Roddy chuckled and clapped his hands loudly for the waiter. He was pleasantly at ease. The breakfast was to his liking, the orange trees shielded him from the sun, and the wind from the sea stirred the flowering shrubs and filled the air with spicy, pungent odors.
“Perhaps the Consul understands them better than you do,” persisted Peter. “These revolutionists——”
“They’re a pack of cards,” declared Roddy. “As Alice said to the King and Queen, ‘You’re only a pack of cards.’”
As he was speaking Mr. Von Amberg, the agent of the steamship line, with whom that morning he had been in consultation, and one of the other commission merchants of Willemstad, came up the gravel walk and halted at their table.
Both Von Amberg and his companion had but lately arrived from Holland. They were big men, of generous girth, beaming with good health and good humor. They looked like Kris Kringles in white duck. In continental fashion they raised their Panama hats and bowed profusely. They congratulated the young men on so soon having found their way to the Café Ducrot, and that Mr. de Peyster, whose name appealed to them, had pronounced the cooking excellent, afforded them personal satisfaction.
Von Amberg told the young men he had just left cards for the club at their hotel, and hoped they would make use of it. His launch, carriage and he, himself, were at their disposition.
When Roddy invited the two merchants to join them Von Amberg thanked him politely and explained that his table was already laid for breakfast. With another exchange of bows the two gentlemen continued up the twisting path and disappeared among the bushes.
“That’s what I mean!” exclaimed Roddy approvingly. “Now they are our people. They have better manners, perhaps, than we have, but they’re sensible, straight-from-the-shoulder men of business. They aren’t spying on anybody, or sending black-hand letters, or burying old men alive in prisons. If they saw a revolution coming they wouldn’t know what——”
He was interrupted by the sudden reappearance of the men of whom he spoke. They were moving rapidly in the direction of the gate, and the countenance of each wore an expression of surprise and alarm. While his companion passed them quickly, Mr. Von Amberg reluctantly hesitated, and, in evident perplexity and with some suspicion, looked from one to the other. The waiter had placed the coffee and bottles of cognac and of curaçao upon the table; and Roddy hospitably moved a chair forward.
“Won’t you change your mind,” he said, “and try some of the stuff that made this island famous?”