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168. "Gee-horse! But I struck a mouthful of the red kind that kicks, just then!" and he drained his glass, which a waiter filled, the man laughing silently the while.

"I guess we'll have to get used to it," remarked Dick. "I should think, though, that, eating so much red pepper as these folks do, that they'd have a little more motion to them. 'To-morrow' seems to answer for everything. I couldn't stand it for very long at a stretch."

They spent that night on the yacht, after an evening in the plaza, where the band continued to play. The next day, at eleven o'clock, Dick again visited Don Ferdinand Hondora, who leisurely began to examine the documents regarding the Valdez family.

"It will be a difficult piece of work," he remarked finally, "but I think I can promise you a report in a month, Senor Hamilton."

"A month! I've got to have it inside of a week!" cried Dick, and, after much argument, and lifting of his eyebrows, shrugging of his shoulders and throwing out of his hands, remarking the while that such a thing—such haste—was never heard of in Havana, the lawyer agreed to do his best.

It was two weeks later before he made his final report, with Dick importuning him every day, for, after the yacht had been tied up at Havana seven days, our hero and his chums found they had exhausted the possibility of amusement in that