With supreme insolence he touched one of the buttons upon Kirk’s linen uniform with his cane, whereat the American snatched the stick out of his hand, broke it, and tossed it into the street.  His blood was up, and in another breath he would have struck the Spaniard, regardless of consequences, but just at that moment Allan, dashed out of the crowd crying, breathlessly: 

“Oh, boss!  Oh, boss!  Glory to God, it is true!  Oh-H-H glory!” Seizing Kirk’s hands, he kissed them before the other could prevent, then ran on frantically:  “Come quick!  Come!  Come!  Come!”

“Look out!” snapped Kirk, angrily.  “What’s happened?”

“The dream!  The dream is come!  Oh, God, sar!  You—­you have won the capital prize, sar!”

Alfarez’s exclamation, as much as the boy’s wild hysteria, brought Anthony to himself.

“No!  Honest, now!  What’s the number?” he exclaimed.

“H’eight, h’eight, three, h’eight,” sobbed the Jamaican.  Kirk made a dive for his coat-pocket, while Allan continued in a rising voice: 

“Glory to God, sar!  Glory to God!  It is fifteen thousand dollars ‘silver.’  I thought I should h’expire from fright.  Oh, I—­Quick!  Praise be—­Do not say you have lost the ticket or I shall die and kill myself—­”

“Here it is!” In his hand Anthony waved a slip of paper, out of which leaped four big, red numbers-"8838.”

“Carraho!” came from behind him, and he turned to behold Alfarez, livid of face and with shaking hand, fling a handful of similar coupons after the broken cane.  Without another word or a glance behind him, the Panamanian made off across the Plaza, barely in time to, escape the crowd that surged around the two he had quitted.

Bombarded by a fusillade of questions in a dozen tongues, jostled by a clamoring, curious throng, the lucky owner of 8838 fought his way back into the lottery building, and, as he went, the news spread like flaming oil.

There it was, plainly displayed, “8838”!  There could be no possible mistake, and it meant fifteen thousand silver pesos, a princely fortune indeed for the collector of No. 2.

Promptly at five minutes to one o’clock that afternoon, Allan Allan, late of Jamaica, strode through the Panama railroad station and flaunted a first-class, round-trip ticket to Colon before the eyes of his enemy, the gateman.  He was smoking a huge Jamaican cigar, and his pockets bulged with others.  When he came to board the train, he called loudly for a porter to bring him the step and, once inside, selected a shady seat with the languid air of a bored globe-trotter.  He patronized the “butcher” lavishly, crushing handful after handful of lemon-drops noisily between his teeth and strewing orange peel and cigar ashes on the floor with the careless unconcern that accords with firmly established financial eminence.  He spat out of the window, he waved a dignified greeting to his countrymen gathered upon station platforms, he halted hurrying brakemen to inquire times of arrival and departure, and in general he had the time of his young life.