What the chief said was true. He had thought he was forgotten and stranded in Sicaba. Hastily his mind swept back over the dragging year he was just finishing. Again he saw himself an enthusiastic pilgrim with a work to do. Again he went through the disenchantment; felt the vastness and wildness of the Islands, triumphant Geology and Botany, burst upon him, reminding him for the first time that even an Engineer is only a man at bottom. And once again he felt his disappointment in the people, the simple, childlike, obstinately pliant folk who listened so interestedly, and opposed the inertia of dead centuries to every improvement. How was one to teach them anything? And why should a deputy provincial supervisor, placed in charge of the roads and bridges and harbors of the whole North Coast, with headquarters at Sicaba, try to create roads and harbors and bridges to supervise? That had become the question finally.
But he had kept on trying, and now a year was up and he had accomplished something, even in hopeless Sicaba. The town was a little cleaner for his having lived there. A few people had come to trust "America." And there were roads and bridges and harbors, on the blue-prints in his office. Perhaps it had paid after all. At any rate the people liked him, and he liked them. The fat old Secretario, now—
Just then that patient man interrupted him with the most suppressed of coughs. "Well, Secretario," said McGennis, rousing, "let's drink our chocolate. I must have been dreaming. I hope I haven't kept you waiting long?"
"Only a moment," the visitor assured him, though the Deputy Supervisor's day-dream had lasted long for any dream, "only a moment. I hope," he added, curiosity struggling with courtesy, "that I did not bring bad news."
"Bad news!" McGennis beamed on him. "You brought the best little old news you'll ever tote. Secretario, if you never promulgate worse news than that, you'll boost your circulation a thousand a day. It was red news with green edges."
The Secretary could understand the tone, if the words were beyond him, and his smile matched McGennis's own. "I could almost believe," he hinted with elephantine archness, "that the Government has increased your salary."
"Secretario," said McGennis approvingly, "you hit the truth in the eye that time. But that isn't the best of it."
"Ah," said the Secretary promptly, "then you are also to be married."
"Not on your life!" McGennis shouted scornfully. "Not on your life, Secretario. They've raised me."
"Raised you," the Secretary murmured uncomprehendingly. Most of McGennis's conversation was half incomprehensible to him, and all the more entertaining just for that. It brought him into touch with words he had never heard of.