“Beggin' the young leddy's pardon—it feels like hell, sor.”
“Caliph, don't be cruel,” Dolores pleaded. “Call a waiter and give Don Juan what you promised him.”
So Webster went into the hotel bar and returned presently with a bottle of brandy and a glass, which he filled and held out toward Don Juan. “One of the paradoxes of existence, Don Juan,” he observed, “lies in the fact that so many of the things in life that are good for us are bad for us. This jolt will disperse the menagerie and quiet your nerves, but nevertheless it is a nail in your coffin.”
Don Juan proved himself a true Hibernian soldier of misfortune by jesting under fire. “Whilst ye have the hammer in yer hand, sor, dhrive in another,” he pleaded. Webster declined, however, and returned the bottle to the bar, where he had it marked for Don Juan and set aside, for it was his opinion, evolved from a vast experience with hard-drinking miners, that the only cure for poor, diseased Don Juan lay in a judicious application of hair from the dog that had bitten him.
“And this is another reason why I must stay here longer than I intended,” he said softly to Dolores, indicating Don Juan with his thumb. “He's just about ready to be poured back into the bottle, and I'm going to see if I cannot restore him to his original solid state. Experiments in chemistry always did fascinate me.”
He bade her adieu, and accompanied by his protégé, strolled uptown on a shopping tour. Here he outfitted Don Juan neatly but not gaudily and added to his own personal effects two high-power sporting rifles, three large-calibre automatic pistols, and a plentiful supply of ammunition—after which he returned to the hotel, first having conducted Don Juan to a barber shop and given him instructions to report for orders and his midday drink the instant he should have acquired the outward evidences of respectability.
At the hotel Webster found two messages awaiting him. One was from Billy Geary, up at San Miguel de Padua, advising him that everything was in readiness for a trip to the mine; the other was a note from Ricardo Ruey, but signed with his alias of Andrew Bowers. Webster read:
My Dear Friend:
Permit me to congratulate you on your marksmanship last night and to commend your forbearance in winging a gent where killing was not only justified but to be encouraged. You have, so I am authoritatively informed, completely buffaloed your two gentlemen. They cannot, in our own classical English, “quite make you.”
However, this letter is not all gossip. A certain higher-up has at length been convinced that it would be extremely inadvisable to eliminate you now. It has been pointed out to this person that you are a prom. cit. up in your neck of the woods and dangerous to monkey with—personally and because such monkeying may lead to unpleasant complications with your paternal government. A far more artistic and effective way of raising hell with you has been suggested to this higher-up individual, and he has accepted it. Indeed, the plan pleased him so much that he laughed quite heartily. Really, it is quite diabolical, but remember, he who laughs last laughs best—and I'm the villain in this sketch.