Page:Ralph Paine--The Steam-Shovel Man.djvu/155



The colonel was listening gravely to a difference of opinion between a black Jamaican laborer and his buxom wife, touching the ownership of seventeen dollars which she had earned by washing and ironing. The wise judge ruled that the money belonged to her and ordered the husband to return it. He muttered:

"I'se a British subjeck, sah, an' mah property rights is protected by de British laws, sah."

"All right," and the colonel's blue eyes snapped. "If you like, I'll deport you. You can get all the English law you want in Jamaica."

A perplexed young man informed the colonel that he was the secretary of the Halcyon Social and Literary Club of Gorgona, which desired to give a dance in the ballroom of the Tivoli Hotel. The request had been denied because of a clash of dates with another organization. Would the colonel help straighten it out? Certainly he would, and he sent the young man away satisfied, after investigating the difficulty with as scrupulous attention as if the fate of the Gatun dam had been involved.

A brawny blacksmith's helper had been