Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/18

 jarred on the rest of the furniture. Tib's rotund, energetic form was encased in a tin suit of mediæval armor, and he swore it felt good. By the time the town was fairly awake we were all arrayed in our picnic clothes, and I guess they thought we were a sure-enough bunch of fairies.

"While the dusky rabble was enjoying us with wonder-lit eyes, a tall, thin, mahoganized-skinned man approached and greeted us in good old Anglo-Sax. He said he was Alfred Jones, more commonly known on the coast as 'Banana' Jones. He had lived in the country for fifteen years and was too lazy to leave it. He informed us he could talk any lingo between Purgatory and Guatemala City, and Tib at once hired him as ticket-seller. Tib himself threw a fine cluster of Spanish, having toured a circus through South America once on a time. But he was shy on dialects.

"So Banana Jones was delegated to scout for some diligences, and he said he would, once he was able to tear his eyes from Mazie, and was just explaining that he hadn't seen a white woman for ten years, when fifty tatterdemalions, armed with ancient guns and a large accumulation of realty on their hands and bare feet, came howling down the lane.

"'I forgot,' said Banana Jones, simply, 'there's a bit of a revolution on, and the insurrectionists hold