Page:Roads of Destiny (1909).djvu/316

 “‘Sure,’ says Denver. ‘And viva la liberality an’ la soaperino and hoch der land of the lotus and the vote us. Don’t worry, General. We’ll have you elected as sure as bananas grow upside down.’

“‘Make pictures on me,’ pleads the General—‘make pictures on me for money as it is needful.’

“‘Does he want to be tattooed, would you think?’ asks Denver, wrinkling up his eyes.

“‘Stupid!’ says I. ‘He wants you to draw on him for election expenses. It’ll be worse than tattooing. More like an autopsy.’

“Me and Denver steamed down to Panama, and then hiked across the Isthmus, and then by steamer again down to the town of Espiritu on the coast of the General’s country.

“That was a town to send J. Howard Payne to the growler. I’ll tell you how you could make one like it. Take a lot of Filipino huts and a couple of hundred brick-kilns and arrange ’em in squares in a cemetery. Cart down all the conservatory plants in the Astor and Vanderbilt greenhouses, and stick ’em about wherever there’s room. Turn all the Bellevue patients and the barbers’ convention and the Tuskegee school loose in the streets, and run the thermometer up to 120 in the shade. Set a fringe of the Rocky Mountains around the rear, let it rain, and set the whole business on Rockaway Beach in the middle of January—and you’d have a good imitation of Espiritu.

“It took me and Denver about a week to get acclimated. Denver sent out the letters the General had given him, and