trade.  I persuaded the owners to invest a few more thousands, and I put every cent of it in electric lights, cayenne pepper, gold-leaf, and garlic.  I got a Spanish-speaking force of employees and a string band; and there was talk going round of a cockfight in the basement every Sunday.  Maybe I didn’t catch the nut-brown gang!  From Havana to Patagonia the Don Senors knew about the Brunswick.  We get the highfliers from Cuba and Mexico and the couple of Americas farther south; and they’ve simply got the boodle to bombard every bulfinch in the bush with.’

“When we got to the hotel, Denver stops me at the door.

“‘There’s a little liver-coloured man,’ says he, ’sitting in a big leather chair to your right, inside.  You sit down and watch him for a few minutes, and then tell me what you think.’

“I took a chair, while Denver circulates around in the big rotunda.  The room was about full of curly-headed Cubans and South American brunettes of different shades; and the atmosphere was international with cigarette smoke, lit up by diamond rings and edged off with a whisper of garlic.

“That Denver Galloway was sure a relief to the eye.  Six feet two he was, red-headed and pink-gilled as a sun-perch.  And the air he had!  Court of Saint James, Chauncy Olcott, Kentucky colonels, Count of Monte Cristo, grand opera—­all these things he reminded you of when he was doing the honours.  When he raised his finger the hotel porters and bell-boys skated across the floor like cockroaches, and even the clerk behind the desk looked as meek and unimportant as Andy Carnegie.

“Denver passed around, shaking hands with his guests, and saying over the two or three Spanish words he knew until it was like a coronation rehearsal or a Bryan barbecue in Texas.

“I watched the little man he told me to.  ’Twas a little foreign person in a double-breasted frock-coat, trying to touch the floor with his toes.  He was the colour of vici kid, and his whiskers was like excelsior made out of mahogany wood.  He breathed hard, and he never once took his eyes off of Denver.  There was a look of admiration and respect on his face like you see on a boy that’s following a champion base-ball team, or the Kaiser William looking at himself in a glass.

“After Denver goes his rounds he takes me into his private office.

“‘What’s your report on the dingy I told you to watch?’ he asks.

“‘Well,’ says I, ’if you was as big a man as he takes you to be, nine rooms and bath in the Hall of Fame, rent free till October 1st, would be about your size.’

“‘You’ve caught the idea,’ says Denver.  ’I’ve given him the wizard grip and the cabalistic eye.  The glamour that emanates from yours truly has enveloped him like a North River fog.  He seems to think that Senor Galloway is the man who.  I guess they don’t raise 74-inch sorrel-tops with romping ways down in his precinct.  Now, Sully,’ goes on Denver, ’if you was asked, what would you take the little man to be?’