I bowed my head in answer.

“And have you signed your estimate showing what you consider to be a fair price for both the lighthouse itself and for the cost of its erection on the Lobo Reef?”

“Yes; there it is,” and I pointed to the document lying on my desk.  “And now one word, please.  When did you last see Mr. Lawton?  He’s our agent, you know, and you must have met him in connection with this matter.  When Senor Garlicho arrived he brought us a letter from him.”

Onativia’s lips curled slightly as he recognized the hidden meaning of the inquiry, but his expression never changed.

“I have never seen him.  If I had I should not have wasted my time in getting a letter from him or from anybody else.  As to Senor Garlicho, his time has expired; he has not asked for its renewal, and so far as this deal is concerned he does not count.  I am here, as I told you, to keep the affair alive.  I would have come sooner, but I have been away from the city of San Juan for months.  Most of us who have opinions of our own have been away from San Juan—­some for years.  San Juan has not been a healthy place for men who believe in Paramba.”

“And do you?”

“Absolutely.  So do thousands of our citizens.”

“You don’t seem to agree with Senor Garlicho, then.  He thought your former president, Paramba, a tyrant.  As for President Alvarez, he looked upon him as the saviour of his country.”

The lips had full play now, the smile of contempt wrinkling up to his eyelids.

“Saviour of his country!  Saviour of his pocket!  Pardon me; I am not here to discuss the polities of our people.  Is this your estimate?” And he reached over and picked it from my desk.  “Ah, yes:  forty thousand dollars for the ironwork; one hundred and twenty thousand for the erection on the Lobo Reef; one hundred and sixty thousand in all.  Thank you.”  Here he tucked the paper in his pocket and rose from his seat.  “You will hear from me in a month, perhaps earlier.  Good-day.”  And he waddled out.

The return of the Tampico six weeks later brought another South American consignment.  This was a roll of plans concealed in a tin case—­the identical package which Mawkum had handed the “Bunch of Dried Garlic” months before, together with a document stamped, restamped and stamped again, containing an order in due form, signed “Carlos Onativia,” for a lighthouse to be erected on the “Garra de Lobo”—­this last was in red ink—­with shipping directions, etc., etc.

With it came the clerk of the bankers (he had the case under his arm), a reputable concern within a stone’s throw of my office, who signed the contract and paid the first instalment.

Then followed the erection of the ironwork in the Brooklyn yard; its inspection by the engineer appointed by the bankers; its dismemberment and final coat of red lead—­each tie-rod and beam red as sticks of sealing-wax—­its delivery, properly bundled and packed, aboard a sailing vessel bound for San Juan, and the payment of the last instalment.