jamas!" said the man.

"My pajamas!" said the Secretary.

"They look like a Chinaman's Sunday trousers--yes?"

The Secretary looked into the pitiless faces of the multitude which was
gazing into his trunk, but they handed him nothing save small bunches of
laughter.

"Come!" said the man, "where is the Chink that goes with this wearing
apparel? Did you hear over the wireless system about the labor strikes
and try to smuggle in some cheap labor?"

"I assure you that I wear those pajamas myself!" said the Secretary,
interrupting a sob in his throat.

"You wear these pajamas? When? Why? Where?"

"In the secrecy of my boudoir," said the Secretary.

"Aha!" said the man, "so you have some boudoir, too! Bad business! bad
business! I have never heard of a Boudoir Trust, therefore, we do not
make such a thing in this country. My suspicions are getting louder.
What is in this bottle?"

"That is my cough medicine," said the Secretary, giving a sample of the
cough.

"It may be wine or cream de mint because your voice sounds nervous."

"I am nervous because the world is still giggling at my pajamas," said
the Secretary.

"Back to the pajamas! Bad business! bad business! I will have to dig a
tunnel through your neckties to see if you have a _cafe au lait_ or
a _cafe chanteuse_ in the trunk. When a man gets nervous it is
always wise to watch him. Open your mouth!"

The Secretary did so.

"What have you been drinking?"

"A vermouth cocktail," said the Secretary.

"Domestic or imported?"

"Neither; the Captain treated," said the Secretary.

"It looks to me much like foreign spirits," said the man.

"Do you wish to open me further and see?" inquired the Secretary.

Then the man waded into the Secretary's other trunks, two-stepped over
his negligee shirts, waltzed through his waist-coats and did a polka
amidst the ruins of his dress suit.

"What is the verdict?" said the Secretary after the battle was over.

"Not guilty, but you might be," said the man, smiling briefly.

As the Secretary walked out the Stars and Stripes seemed to bow politely
at him and whisper with a voice slightly sarcastic: "You for the seat
away back!"

"Some day," said the Secretary, "I will jump into politics so far that
my trunk will always be a dark secret to the Custom Housers!"

And he did it.

From the life of the Secretary we learn the lesson that there is much
Liberty in this country, but, incidentally, there are a couple of b