ile the quarantine doctor and the custom-house crew rowed out to
attend to their duties.

An hour later Billy Keogh lounged into the consulate, clean and cool
in his linen clothes, and grinning like a pleased shark.

"Guess what?" he said to Johnny, lounging in his hammock.

"Too hot to guess," said Johnny, lazily.

"Your shoe-store man's come," said Keogh, rolling the sweet morsel on
his tongue, "with a stock of goods big enough to supply the continent
as far down as Terra del Fuego. They're carting his cases over to
the custom-house now. Six barges full they brought ashore and have
paddled back for the rest. Oh, ye saints in glory! won't there
be regalements in the air when he gets onto the joke and has an
interview with Mr. Consul? It'll be worth nine years in the tropics
just to witness that one joyful moment."

Keogh loved to take his mirth easily. He selected a clean place
on the matting and lay upon the floor. The walls shook with his
enjoyment. Johnny turned half over and blinked.

"Don't tell me," he said, "that anybody was fool enough to take that
letter seriously."

"Four-thousand-dollar stock of goods!" gasped Keogh, in ecstasy.
"Talk about coals to Newcastle! Why didn't he take a ship-load of
palm-leaf fans to Spitzbergen while he was about it? Saw the old
codger on the beach. You ought to have been there when he put on his
specs and squinted at the five hundred or so barefooted citizens
standing around."

"Are you telling the truth, Billy?" asked the consul, weakly.

"Am I? You ought to see the buncoed gentleman's daughter he brought
along. Looks! She makes the brick-dust senoritas here look like
tar-babies."

"Go on," said Johnny, "if you can stop that asinine giggling. I hate
to see a grown man make a laughing hyena of himself."

"Name is Hemstetter," went on Keogh. "He's a-- Hello! what's the
matter now?"

Johnny's moccasined feet struck the floor with a thud as he wriggled
out of his hammock.

"Get up, you idiot," he said, sternly, "or I'll brain you with this
inkstand. That's Rosine and her father. Gad! what a drivelling idiot
old Patterson is! Get up, here, Billy Keogh, and help me. What the
devil are we going to do? Has all the world gone crazy?"

Keogh rose and dusted himself. He managed to regain a decorous
demeanour.

"Situation has got to be met, Johnny," he said, with some success
at seriousness. "I didn't think about its being your girl until you
spoke. First thing to do i