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With a vague sense of sacrilege the drummer looked at the young officer.

“Why—good Lord, man I—you 're not knocking your home town, are you?”

Coronel Saturnino was unaware that this was the cardinal crime in an American's calendar.

“I am stating the most elementary analysis of an economic situation,” he defended, rather surprised at his guest's heat. The drummer laughed in brief amazement at a man who would decry his place of residence for any reason under the sun.

“You certainly must never have read Edgar Z. Best's celebrated poem, ‘The Trouble Is Not with Your Town; It's You.’”

“No,” said the officer. “I 've never read it.”

“Well, I 'll try to get it for you,” said the drummer, in a tone which told Coronel Saturnino that until he had read “The Trouble Is Not with Your Town: It's You,” he could never hope to stand among literate men.

Having thus, one might say, laid the foundation of the American spirit in Cañalejos, Strawbridge yawned frankly and said:

“If you 'll be good enough to show me my bunk, I believe I 'll hit the hay.”

Coronel Saturnino pressed a button on his desk and a moment later a little palace guard in uniform entered the library, carrying a rifle. The colonel gave a brief order, then walked to the door with his guest and bowed him out of the study.