Page:Melville Davisson Post--The Man of Last Resort.djvu/29

Rh eastward. The Governor had maintained that it was quite possible to live as a gentleman should wherever Providence had provided Chinamen and water, and that the matter was not entirely hopeless if the Chinamen were not to be had, so the water remained.

It was true indeed that the Executive had maintained his customs with no little pain against the divers protests of gods and men, ofttimes wrought in silence, but not infrequently urged fiercely in the open. But the Governor was not one with whom meddling folk could trifle and preserve the peace. This fact certain bad men had learned to their hurt west of the Gila, and divers evil-disposed persons regretted and were buried, and regretted and remembered south of the Pecos. So that in time this matter came to be regarded as a peculiarity, and passed into common respect as is the way with the peculiarities of those expeditious spirits who shoot first and explain afterwards.

The Governor was aroused from his reverie by his private secretary who came in at this moment from the outer office.