“What do you mean, ’brachycephalic’?” Parker queried, uneasily.

“They belong to the race of round heads.  Didn’t you know that ethnologists grub round in ancient cemeteries and tombs and trace the evolution and wanderings of tribes of men by the skulls they find there?”

“I did not.”

Kay commenced to giggle at her father’s confusion.  The latter had suddenly, as she realized, made the surprising discovery that in this calm son of the San Gregorio he had stumbled upon a student, to attempt to break a conversational lance with whom must end in disaster.  His daughter’s mirth brought him to a realization of the sorry figure he would present in argument.

“Well, my dear, what are you laughing at?” he demanded, a trifle austerely.

“I’m laughing at you.  You told me yesterday you were loaded for these Californians and could flatten their anti-Japanese arguments in a jiffy.”

“Perhaps I am loaded still.  Remember, Kay, Mr. Farrel has done all of the talking and we have been attentive listeners.  Wait until I have had my innings.”

“By the way, Mr. Parker,” Farrel asked, “who loaded you up with pro-Japanese arguments?”

Parker flushed and was plainly ill at ease.  Farrel turned to Kay.

“I do not know yet where you folks came from, but I’ll make a bet that I can guess—­in one guess.”

“What will you bet, my erudite friend?” the girl bantered.

“I’ll bet you Panchito against a box of fifty of the kind of cigars your father smokes.”

“Taken.  Where do we hail from, Don Mike?”

“From New York city.”

“Dad, send Mr. Farrel a box of cigars.”

“Now, I’ll make you another bet.  I’ll stake Panchito against another box of the same cigars that your father is a member of the Japan Society, of New York city.”

“Send Mr. Farrel another box of cigars, popsy-wops.  Don Mike, how did you guess it?”

“Oh, all the real plutocrats in New York have been sold memberships in that instrument of propaganda by the wily sons of Nippon.  The Japan Society is supposed to be a vehicle for establishing friendlier commercial and social relations between the United States and Japan.  The society gives wonderful banquets and yammers away about the Brotherhood of Man and sends out pro-Japanese propaganda.  Really, it’s a wonderful institution, Miss Parker.  The millionaire white men of New York finance the society, and the Japs run it.  It was some shrewd Japanese member of the Japan Society who sent you to Okada on this land-deal, was it not, Mr. Parker?”

“You’re too good a guesser for comfort,” the latter parried.  “I’m going to write some letters.  I’m motoring in to El Toro this afternoon, and I’ll want to mail them.”

“’Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof’,” Don Miguel assured him lightly.  “Whenever you feel the urge for further information about yourself and your Japanese friends, I am at your service.  I expect to prove to you in about three lessons that you have unwittingly permitted yourself to develop into a very poor citizen, even if you did load up with Liberty Bonds and deliver four-minute speeches during all of the loan drives.”