ant character of San Pablo, and, anyway, it would only be in payment for our lodgings." The Colombian never needs much urging to accept a favor, and his formal protests soon died away. I sat down to write out the check: The Fake Bank, 920 110th Street, New York, U. S. A. Pay to the order of the Chirological College of Los Angeles, Cal., the sum of six dollars ($6). BARON MÜNCHHAUSEN. The barber carefully folded the valuable document, and hid it away in his garments, promising to send it at the very first opportunity, in a plain envelop, unregistered. "For," he explained, confiding to us a nation-wide secret, "the post-office officials always steal any letter they think has anything valuable in it, and to register it makes them sure it has." The treatment was cruel, perhaps, but we could think of no better. No doubt Santiago waited many anxious months for the arrival of the system, but certainly no longer than he would have waited had he managed to send real money. Meanwhile, as the enthusiasm of a Latin-American shrinks rapidly, it may be that he grew resigned to his failure to become the secret ruler of San Pablo, and took up again the shaving of its faces and the cutting of its coarse, black hair. Suddenly the chatter of the sergeant's teeth Stopped. He was angry, too; And he whispered: "Are you game? Get the Maxim gun!" I was conscious of my knocking knees. I saw them staring from the tail of my eye We lifted the gun and clamped it on, With the muzzle at the parapet. "Ready!" he nodded. I turned my head And nearly collapsed with fright. Four of them were standing at my shoulder, The others to the left and right. Then, "Fire!" I shouted, and the gun leaped up With a roar and a spurt of flame. The sergeant gripped the handles while the belt ran through, Never stopping to correct his aim. Fearfully I turned, then jumped to my feet, Forgetting all about the feed. They were running like the wind up a long, steep hill, With the thumb-and-finger man in the lead! And high above the rattle and roar of the gun I heard a despairing yell, As Englishmen, Dutchmen, pikemen, bowmen, The men who were sleeping in the moonlit trench Sat up and rubbed their eyes; And one of them muttered in a drowsy voice, "Wot to blazes is the row, you guys?" The sergeant said: "That 'll do! That 'll do!" But he whispered to me, "Keep mum!" They would n't have believed that the row was all about |