e
regular sawmill-drama kind--but you're one of my particular friends,
and I don't want to stick you hard."

"Suppose you go into the details," suggested Goodwin, calmly
arranging his letters on the table.

"All right," said "Beelzebub." "I like the way you take it. I despise
histrionics; so you will please prepare yourself for the facts
without any red fire, calcium or grace notes on the saxophone.

"On the night that His Fly-by-night Excellency arrived in town I
was very drunk. You will excuse the pride with which I state that
fact; but it was quite a feat for me to attain that desirable state.
Somebody had left a cot out under the orange trees in the yard of
Madama Ortiz's hotel. I stepped over the wall, laid down upon it, and
fell asleep. I was awakened by an orange that dropped from the tree
upon my nose; and I laid there for awhile cursing Sir Isaac Newton,
or whoever it was that invented gravitation, for not confining his
theory to apples.

"And then along came Mr. Miraflores and his true-love with the
treasury in a valise, and went into the hotel. Next you hove in
sight, and held a pow-wow with the tonsorial artist who insisted upon
talking shop after hours. I tried to slumber again; but once more my
rest was disturbed--this time by the noise of the popgun that went
off upstairs. Then that valise came crashing down into an orange
tree just above my head; and I arose from my couch, not knowing
when it might begin to rain Saratoga trunks. When the army and the
constabulary began to arrive, with their medals and decorations
hastily pinned to their pajamas, and their snickersnees drawn, I
crawled into the welcome shadow of a banana plant. I remained there
for an hour, by which time the excitement and the people had cleared
away. And then, my dear Goodwin--excuse me--I saw you sneak back and
pluck that ripe and juicy valise from the orange tree. I followed
you, and saw you take it to your own house. A hundred-thousand-dollar
crop from one orange tree in a season about breaks the record of the
fruit-growing industry.

"Being a gentleman at that time, of course, I never mentioned the
incident to anyone. But this morning I was kicked out of a saloon,
my code of honour is all out at the elbows, and I'd sell my mother's
prayer-book for three fingers of _aguardiente_. I'm not putting on
the screws hard. It ought to be worth a thousand to you for me to
have slept on that cot through the whole business without waking