"'Come along with me, Trotter,' says he, 'and I'll show you what brains can
do.'
"'Anything in it?' I asks.
"'The satisfaction,' says he, 'of redeeming a country of two hundred thousand
population from ruin back to prosperity and peace.'
"'Great,' says I. 'I'll go with you. I'd prefer to eat a live broiled lobster
just now; but give me liberty as second choice if I can't be in at the
death.'
"Wainwright and me permeates through the town, and he halts at a
rum-dispensary.
"'Have you any money?' he asks.
"'I have,' says I, fishing out my silver dollar. 'I always go about with
adequate sums of money.'
"'Then we'll drink,' says Wainwright.
"'Not me,' says I. 'Not any demon rum or any of its ramifications for mine.
It's one of my non-weaknesses.'
"'It's my failing,' says he. 'What's your particular soft point?'
"'Industry,' says I, promptly. 'I'm hard-working, diligent, industrious, and
energetic.'
"'My dear Mr. Trotter,' says he, 'surely I've known you long enough to tell
you you are a liar. Every man must have his own particular weakness, and his own
particular strength in other things. Now, you will buy me a drink of rum, and we
will call on President Gomez.'"
III
"Well, sir," Trotter went on, "we walks the four miles out, through a virgin
conservatory of palms and ferns and other roof-garden products, to the
president's summer White House. It was blue, and reminded you of what you see on
the stage in the third act, which they describe as 'same as the first' on the
programs.
"There was more than fifty people waiting outside the iron fence that
surrounded the house and grounds. There was generals and agitators and épergnes
in gold-laced uniforms, and citizens in diamonds and Panama hats—all waiting to
get an audience with the Royal Five-Card Draw. And in a kind of a summer-house
in front of the mansion we could see a burnt-sienna man eating breakfast out of
gold dishes and taking his time. I judged that the crowd outside had come out
for their morning orders and requests, and was afraid to intrude.
"But C. Wainwright wasn't. The gate was open, and he walked inside and up to
the president's table as confident as a man who knows the head waiter in a
fifteen-cent restaurant. And I went with him, because I had only seventy-five
cents, and there was nothing else to do.
"The Gomez man rises from his chair, and looks, colored man as he was, like
he was about to call out for corporal of the guard, post number one. But
Wainwright says some phrases to him in a peculiarly lubricating manner; and the
first thing you know we was all three of us seated at the table, with coffee and
rolls and iguana cutlets coming as fast as about ninety peons could rustle
'em.
"And then Wainwright begins to talk; but the president interrupts him.
"'You Yankees,' says he, polite, 'assuredly take the cake for assurance, I
assure you'—or words to that effect. He spoke English better than you or me.
'You've had a long walk,' says he, 'but it's nicer in the cool morning to walk
than to ride. May I suggest some refreshments?' says he.
"'Rum,' says Wainwright.
"'Gimme a cigar,' says I.
"Well, sir, the two talked an hour, keeping the generals and equities all in
their good uniforms waiting outside the fence. And while I smoked, silent, I
listened to Clifford Wainwright making a solid republic out of the wreck of one.
I didn't follow his arguments with any special collocation of international
intelligibility; but he had Mr. Gomez's attention glued and riveted. He takes
out a pencil and marks the white linen tablecloth all over with figures and
estimates and deductions. He speaks more or less disrespectfully of import and
export duties and custom-house receipts and taxes and treaties and budgets and
concessions and such truck that politics and government require; and when he
gets through the Gomez man hops up and shakes his hand and says he's saved the
country and the people.
"'You shall be rewarded,' says the president.
"'Might I suggest another—rum?' says Wainwright.
"'Cigar for me—darker brand,' says I.
"Well, sir, the president sent me and Wainwright back to the town in a
victoria hitched to two flea-bitten selling-platers—but the best the country
afforded.
"I found out afterward that Wainwright was a regular beachcomber—the smartest
man on the whole coast, but kept down by rum. I liked him.
"One day I inveigled him into a walk out a couple of miles from the village,
where there was an old grass hut on the bank of a little river. While he was
sitting on the grass, talking beautiful of the wisdom of the world that he had
learned in books, I took hold of him easy and tied his hands and feet together
with leather thongs that I had in my pocket.
"'Lie still,' says I, 'and meditate on the exigencies and irregularities of
life till I get back.'
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