Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/22

 saken land. If we remain neutral, one side or the other, or both, will pick us up and sell us as slaves to owners of the dank mangrove swamps.' Tib didn't know a mangrove from a yard of felt, but it sounded good and he used it. 'Think, Mazie, of being compelled to pluck rubber gum with those fragile lily stalks,' he said. 'Think, Gertrude, of making bean bread for some chocolate-frosted brute that remembers when he walked on all fours. Now if I can obtain the backing of one party we are that much stronger, and will come out all right. Remember, Tiberius Smith always wins. Why, children, once I fell so low that I was forced to join an Uncle Tom's Cabin company and play I was ice in the Ohio River. Did I stay ice? Ask me. To-day you behold in me the sole owner of "The Dear Gazelle" opera troupe, and President pro tem of Iscanlati, or whatever name under high heavens they call it.'

"Of course there was a lot of horse-sense in Tib's talk, but I knew he was playing President just through his lust of empire. He told me afterwards that if he could have held down the job, he had intended to map out a canal route and sneak a stake from Uncle Sam.

"But to return to the well-filled inn and the homesick allies of the insurrectionists. That afternoon Tib and Jones reconnoitred the only ap-