opposite shore, and when the oil got on
fire, and rolled up all over Gibraltar, and burned every living thing, I
would throw water from a fire department boat on the rock, and she would
split open and roll all over-the prairie, and then I would bury the
cremated dead out on the desert, and seek other worlds to conquer, like
Alexander the Great. But don't be afraid. I won't do it unless they make
me mad, but you watch my smoke if they pick on your little Hennery too
much, when he grows up.

But I haven't got any kick coming about Gibraltar, cause they treated
dad and I all right, and the commander detailed an ensign to show us all
through the fortress. Now don't get an ensign mixed up with a unique,
such as showed us through the Turkish harem. An English ensign is just
as different from a Turkish unique as you can imagine. Every man to his
place. You couldn't teach a Turkish unique how to show visitors around
an English fortress, and an English ensign in a Turkish harem would
bring on a world's war, they are so different. Well, wc went through
tunnels in the rock, and up and down elevators, and all was light as day
from electric lights, and we saw ammunition enough to sink all the ships
in the world, if it could be exploded in the right place, and they have
provisions enough stored in the holes in the rock to keep an army for
forty years if they didn't get ptomaine poisoned from eating canned
stuff. It was all a revelation to dad, and when we got all through,
and got out into the sunlight, we breathed free, and when clad got his
second wind he broke up the English officers by taking out a pencil and
piece of paper, and asked them what they would take for the rock and its
contents, and move out, and let the American flag float over it. Well,
say, they were hot, and they told dad to go plum to 'ell, but dad
wouldn't do it. He said America didn't want the old stone quarry,
anyway, and if it did it could come and take it. I guess they would have
had dad arrested for treason, only when we got out into the town there
was the whole British Atlantic squadron lined up, with the men up in the
rigging like monkeys, and every vessel was firing a salute, as a yacht
came steaming by. Dad thought war had surely broke out, or that some
rich American owned the yacht, but it turned out to be Queen Alexandria
and a party of tourists, and when the band played "God Save the Queen,"
dad got up on his hind legs and sang so loud you would think