Adventure, June 1911 — page 81: what you’re looking at

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

Enter, the Hero joyed meeting you no end! Youll be stay- ing over in Cérdoba, of course, and you'll all come out to the hacienda for tea? Or— better still—stop the night? That would be jolly! I’ve a goodish bit of room, for (’m expecting the people from home over this year, and I can perfectly well put you up. I'll call it a promise, then?” He stood with his hand on young Tommy’s shoulder, his cheery glance running over the languid group till it rested eagerly on Miss Millard. “Good-by, ao for a bit—Beg pardon? You're having the car cut off here? You're staying over in Orizaba? Oh, I say, what luck!” he dropped into his chair again with frank dehigat. AND sO it fell out that when the “‘Dianthe” started on the wonderful drop from Orizaba to Cérdoba three days later, on a marvelous green and gold morning, it was the Englishman who sat beside Miss Millard on the observation plat- form, Tommy standing guard close by, and Messrs. Gelbhauser and Chase hovering unhappily in the middle distance. The boy managed to whisper in her ear: ‘Guess I’m poor as a discoverer—T. Columbus Jerrolds, please write!’’ And Diana blushed “the blushiest blush you ever saw, ” Tommy wrote his mother afterwards, ‘ ‘and there your Angel Son sat, playing the Human Barbed Wire Fence, listening to scraps like—‘And so you’ve been in Surrey,’ (beeen, Mumsie!) ‘almost in sight of my home! Only fancy!)—and Chase and Hermie thirsting for my gore!” All too soon there was Cérdoba smiling up at them, and then Cérdoba station, with the villagers drawn up to meet the train for all the world like a comic-opera chorus, and a slim Mexican with Chesterfieldian man- ners riding a dancing horse and leading an- other to meet Blythe-Masterson, who called a hearty ‘Hello, Romaldo! How are you?” “Sefior,” replied Romaldo with a glitter- ing smile, with great difficulty removing his sombrero and restraining both horses, “T am your Honor’s servant who kisses your hands, and all is well at Las Golon- drinas!’’ They watched the Englishman mount and ride away, the elegant Romaldo falling correctly behind, but his master pulled up sharply at a shrill cry, leaning down to 267 greet a droll little row lined: up to meet him. ‘There were two tiny boys, almost eclipsed by sombreros, and three small girls with heads sedately covered by vebosas, the youngest sucking a bashful finger, He leaned gravely down to shake each one by the hand, rummaged in his pocket for a parcel of dulces, waved again to the “Di- anthe” and clattered off down the sunny street. Mr. Gelbhauser’s party climbed on the mule-car which runs between the station and the town and were jolted through avenues of tropical trees, past the clamor of the market-place, beside the gay plaza with the old cathedral on its edge, into the heart of the tierra caliente. “Wonder which way his hacienda is?” said Tommy. ‘Will we go out to-day or to-morrow?” “T don’t know that we will go either to- day or to-morrow,” answered his host crisply. ‘‘We are probably capable of en- tertaining ourselves during our brief stay. There seems nothing to see—besides the laziest set of idlers we’ve seen yet!” “That fellow frivoling away his time with the Saratoga, for instance?” asked Tommy sweetly, pointing to a slender youth with a heavy trunk slung on his back and a basket in his hands. ‘Or his friend loafing along behind with the four suit-cases and the two satchels?”’ “The gentleman transplanting the boiler seems to be rather busy, too,” laughed Chase, nodding toward an aguador, trotting briskly under his enormous water-jar, and Herman, Jr., joined grudgingly in the laugh. Perhaps it was the aftermath of that irri- tation that held him in its grip in the deli- cious cool of the evening, as they strolled back from the concert in the Alameda, when not even Diana’s face under a pale _ blu rebosa could light his gloom. Nor could the excellent supper the porters had set out in the “Dianthe,” for he stood moodily apart while the others ate, hinting darkly of an early morning departure. A crowd—some who had been listening to the concert and others who had swelled the number—came swarming down to the sta- tion, singing and shouting, and halted near . the car. “‘T wonder if our friends are merely out for the air, or if this is a rally?”’said Chase. ‘Looks rather promising.”’ The crowd swayed nearer, gesticulating COnmiclboooks (©