hear they've arrested Captain
Jones for embezzlement too."

"Good heavens!" cried Sam, "what an outrage!" And he told Cleary of his
narrow escape from complicity in the matter, and how the military
operations had prevented him from calling on the contractors.
"Civilians don't understand these things," he added. "They oughtn't to
send them out here. They don't understand things."

"No. They haven't been brought up on tabasco sauce. What can you expect
of them?"

They soon arrived at the Alhambra Theater at which the fight was to
take place, and found it in progress. A large crowd was collected,
consisting of soldiers and natives in equal proportions. The last round
was just finishing, and Joe Corker was in the act of knocking his
opponent out. The audience was shouting with glee and excitement, the
cheers being mixed with hisses and cries of "Fake, fake!"

"I know Corker," said Cleary. "Come, I'll introduce you."

They pushed forward through the crowd, and were soon in a room behind
the stage, where Corker was being rubbed and washed down by his
assistants. Sam looked at the great man and felt rather small and
insignificant. "Here's a kind of civilian who is not inferior to army
men," he thought. "Perhaps he is even superior." He would not have said
this aloud, but he thought it.

"How de do, Joe?" said Cleary, shaking hands. "That was a great fight.
You knocked him out clean. Here's my friend, Colonel Jinks, the hero of
San Diego and the pacifier of the Moritos."

Corker nodded condescendingly.

"We enjoyed the fight very much," said Sam, not altogether at his ease.
"It reminded me of my own experience at East Point."

"It was a good fight," said Corker, "and a damned fair one too. I'd
like to punch the heads of those fellers who cried 'fake.' It was as
fair as fair could be, and Dandy and me was as evenly matched as two
peas. I always believe in takin' a feller of your size, and I did."

"That wasn't the way at East Point," said Cleary. "They didn't take
fellows of their size there."

"That's against our rules anyway," said Corker.

"It must be a civilian rule," said Sam, beginning to feel his
superiority again. "The military rule as we were taught it at East
Point was to take a smaller man if you could, and you see, the army
does just the same thing. We tackled Castalia and then the Cubapines,
and they weren't of our size. We don't fight the powerful countries."