"Ever since I seized control of the government in Rio Negro," answered the dictator, simply.
For some reason the reply disconcerted Strawbridge. He had not expected so bald a statement. At that moment came the ripple of a piano from one of the rooms off the hallway. The notes rose and fell, massed by some skilful performer into a continuous tone. Strawbridge listened to it and complimented it.
"Pretty music," he said.
"That is my wife playing—the Señora Fombombo."
"Is it!" The drummer's accent congratulated the general on having a wife who could play so well. He tilted his head so the general could see that he was listening and admiring.
"Do you like that sort of music, General?" he asked breezily.
"What sort?"
"That that your wife's playing. It's classic music, isn't it?"
The general was really at a loss. He also began listening, trying to determine whether the music was of the formal classic school of Bach and Handel, or whether it belonged to the later romantic or to the modern. He was unaware that Americans of Strawbridge's type divided all music into two kinds, classic and jazz, and that anything which they do not like falls into the category of classic, and anything they do is jazz.