Adventure, June 1911 — page 80: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

266 contrast to the dusky faces about him. He stood for a moment looking with frank curi- osity at the tourists thronging the plat- form, his blue eyes resting for a permissible _ second on Miss Millard, thén swung past them and boarded the car ahead. “Say, me for him, strong!” cried Tommy warmly. ‘Kind of a cross between the ‘Brushwood Boy’ and that fellow in ‘Sol- diers of Fortune’! By golly, I bet that chap knows lots about this country! I’m going to talk to him! See you next station!’ he raced down the platform as the train began to move, and jumped on the steps of the Pullman. “T dare say you can spare the Infant Class?” laughed Chase, as he took Tommy’s seat. The train had hardly slowed down for the next town when the boy rushed back to the “Dianthe.” ‘Say, Mr. Gelbhauser, there’s a mighty interesting fellow in there —think you’d all enjoy him. Can I bring him in?” Herman, Jr., considered ponderously. “That will be as the ladies of the party wish,” he said, looking only at Miss Millard. Diana looked at the boy’s eager face, and then smiled at her host: ‘It might be very pleasant.” “Tell your friend—if you’re sure, of course, that he’s a proper sort of person— that we’ll be pleased to have him join us for tea,” said Mr. Gelbhauser graciously, and Tommy dashed off to return with his discovery in tow. He was one Edgar Blythe-Masterson, it seemed, late of England, and now in charge of an extensive sugar hacienda near Cér- doba. The “Dianthe’s” party in the main fell upon him with the cordiality born of much boredom, and he took their tea and cakes and their advances with frank appe- tite. Tommy, curled into an incredibly small space on the floor that he might be near his divinity, listened rapturously, looking up at her for approval when the Englishman, in answer to the queries of the other men, told of crops and conditions and politics and, by reason of quaint diction and much ingenuous earnestness, infused the simplest statement with color and warmth. “Then it isn’t all poppycock, this revolu- tion story?” asked Chase. ‘‘There’s al- ways danger of an outbreak?” Tommy saw Diana’s dark eyes traveling consideringly from the newcomer to Her- _zaba, and I’m getting off here! Adventure man Gelbhauser, much too carefully dressed and mannered; to Chase, weary-eyed and much too clever; to the other men of the group, modifications of the two types. “Well, rather!” the Englishman an- swered with a laugh. “Down here in the tierra caliente things are always simmering, d’you see?—and the lid’s just about due to fly off again. There’s a charcoal-burner, a sort of half-witted chap—Florenzio some- thing-or-other—who thinks he’s had visions, and they’ve been rioting all over the shop, with him at their head. Oh, there'll be nothing big, you know—the Government will be down on them like a shot before they’re fairly started, and stand a hundred of ’em against a wall and snuff out.the revo- lution with a few volleys, and the vision chap will be packed off to San Juan de Ulaa—the very unpleasant island prison you'll see in the harbor of Vera Cruz—to rot out his life in a cell where the water’s knee-deep at high tide, and ““ Nevertheless,”’ Gelbhauser cut in with authority, “it’s generally conceded that the Government is most excellent, and that Diaz has redeemed Mexico from a nation of savages.” “Granted,” said Blythe-Masterson pleas- antly. “He’s a Napoleon, of a sort, is Diaz, and he’s worked nothing short of a miracle with the crude stuff he took hold of, but—”’ he hesitated, ‘‘ you can’t have omelette with- out breaking eggs, and there’s always the other view-point. And so long as there are fellows who think it a glorious privilege to get themselves shot or sealed up alive for the sake of ‘Libertad,’ we'll be having revolutions!”’ “But, my gracious, Mr. Blythe-Master- son,’ chirped the elder Miss Levering, “isn’t it dangerous, living in such a wild country?” “Oh, of course, there’s always the off chance that some misguided patriot will pot you on general principles, but I rub along very comfortably. Y’ see, I’ve tucked away a run-away enganchador or two— contract laborers, you know—and the begs gars know I’ve a leaning to their side.” “Does your company like to have you risk antagonizing the Government?” asked Herman, Jr. “My—oh, I’m for myself, you: see. Yes, it makes it rather jolly. I shouldn’t like being accountable. My word, here’s Ori- I’ve en- COmICOOCKKS. CO