tell, I believe," said Goodwin, with a
mischievous look in his eye, "except that old Geddie is getting
grumpier and crosser every day. If something doesn't happen to
relieve his mind I'll have to quit smoking on his back porch--and
there's no other place available that is cool enough."

"He isn't grumpy," said Paula Brannigan, impulsively, "when he--"

But she ceased suddenly, and drew back with a deepening colour; for
her mother had been a _mestizo_ lady, and the Spanish blood had
brought to Paula a certain shyness that was an adornment to the other
half of her demonstrative nature.

II

THE LOTUS AND THE BOTTLE

Willard Geddie, consul for the United States in Coralio, was working
leisurely on his yearly report. Goodwin, who had strolled in as he
did daily for a smoke on the much coveted porch, had found him so
absorbed in his work that he departed after roundly abusing the
consul for his lack of hospitality.

"I shall complain to the civil service department," said
Goodwin;--"or is it a department?--perhaps it's only a theory. One
gets neither civility nor service from you. You won't talk; and
you won't set out anything to drink. What kind of a way is that of
representing your government?"

Goodwin strolled out and across to the hotel to see if he could bully
the quarantine doctor into a game on Coralio's solitary billiard
table. His plans were completed for the interception of the fugitives
from the capital; and now it was but a waiting game that he had to
play.

The consul was interested in his report. He was only twenty-four; and
he had not been in Coralio long enough for his enthusiasm to cool in
the heat of the tropics--a paradox that may be allowed between Cancer
and Capricorn.

So many thousand bunches of bananas, so many thousand oranges and
cocoanuts, so many ounces of gold dust, pounds of rubber, coffee,
indigo and sarsaparilla--actually, exports were twenty per cent.
greater than for the previous year!

A little thrill of satisfaction ran through the consul. Perhaps, he
thought, the State Department, upon reading his introduction, would
notice--and then he leaned back in his chair and laughed. He was
getting as bad as the others. For the moment he had forgotten that
Coralio was an insignificant town in an insignificant republic lying
along the by-ways of a second-rate sea. He thought of Gregg, the
quarantine doctor, who subscribed for the London _Lancet_, expecting
to find it quoting