ays I, 'and manage his
own canvass?'

"'You don't understand South American politics,' says Denver,
getting out the cigars. 'It's this way. General Rompiro had the
misfortune of becoming a popular idol. He distinguished himself
by leading the army in pursuit of a couple of sailors who had
stolen the plaza--or the carramba, or something belonging to the
government. The people called him a hero and the government got
jealous. The president sends for the chief of the Department of
Public Edifices. "Find me a nice, clean adobe wall," says he, "and
send Senor Rompiro up against it. Then call out a file of soldiers
and--then let him be up against it." Something,' goes on Denver,
'like the way they've treated Hobson and Carrie Nation in our
country. So the General had to flee. But he was thoughtful enough
to bring along his roll. He's got sinews of war enough to buy a
battleship and float her off in the christening fluid.'

"'What chance has he got to be president?'

"'Wasn't I just giving you his rating?' says Denver. 'His country
is one of the few in South America where the presidents are elected
by popular ballot. The General can't go there just now. It hurts
to be shot against a wall. He needs a campaign manager to go down
and whoop things up for him--to get the boys in line and the new
two-dollar bills afloat and the babies kissed and the machine in
running order. Sully, I don't want to brag, but you remember how I
brought Coughlin under the wire for leader of the nineteenth? Ours
was the banner district. Don't you suppose I know how to manage a
little monkey-cage of a country like that? Why, with the dough the
General's willing to turn loose I could put two more coats of Japan
varnish on him and have him elected Governor of Georgia. New York
has got the finest lot of campaign managers in the world, Sully, and
you give me a feeling of hauteur when you cast doubts on my ability
to handle the political situation in a country so small that they
have to print the names of the towns in the appendix and footnotes.'

"I argued with Denver some. I told him that politics down in that
tropical atmosphere was bound to be different from the nineteenth
district; but I might just as well have been a Congressman from
North Dakota trying to get an appropriation for a lighthouse and a
coast survey. Denver Galloway had ambitions in the manager line, and
what I said didn't amount to as much as a fig-leaf at the National
Dressmakers' C