erthrown and defeated, and I marched forth clutching in one hand a
new "assignment to quarters."

That night I moved. The new, or more properly the older, room was in
House 35, a one-story building of the old French type, many of which
the Americans revamped upon taking possession of the Isthmian
junk-heap, across and a bit down the graveled street. It was a single
room, with no roommate to question, which I might decorate and
otherwise embellish according to my own personal idiosyncrasies. At the
back, with a door between, dwelt the superintendent of the Zone
telephone system, with a convenient instrument on his table. In short,
fortune seemed at last to be grinning broadly upon me.

But--the sequel. I hate to mention it. I won't. It's absurdly
commonplace. Commonplace? Not a bit of it. He was a champion, an artist
in his specialty. How can I have used that word in connection with his
incomparable performance? Or attempt to give a hint of life on the
Canal Zone without mentioning the most conspicuous factor in it?

He lived in the next room south, a half-inch wooden partition reaching
half-way to the ceiling between his pillow and mine. By day he lay on
his back in the right hand seat of a locomotive cab with his hand on
the throttle and the soles of his shoes on the boiler plate--he was
just long enough to fit into that position without wrinkling. During
the early evening he lay on his back in a stout Mission rocking-chair
on the front porch of House 35, Empire, C.Z. And about 8 P. M. daily he
retired within to lie on his back on a regulation I.C.C. metal
cot--they are stoutly built--one pine half-inch from my own. Obviously
twenty-four hours a day of such onerous occupation had left some slight
effects on his figure. His shape was strikingly similar to that of a
push-ball. Had he fallen down at the top of Ancon or Balboa hill it
would have been an even bet whether he would have rolled down sidewise
or endwise--if his general type of build and specifications will permit
any such distinction.

When I first came upon him, reposing serenely in the porch
rocking-chair on the cushion that upholstered his spinal column, I was
pleased. Clearly he was no "rough-neck"--he couldn't have been and kept
his figure. There was no question but that he was perfectly harmless;
his stories ought to prove cheerful and laugh-provoking and kindly. His
very presence seemed to promise to raise several degrees the merriment
in that corner