This is a pretty fair country, Jack—if you survive long enough to get used to it. At first you think it's Paradise; then you grow to hate it and know it for hell with the lid off; and finally all your early love for it returns and you become what I am now—a tropical tramp! There is only one social stratum lower than mine, and that's the tropical beachcomber. I am not that—yet; and will not be if my landlady will continue to listen to my blandishments. She is a sweet soul, with a divine disposition, and I am duly grateful.
I would tell you all about the geography, topography, flora and fauna of Sobrante, but you can ascertain that in detail by consulting any standard encyclopedia. Governmentally the country is similar to its sister republics. The poor we have always with us; also a first-class, colorado-maduro despot in the political saddle, and it's a cold day indeed when two patriots, two viva's and a couple of old Long Tom Springfield rifles cannot upset the Sobrante apple cart. We have the usual Governmental extravagance in the matter of statues to countless departed “liberators” in all the public squares, and money is no object. It is depreciated shin-plasters, and I had to use a discarded sugar-barrel to hold mine when I arrived and changed four hundred pesos oro into the national currency. If a waiter brings you a jolt of hooch, you're stingy if you tip him less than a Sobrante dollar.
We have a Malicon along the bay shore and back again, with a municipal bandstand in the middle thereof, upon which the fine city band of Buenaventura plays nightly those languid Spanish melodies that must have descended to us from the Inquisition. If you can spare the cash, send me a bale of the latest New York rags and a banjo, and I'll start something. I have nothing else to do until I hear from you, save shake dice at The Frenchman's with the Présidente, who has nothing else to do except lap up highballs and wait for the next drawing of the lottery. I asked him for a job to tide me over temporarily, and he offered me a portfolia! I could have been Minister of Finance!
I declined, from a constitutional inability, inherent in the Irish, to assimilate a joke from a member of an inferior race.
We haven't had a revolution for nearly six months, but we have hopes.
There are some white men here, neither better nor worse. We tolerate each other.
I am addressing you at the Engineers' Club, in the hope that my letter may reach you there, or perhaps the secretary will know your address and forward it to you. If you are foot-loose and still entertain a lingering regard for your old pal, get busy on this mining concession P. D. Q. Time is the essence of the contract, because I am holding on to the thin edge of nothing, and if we have a change of government I may lose even that. I need you, John Stuart Webster, worse than I need salvation. I enclose you a list of equipment required.
If you receive this letter and can do anything for me, please cable. If you cannot, please cable anyway. It is needless for me to state that the terms of division are as you make them, although I think fifty-fifty would place us both on Easy Street for the rest of our days. Do let me hear from you, Jack, if only to tell me the old entente cordiale still exists. I know now that I was considerable of a heedless pup a few years ago and overlooked my hand quite regularly, but now that I have a good thing I do not know of anybody with whom I care to share it except your own genial self. Please let me hear from you.
Affectionately,
Billy.