“Well, since a fight at long range doesn't suit you, suppose we have one at close range. I propose that our seconds handcuff us together by our left wrists, give each of us a knife and leave us alone in a room for a couple of minutes.”
“My friend, Captain Benavides, sir, is not a butcher,” Arredondo reminded Mr. Webster acidly. “In such a fight as you describe, he would be at a great disadvantage.”
“You're whistling—he would. I'd swing him around my head with my left hand and dash his fool brains out.”
“It is the custom in Sobrante for gentlemen to fight with rapiers.”
“Oh, dry up, you sneaking murderer,” Webster exploded. “There isn't going to be any duel except on my terms—so you might as well take a straight tip from headquarters and stick to plain assassination. You and Benavides have been sent out by your superior to kill me—you got your orders this very afternoon at the entrance to the government palace—and I'm just not going to be killed. I don't like the way you part your hair, and I despise a man who uses cologne and wears his handkerchief up his sleeve; so beat it, boy, while the going is good.” He pointed toward the hotel door. “Out, you blackguard!” he roared. “Vaya!”
Lieutenant Arredondo rose and with dignified mien started for the door. Webster followed, and as his visitor reached the portal, a tremendous kick, well placed, lifted him down to the sidewalk. Shrieking curses, he fled into the night; and John Stuart Webster, with a satisfied feeling that something accomplished had earned a night's repose, retired to his room and his mauve silk pyjamas, and slept the sleep of a healthy, conscience-free man. It did occur to him that the morrow would almost certainly bring forth something unpleasant, but that prospect did not worry him. John Stuart Webster had a religion all his own, and one of the principal tenets of this faith of his was an experience-born conviction that to-morrow is always another day.
At about the same hour Neddy Jerome, playing solitaire in the Engineers' Club in Denver, was the recipient of a cablegram which read:
If W. cables accepting reply rejecting account job filled otherwise beans spilled. Implicit obedience spells victory.
Henrietta.
Neddy Jerome wiped his spectacles, adjusted them on his nose and read this amazing message once more. “Jumped-up Jehosophat!” he murmured. “If she hasn't followed that madcap Webster clear to Buenaventura! If she isn't out in earnest to earn her fee, I'm an orang-outang! By thunder, that's a smart woman. Evidently she has Jack winging; he is willing to return and go to work for me, but for reasons of her own she doesn't want him to win too easy a victory. Well, I guess she knows her own game better than I do; so I should worry how she plays it. 'Implicit obedience spells victory.' Victory means that crazy Webster takes the job I offered him. All right! I'll be implicitly obedient.”