“One evening after we had been in Guaya—in this town of Smellville-by-the-Sea—about a month, and me and O’Connor were sitting outside the door helping old tempus fugit with rum and ice and limes, I says to him:

“ ‘If you’ll excuse a patriot that don’t exactly know what he’s patronizing, for the question—what is your scheme for subjugating this country? Do you intend to plunge it into bloodshed, or do you mean to buy its votes peacefully and honourably at the polls?’

“ ‘Bowers,’ says he, ‘ye’re a fine little man and I intend to make great use of ye after the conflict. But ye do not understand statecraft. Already by now we have a network of strategy clutching with invisible fingers at the throat of the tyrant Calderas. We have agents at work in every town in the republic. The Liberal party is bound to win. On our secret lists we have the names of enough sympathizers to crush the administration forces at a single blow.’

“ ‘A straw vote,’ says I, ‘only shows which way the hot air blows.’

“ ‘Who has accomplished this?’ goes on O’Connor. ‘I have. I have directed everything. The time was ripe when we came, so my agents inform me. The people are groaning under burdens of taxes and levies. Who will be their natural leader when they rise? Could it be anyone but meself? ’Twas only yesterday that Zaldas, our representative in the province of Durasnas, tells me that the people, in secret, already call me “El Library Door,” which is the Spanish manner of saying “The Liberator.” ’

“ ‘Was Zaldas that maroon-coloured old Aztec with a paper collar on and unbleached domestic shoes?’ I asked.

“ ‘He was,’ says O’Connor.

“ ‘I saw him tucking a yellow-back into his vest pocket as he came out,’ says I. ‘It may be,’ says I, ‘that they call you a library door, but they treat you more like the side-door of a bank. But let us hope for the worst.’

“ ‘It has cost money, of course,’ says O’Connor; ‘but we’ll have the country in our hands inside of a month.’

“In the evenings we walked about in the plaza and listened to the band playing and mingled with the populace at its distressing and obnoxious pleasures. There were thirteen vehicles belonging to the upper classes, mostly rockaways and old-style barouches, such as the mayor rides in at the unveiling of the new poor-house at Milledgeville, Alabama. Round and round the desiccated fountain in the middle of the plaza they drove, and lifted their high silk hats to their friends. The common people walked around in bare-footed bunches, puffing stogies that a Pittsburg millionaire wouldn’t have chewed for a dry smoke on Ladies’ Day at his club. And the grandest figure in the whole turnout was Barney O’Connor. Six foot two he stood in his Fifth Avenue clothes, with his eagle eye and his black moustache that tickled his ears. He was a born dictator and tsar and hero and harrier of the human race. It looked to me that all eyes were turned upon O’Connor, and that every woman there loved him, and every man feared him. Once or twice I looked at him and thought of funnier things that had happened than his winning out in his game; and I began to feel like a Hidalgo de Officio de Grafto de South America myself. And then I would come down again to solid bottom and let my imagination gloat, as usual, upon the twenty-one American dollars due me on Saturday night.

“ ‘Take note,’ says O’Connor to me as thus we walked, ‘of the mass of the people. Observe their oppressed and melancholy air. Can ye not see that they are ripe for revolt? Do ye not perceive that they are disaffected?’

“ ‘I do not,’ says I. ‘Nor disinfected either. I’m beginning to understand these people. When they look unhappy they’re enjoying themselves. When they feel unhappy they go to sleep. They’re not the kind of people to take an interest in revolutions.’