e purest Spanish--

"Senor," he said in that language, "pardon a hospitality, perhaps
indiscreet, towards one who appears to be a distinguished, but a
solitary guest in London. Will you do me and my friends, with whom
you have held some conversation, the honour of lunching with us at the
adjoining restaurant?"

The man in the green uniform had turned a fiery colour of pleasure at
the mere sound of his own language, and he accepted the invitation
with that profusion of bows which so often shows, in the case of the
Southern races, the falsehood of the notion that ceremony has nothing
to do with feeling.

"Senor," he said, "your language is my own; but all my love for my
people shall not lead me to deny to yours the possession of so
chivalrous an entertainer. Let me say that the tongue is Spanish but
the heart English." And he passed with the rest into Cicconani's.

"Now, perhaps," said Barker, over the fish and sherry, intensely
polite, but burning with curiosity, "perhaps it would be rude of me to
ask why you did that?"

"Did what, Senor?" asked the guest, who spoke English quite well,
though in a manner indefinably American.

"Well," said the Englishman, in some confusion, "I mean tore a strip
off a hoarding and ... er ... cut yourself ... and...."

"To tell you that, Senor," answered the other, with a certain sad
pride, "involves merely telling you who I am. I am Juan del Fuego,
President of Nicaragua."

The manner with which the President of Nicaragua leant back and drank
his sherry showed that to him this explanation covered all the facts
observed and a great deal more. Barker's brow, however, was still a
little clouded.

"And the yellow paper," he began, with anxious friendliness, "and the
red rag...."

"The yellow paper and the red rag," said Fuego, with indescribable
grandeur, "are the colours of Nicaragua."

"But Nicaragua ..." began Barker, with great hesitation, "Nicaragua is
no longer a...."

"Nicaragua has been conquered like Athens. Nicaragua has been annexed
like Jerusalem," cried the old man, with amazing fire. "The Yankee and
the German and the brute powers of modernity have trampled it with the
hoofs of oxen. But Nicaragua is not dead. Nicaragua is an idea."

Auberon Quin suggested timidly, "A brilliant idea."

"Yes," said the foreigner, snatching at the word. "You are right,
generous Englishman. An idea _brillant_, a burning thought. Senor,
you asked me why, in my desire to see the co