“‘I did,’ says I, ’and I can see more than that.  It’s all coming out according to the story-books.  I knew there was something missing.  ’Twas the love interest.  What is it that comes in Chapter VII to cheer the gallant Irish adventurer?  Why, Love, of course—­Love that makes the hat go around.  At last we have the eyes of midnight hue and the rose flung from the barred window.  Now, what comes next?  The underground passage—­the intercepted letter—­the traitor in camp—­the hero thrown into a dungeon—­the mysterious message from the senorita—­then the outburst—­the fighting on the plaza—­the—­’

“‘Don’t be a fool,’ says O’Connor, interrupting.  ’But that’s the only woman in the world for me, Bowers.  The O’Connors are as quick to love as they are to fight.  I shall wear that rose over me heart when I lead me men into action.  For a good battle to be fought there must be some woman to give it power.’

“‘Every time,’ I agreed, ’if you want to have a good lively scrap.  There’s only one thing bothering me.  In the novels the light-haired friend of the hero always gets killed.  Think ’em all over that you’ve read, and you’ll see that I’m right.  I think I’ll step down to the Botica Espanola and lay in a bottle of walnut stain before war is declared.’

“‘How will I find out her name?’ says O’Connor, layin’ his chin in his hand.

“‘Why don’t you go across the street and ask her?’ says I.

“‘Will ye never regard anything in life seriously?’ says O’Connor, looking down at me like a schoolmaster.

“‘Maybe she meant the rose for me,’ I said, whistling the Spanish Fandango.

“For the first time since I’d known O’Connor, he laughed.  He got up and roared and clapped his knees, and leaned against the wall till the tiles on the roof clattered to the noise of his lungs.  He went into the back room and looked at himself in the glass and began and laughed all over from the beginning again.  Then he looked at me and repeated himself.  That’s why I asked you if you thought an Irishman had any humor.  He’d been doing farce comedy from the day I saw him without knowing it; and the first time he had an idea advanced to him with any intelligence in it he acted like two twelfths of the sextet in a ‘Floradora’ road company.

“The next afternoon he comes in with a triumphant smile and begins to pull something like ticker tape out of his pocket.

“‘Great!’ says I.  ’This is something like home.  How is Amalgamated Copper to-day?’

“‘I’ve got her name,’ says O’Connor, and he reads off something like this:  ’Dona Isabel Antonia Inez Lolita Carreras y Buencaminos y Monteleon.  She lives with her mother,’ explains O’Connor.  ’Her father was killed in the last revolution.  She is sure to be in sympathy with our cause.’

“And sure enough the next day she flung a little bunch of roses clear across the street into our door.  O’Connor dived for it and found a piece of paper curled around a stem with a line in Spanish on it.  He dragged the interpreter out of his corner and got him busy.  The interpreter scratched his head, and gave us as a translation three best bets:  ‘Fortune had got a face like the man fighting’; ’Fortune looks like a brave man’; and ‘Fortune favors the brave.’  We put our money on the last one.