en I'm a big man, papa?"

"If they don't, I won't let 'em have any more mangoes."

"An' what the bugle men play 'n' what the flags say when they hoists
them up in the air on the big gun-ships, papa?"

"If you're a good boy, they will. And now what d'y' say if we go in and
you tell Diana your papa wants some hot water out of the kettle. And
while you're doing that and auntie and godfather are talking things over
to themselves, I'll be laying out my razor and my soap 'n' things all
ready to shave. There you are, there's the boy!"

* * * * *

It was after dinner on Welkie's veranda. The two friends had been
smoking for some time in silence. Young Greg had just left with his aunt
to go to bed. Balfe was thinking what a pity it was the boy's mother
had not lived to see him now. He turned in his chair. "What would you do
without him, Greg?"

Welkie understood what his friend had in mind. "It would be like the
days having no sunrise. I'd be groping in the dark, and almost no reason
for me to keep on groping. Splashed in concrete and slaked in lime, from
head to toe, steaming under that eternal sun, five hundred spiggities
and not half enough foremen to keep 'em jumping, I find myself saying to
myself, 'What in God's name is the use?' and then I'll see a picture of
his shining face running to meet me on the beach, and, Andie, it's like
the trade-wind setting in afresh. The men look around to see what I'm
whistling about. But"--Welkie sniffed and stood up--"get it?"

Balfe caught a faint breath, the faintest tang borne upon the wings of
the gentlest of breezes.

Welkie went inside. Presently he returned with bottles and glasses.
"When a little breeze stirs, as it sometimes does of a hot night here,
and there's beer in the ice-box and the ice not all melted, life's 'most
worth living. Try some, Andie--from God's country. And one of these
Porto Ric' cigars. Everybody'll be smoking 'em soon, and then we poor
chaps'll have to be paying New York prices for 'em, which means we'll
have to make a new discovery somewhere."

"Wait, Greg--I almost forgot." Balfe stepped to his suit-case, took out
a box of cigars, and handed it to Welkie. "From Key West. Hernando
Cabada. When I told him I was going to see you, he sat down and rolled
out that boxful, which took him three hours, and gave them to me for
you. 'For my friend, Mis-ter Wel-keey-ay,' he said."

"Good old Hernando!" Welkie opened the box. Ba