is good money in Peru; so Cogan bought
Tommie three drinks of some kind of Spanish wine and himself one
lemonade for the half-dollar.
"It couldn't have been the wine--he hadn't had enough of that. Maybe it
was the reaction from the excitement of the wreck that made Tommie
sleepy. He wanted to turn in, and it being now night-time they went into
a park where a fine band was playing. It was a beautiful night, with a
moon; and under the moon, while the music rolled out, dark-eyed
senoritas with their mothers strolled up and down, and the young fellows
hung around and got in a word when they could. On the edges the police
kept an eye on the loafers.
"The night breeze which made the trees almost talk, the water of the
fountain arching under the colored lights, the scent of the flowering
bushes--Tommie and Cogan after their five weeks at sea just sat there
till long after the music had stopped and everybody gone home. Then
Tommie fell asleep, full length under a tree. Cogan tried to stand watch
but he was tired, too, and after a while, with his back against the same
tree, and the water-play of the fountain still tinkling in his ears, he
fell asleep alongside Tommie.
"Cogan had a dream of somebody trying to pull his leg off and it woke
him. He looked down and saw that the lace of one of his shoes was
untied. He retied it and looked at his chum. He was still asleep,
snoring, but there was something missing. In half a minute, his brain
clearing, he saw that Tommie's shoes were gone, and also his hat, and
his pockets turned inside out. Cogan then noticed that his own trousers
pockets were turned inside out. He stood up and caught sight of two
fellows just dropping over the tall iron fence surrounding the park. The
gates of the park were closed, and locked, too, or so Cogan guessed, and
wasted no time in trying them. The fence was pretty high and had iron
spikes on top, and he felt somewhat stiff in his joints, but a hot
temper is good as a bath and a rub-down any time--Cogan vaulted the
fence, and the two natives just then turned and saw him. He was coming
on pretty fast and they threw up their hands, dropped the shoes and hat,
and went tearing away. Cogan had only to stoop down and pick up the
stuff, but it wasn't property he was after. To steal the shoes off of a
shipwrecked sailor! Even if they weren't told he was shipwrecked, they
ought to have guessed, or so he thought, and he held on after them, and
Cogan could run pr
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