"Anything personal in the parrot's remarks?"
Alfaro shook both fists at the offending bird and passionately answered in his fluent English:
"It is an insult to me and my country. It is meant to be the worst kind of an insult. I will kill the cursed parrot before I leave this ship. I am a Colombian, as you know. My father is a minister of the government. Panama was stolen from my country to be made into a republic. It was a revolution? Bah! Nonsense! The soldiers of Colombia could have stopped that little revolution, quick. It was your Teddy Roosevelt, it was your Uncle Sam with the Big Stick that prevented us. Colombia weeps, she is disgraced, when she thinks of Panama."
"But you ought not to be sore on the silly parrot," sagely replied Walter, trying to fathom what appeared to him as an absurd situation. "I never happened to read much about Colombia's side of the story, but the Panama Canal had to be built, you know, and I guess your country was like the grasshopper that sat on the railroad track."
"Grasshopper!" and Alfaro was in more violent eruption than ever as he strode hastily aft to get away from the parrot. "You do not understand, Goodwin. You Yankees can never, never understand. That parrot belongs to a Panamanian—to General Quesada, the big, yellow, fat man whom you have seen on deck. He made himself prominent in the revolution against Colombia, but he is no good. He is a tin soldier. He had taught his parrot to insult my country, to have fun with my honor. He has laughed at me all the voyage. He had made the others laugh at me. It is dangerous to make me so mad."
Walter began to comprehend. He had heartily disliked General Quesada on sight, and he had heard something of the coarse teasing to which Alfaro had been subjected.
"I suppose that is why you have flocked by yourself," he replied. "But you ought not to be so touchy."
At this moment General Quesada himself came waddling on deck, parrot-cage in hand, evidently intending to give his accomplished pet an early morning airing. He was a gross, ungainly man, heavy of countenance. At sight of the indignant Alfaro he shook with laughter and prodded the bird with his finger, which prompted it to screech:
"Viva Panama! Pobre Colombia! Ha! Ha! Ha!"
The young man whom he had enjoyed taunting as a diversion of the voyage retorted with fiery Spanish abuse, which made the Panamanian scowl as if he had been stung by something sharp enough to penetrate his thick hide. He uttered a volley of guttural maledictions in his turn, and was echoed by the blackguardly parrot. For Fernandez Garcia Alfaro this was the last straw. His inflammable temper was ablaze. He rushed at the corpulent general and let his fists fly against the full moon of a countenance.