“Do you think I will raise the standard of efficiency?”

“Most of those railroad persons are vile people.  They threw me h’off the train with such violence that my joints are very stiff and h’inflamed.  I should h’enjoy being boss over them for a while.”

“Why don’t you ask for a job?”

“I have decided to do so, and I am asking you now for an h’engagement as brakesman.”

“I can’t hire you.  Go to the office.”

“Probably there are h’already brakesmen on your train.”

“I have no doubt.”

“In that case I shall ride with you as private person.”

“Ride back and forth every day?”

“Those are my h’expectations, sar.”

“That costs money.”

“You will be collector,” remarked the negro, calmly.  “I should like to see those train people h’expel me, in that case.”

“Well!  I can see trouble ahead for one of us,” laughed Anthony.  “They don’t allow ‘dead-heads.’”

But Allan replied with unshaken confidence:  “Then you should secure for me a pahss.”

Kirk found it extremely difficult to escape from his persistent shadow that afternoon, and he succeeded only after a display of armed resistance.

It was the hottest part of the day when he set out, gun on arm, yet he never thought of the discomfort.  After skirting the city, he swung into the fine macadam road that had brought him home the night before, and much sooner than he expected he arrived at the little path that led into the forest.  He knew that he was trespassing again, and the knowledge added to his delight.  As quickly as possible he lost himself in the grateful shade and followed the stream-bank with beating heart.  His head was full of vague hopes and plans.  He meant to learn the true story of Miss Chiquita’s penance and find some means of winning her away from that other lover, of whom he had already thought more than once.  He determined to make his love known without delay and establish himself as a regular suitor.

As upon the previous day, he broke into the glade before he suspected its presence, to find the same golden light-beams flickering in the shadowed depths and to hear the little waterfall chuckling at his surprise.  There was the tree from which she had called to him, yonder the bench where they had sat together.

Of course, he was too early—­he wanted to be, in order not to miss an instant of her company, so he seated himself and dreamed about her.  The minutes dragged, the jungle drowsed.  An hour passed.  A thousand fresh, earthy odors breathed around him, and he began to see all sorts of flowers hidden away in unsuspected places.  From the sunlit meadows outside came a sound of grazing herds, the deep woods faintly echoed the harsh calls of tropic birds, but at the pool itself a sleepy silence brooded.

Once a chattering squirrel came bravely rustling through the branches to the very edge of the enchanted bower, but he only sat and stared a moment in seeming admiration, then retreated quietly.  A yellow-beaked toucan, in a flash of red and black and gold, settled upon a mirrored limb; but it, too, stilled its raucous tongue and flitted away on noiseless pinions as if the Naiads were asleep.