“There was more than fifty people waiting outside the iron fence that surrounded the house and grounds.  There was generals and agitators and epergnes in gold-laced uniforms, and citizens in diamonds and Panama hats—­all waiting to get an audience with the Royal Five-Card Draw.  And in a kind of a summer-house in front of the mansion we could see a burnt-sienna man eating breakfast out of gold dishes and taking his time.  I judged that the crowd outside had come out for their morning orders and requests, and was afraid to intrude.

“But C. Wainwright wasn’t.  The gate was open, and he walked inside and up to the president’s table as confident as a man who knows the head waiter in a fifteen-cent restaurant.  And I went with him, because I had only seventy-five cents, and there was nothing else to do.

“The Gomez man rises from his chair, and looks, colored man as he was, like he was about to call out for corporal of the guard, post number one.  But Wainwright says some phrases to him in a peculiarly lubricating manner; and the first thing you know we was all three of us seated at the table, with coffee and rolls and iguana cutlets coming as fast as about ninety peons could rustle ’em.

“And then Wainwright begins to talk; but the president interrupts him.

“‘You Yankees,’ says he, polite, ’assuredly take the cake for assurance, I assure you’—­or words to that effect.  He spoke English better than you or me.  ‘You’ve had a long walk,’ says he, ’but it’s nicer in the cool morning to walk than to ride.  May I suggest some refreshments?’ says he.

“‘Rum,’ says Wainwright.

“‘Gimme a cigar,’ says I.

“Well, sir, the two talked an hour, keeping the generals and equities all in their good uniforms waiting outside the fence.  And while I smoked, silent, I listened to Clifford Wainwright making a solid republic out of the wreck of one.  I didn’t follow his arguments with any special collocation of international intelligibility; but he had Mr. Gomez’s attention glued and riveted.  He takes out a pencil and marks the white linen tablecloth all over with figures and estimates and deductions.  He speaks more or less disrespectfully of import and export duties and custom-house receipts and taxes and treaties and budgets and concessions and such truck that politics and government require; and when he gets through the Gomez man hops up and shakes his hand and says he’s saved the country and the people.

“‘You shall be rewarded,’ says the president.

“‘Might I suggest another—­rum?’ says Wainwright.

“‘Cigar for me—­darker brand,’ says I.

“Well, sir, the president sent me and Wainwright back to the town in a victoria hitched to two flea-bitten selling-platers—­but the best the country afforded.

“I found out afterward that Wainwright was a regular beachcomber—­the smartest man on the whole coast, but kept down by rum.  I liked him.