"Tell me the yarn, old boy—I know it's of more than fighting and fever," he said, settling himself comfortably in his chair.
O'Rourke waited until the servant had deposited the glasses and retired. Then he selected two cigars from his case with commendable care, and, rolling one across the table, lit the other. He inhaled the first draught lazily.
"These are deuced fine cigars," remarked Hemming. O'Rourke nodded his head, and, with his gaze upon the blue drift of smoke, began his story.
"I was in a very bad way when I got out of that infernal island last time. I had a dose of fever that quite eclipsed any of my former experiences in that line—also a bullet-hole in the calf of my left leg. Maybe you noticed my limp, and thought I was feigning gout. A tug brought me back to this country, landing me at Port Tampa. Some patriotic Cubans were waiting for me, and I made the run up to Tampa in a car decorated with flags. I wore my Cuban uniform, you know, and must have looked more heroic than I felt."
Hemming raised his eyebrows at that.
"I'm a major in the Cuban army—the devil take it," explained O'Rourke.
"The patriots escorted me to a hotel," he continued, "but the manager looked at my banana-hued face and refused to have anything to do with me at any price. Failing in this, my tumultuous friends rushed me to a wooden hospital, at the end of a river of brown sand which the inhabitants of that town call an avenue. I was put to bed in the best room in the place, and then my friends hurried away, each one to find his own doctor to offer me. I was glad of the quiet, for I felt about as beastly as a man can feel without flickering out entirely. I don't think my insides just then would have been worth more than two cents to any one but a medical student. The matron—at least that's what they called her—came in to have a look at me, and ask me questions. She was young, and she was pretty, and her impersonal manner grieved me even then. I might have been a dashed pacifico for all the interest she showed in me, beyond taking my temperature and ordering the fumigation of my clothes. I wouldn't have felt so badly about it if she had not been a lady—but she was, sure enough, and her off-hand treatment very nearly made me forget my cramps and visions of advancing land-crabs. During the next few days I didn't know much of anything. When my head felt a little clearer, the youthful matron brought me a couple of telegrams. I asked her to open them, and read them to me. Evidently my Cuban friends had reported the state of my health, and other things, for both telegrams were tender inquiries after my condition.
"'You seem to be a person of some importance,' she said, regarding me as if I were a specimen in a jar.
"'My name is O'Rourke,' I murmured. For awhile she stared at me in a puzzled sort of way. Suddenly she blushed.
"'I beg your pardon, Mr. O'Rourke,' she said, and sounded as if she meant it. I felt more comfortable, and sucked my ration of milk and lime-water with relish. Next day the black orderly told me that the matron was Miss Hudson, from somewhere up North. He didn't know just where. I gave him a verbal order on the hospital for a dollar.