temperature in there was just about the
kind mentioned in the cooking recipes that call for a quick oven.

"Then I gives a silver dollar to one of the guards to send for the
United States consul. He comes around in pajamas, with a pair of
glasses on his nose and a dozen or two inside of him.

"'I'm to be shot in two weeks,' says I. 'And although I've made a
memorandum of it, I don't seem to get it off my mind. You want to
call up Uncle Sam on the cable as quick as you can and get him all
worked up about it. Have 'em send the _Kentucky_ and the _Kearsarge_
and the _Oregon_ down right away. That'll be about enough
battleships; but it wouldn't hurt to have a couple of cruisers and a
torpedo-boat destroyer, too. And--say, if Dewey isn't busy, better
have him come along on the fastest one of the fleet.'

"'Now, see here, O'Keefe,' says the consul, getting the best of a
hiccup, 'what do you want to bother the State Department about this
matter for?'

"'Didn't you hear me?' says I; 'I'm to be shot in two weeks. Did you
think I said I was going to a lawn-party? And it wouldn't hurt of
Roosevelt could get the Japs to send down the _Yellowyamtiskookum_
or the _Ogotosingsing_ or some other first-class cruisers to help.
It would make me feel safer.'

"'Now, what you want,' says the consul, 'is not to get excited. I'll
send you over some chewing tobacco and some banana fritters when I
go back. The United States can't interfere in this. You know you
were caught insurging against the government, and you're subject to
the laws of this country. To tell the truth, I've had an intimation
from the State Department--unofficially, of course--that whenever
a soldier of fortune demands a fleet of gunboats in a case of
revolutionary _katzenjammer_, I should cut the cable, give him all
the tobacco he wants, and after he's shot take his clothes, if they
fit me, for part payment of my salary.'

"'Consul,' says I to him, 'this is a serious question. You are
representing Uncle Sam. This ain't any little international
tomfoolery, like a universal peace congress or the christening of
the _Shamrock IV_. I'm an American citizen and I demand protection.
I demand the Mosquito fleet, and Schley, and the Atlantic squadron,
and Bob Evans, and General E. Byrd Grubb, and two or three
protocols. What are you going to do about it?'

"'Nothing doing,' says the consul.

"'Be off with you, then,' says I, out of patience with him, 'and
send me Doc Millik