in. Ask Doc to come and see me.'

"Doc comes and looks through the bars at me, surrounded by dirty
soldiers, with even my shoes and canteen confiscated, and he looks
mightily pleased.

"'Hello, Yank,' says he, 'getting a little taste of Johnson's
Island, now, ain't ye?'

"'Doc,' says I, 'I've just had an interview with the U.S. consul. I
gather from his remarks that I might just as well have been caught
selling suspenders in Kishineff under the name of Rosenstein as to
be in my present condition. It seems that the only maritime aid I am
to receive from the United States is some navy-plug to chew. Doc,'
says I, 'can't you suspend hostility on the slavery question long
enough to do something for me?'

"'It ain't been my habit,' Doc Millikin answers, 'to do any painless
dentistry when I find a Yank cutting an eye-tooth. So the Stars and
Stripes ain't lending any marines to shell the huts of the Colombian
cannibals, hey? Oh, say, can you see by the dawn's early light the
star-spangled banner has fluked in the fight? What's the matter with
the War Department, hey? It's a great thing to be a citizen of a
gold-standard nation, ain't it?'

"'Rub it in, Doc, all you want,' says I. 'I guess we're weak on
foreign policy.'

"'For a Yank,' says Doc, putting on his specs and talking more mild,
'you ain't so bad. If you had come from below the line I reckon I
would have liked you right smart. Now since your country has gone
back on you, you have to come to the old doctor whose cotton you
burned and whose mules who stole and whose niggers you freed to help
you. Ain't that so, Yank?'

"'It is,' says I heartily, 'and let's have a diagnosis of the case
right away, for in two weeks' time all you can do is to hold an
autopsy and I don't want to be amputated if I can help it.'

"'Now,' says Doc, business-like, 'it's easy enough for you to get
out of this scrape. Money'll do it. You've got to pay a long string
of 'em from General Pomposo down to this anthropoid ape guarding
your door. About $10,000 will do the trick. Have you got the money?'

"'Me?' says I. 'I've got one Chili dollar, two _real_ pieces, and a
_medio_.'

"'Then if you've any last words, utter 'em,' says that old reb. 'The
roster of your financial budget sounds quite much to me like the
noise of a requiem.'

"'Change the treatment,' says I. 'I admit that I'm short. Call a
consultation or use radium or smuggle me in some saws or something.'

"'Yank,' says Doc Mi