d check cravat.

"Well?" he said, approaching them.

"Well?" said Crosby.

"Well?" repeated Brace.

After this national salutation, the three Americans regarded each other
silently.

"Knocked off cultivating to-day?" queried Crosby, lighting a fresh
cigarette.

"The peons have," said Banks; "it's another saint's day. That's the
fourth in two weeks. Leaves about two clear working days in each week,
counting for the days off, when they're getting over the effects of the
others. I tell you what, sir, the Catholic religion is not suited to a
working civilization, or else the calendar ought to be overhauled and
a lot of these saints put on the retired list. It's hard enough to have
all the Apostles on your pay-roll, so to speak, but to have a lot of
fellows run in on you as saints, and some of them not even men or women,
but IDEAS, is piling up the agony! I don't wonder they call the place
'All Saints.' The only thing to do," continued Banks severely, "is
to open communication with the desert, and run in some of the heathen
tribes outside. I've made a proposition to the Council offering to take
five hundred of them in the raw, unregenerate state, and turn 'em
over after a year to the Church. If I could get Hurlstone to do some
log-rolling with that Padre, his friend, I might get the bill through.
But I'm always put off till to-morrow. Everything here is 'Hasta manana;
hasta manana,' always. I believe when the last trump is sounded, they'll
say, 'Hasta manana.' What are YOU doing?" he said, after a pause.

"Waiting for your ship," answered Crosby sarcastically.

"Well, you can laugh, gentlemen--but you won't have to wait long.
According to my calculations that Mexican ship is about due now. And I
ain't basing my figures on anything the Mexican Government is going
to do, or any commercial speculation. I'm reckoning on the Catholic
Church."

The two men languidly looked towards him. Banks continued gravely,--

"I made the proper inquiries, and I find that the stock of rosaries,
scapularies, blessed candles, and other ecclesiastical goods, is running
low. I find that just at the nick of time a fresh supply always comes
from the Bishop of Guadalajara, with instructions from the Church. Now,
gentlemen, my opinion is that the Church, and the Church only, knows the
secret of the passage through the foggy channel, and keeps it to itself.
I look at this commercially, as a question of demand and supply. Well,
sir; the only