One day a Hamburg-American liner deposited upon Pier No. 55 Gen. Perrico Ximenes Villablanca Falcon, a passenger from Cartagena.  The General was between a claybank and a bay in complexion, had a 42-inch waist and stood 5 feet 4 with his Du Barry heels.  He had the mustache of a shooting-gallery proprietor, he wore the full dress of a Texas congressman and had the important aspect of an uninstructed delegate.

Gen. Falcon had enough English under his hat to enable him to inquire his way to the street in which El Refugio stood.  When he reached that neighborhood he saw a sign before a respectable red-brick house that read, “Hotel Espanol.”  In the window was a card in Spanish, “Aqui se habla Espanol.”  The General entered, sure of a congenial port.

In the cozy office was Mrs. O’Brien, the proprietress.  She had blond—­oh, unimpeachably blond hair.  For the rest she was amiability, and ran largely to inches around.  Gen. Falcon brushed the floor with his broad-brimmed hat, and emitted a quantity of Spanish, the syllables sounding like firecrackers gently popping their way down the string of a bunch.

“Spanish or Dago?” asked Mrs. O’Brien, pleasantly.

“I am a Colombian, madam,” said the General, proudly.  “I speak the Spanish.  The advisement in your window say the Spanish he is spoken here.  How is that?”

“Well, you’ve been speaking it, ain’t you?” said the madam.  “I’m sure I can’t.”

At the Hotel Espanol General Falcon engaged rooms and established himself.  At dusk he sauntered out upon the streets to view the wonders of this roaring city of the North.  As he walked he thought of the wonderful golden hair of Mme. O’Brien.  “It is here,” said the General to himself, no doubt in his own language, “that one shall find the most beautiful senoras in the world.  I have not in my Colombia viewed among our beauties one so fair.  But no!  It is not for the General Falcon to think of beauty.  It is my country that claims my devotion.”

At the corner of Broadway and the Little Rialto the General became involved.  The street cars bewildered him, and the fender of one upset him against a pushcart laden with oranges.  A cab driver missed him an inch with a hub, and poured barbarous execrations upon his head.  He scrambled to the sidewalk and skipped again in terror when the whistle of a peanut-roaster puffed a hot scream in his ear.  “Valgame Dios!  What devil’s city is this?”

As the General fluttered out of the streamers of passers like a wounded snipe he was marked simultaneously as game by two hunters.  One was “Bully” McGuire, whose system of sport required the use of a strong arm and the misuse of an eight-inch piece of lead pipe.  The other Nimrod of the asphalt was “Spider” Kelley, a sportsman with more refined methods.

In pouncing upon their self-evident prey, Mr. Kelley was a shade the quicker.  His elbow fended accurately the onslaught of Mr. McGuire.