his office in a lemon grove on a hill at the edge of the town; and there I had a surprise. I expected to see one of the usual cinnamon-colored natives in congress gaiters and one of Pizzaro’s cast-off hats. What I saw was an elegant gentleman of a slightly claybank complexion sitting in an upholstered leather chair, sipping a highball and reading Mrs. Humphry Ward. I had smuggled into my brain a few words of Spanish by the help of Izzy, and I began to remark in a rich Andalusian brogue:
“‘Buenas dias, señor. Yo tengo—yo tengo—’
“‘Oh, sit down, Mr. Bowers,’ says he. ‘I spent eight years in your country in colleges and law schools. Let me mix you a highball. Lemon peel, or not?’
“Thus we got along. In about half an hour I was beginning to tell him about the scandal in our family when Aunt Elvira ran away with a Cumberland Presbyterian preacher. Then he says to me:
“‘I sent for you, Mr. Bowers, to let you know that you can have your friend Mr. O’Connor now. Of course we had to make a show of punishing him on account of his attack on General Tumbalo. It is arranged that he shall be released to-morrow night. You and he will be conveyed on board the fruit steamer Voyager, bound for New York, which lies in the harbor. Your passage will be arranged for.’
“‘One moment, judge,’ says I; ‘that revolution—’
“The judge lays back in his chair and howls.