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“And do you?”

“Absolutely. So do thousands of our citizens.”

“You don’t seem to agree with Senor Garlicho, then. He thought your former president, Paramba, a tyrant. As for President Alvarez, he looked upon him as the saviour of his country.”

The lips had full play now, the smile of contempt wrinkling up to his eyelids.

“Saviour of his country! Saviour of his pocket! Pardon me; I am not here to discuss the polities of our people. Is this your estimate?” And he reached over and picked it from my desk. “Ah, yes: forty thousand dollars for the ironwork; one hundred and twenty thousand for the erection on the Lobo Reef; one hundred and sixty thousand in all. Thank you.” Here he tucked the paper in his pocket and rose from his seat. “You will hear from me in a month, perhaps earlier. Good-day.” And he waddled out.

The return of the Tampico six weeks later brought another South American consignment. This was a roll of plans concealed in a tin case–the identical package which Mawkum had handed the “Bunch of Dried Garlic” months before, together with a document stamped, restamped and stamped again, containing an order in due form, signed “Carlos Onativia,” for a lighthouse to be erected on the “Garra de Lobo”–this last was in red ink–with shipping directions, etc., etc.

With it came the clerk of the bankers (he had the case under his arm), a reputable concern within a stone’s throw of my office, who signed the contract and paid the first instalment.

Then followed the erection of the ironwork in the Brooklyn yard; its inspection by the engineer appointed by the bankers; its dismemberment and final coat of red lead–each tie-rod and beam red as sticks of sealing-wax–its delivery, properly bundled and packed, aboard a sailing vessel bound for San Juan, and the payment of the last instalment.

This closed the transaction, so far as we were concerned.

A year passed–two of them, in fact–during which time no news of any kind reached us of the lighthouse. Mawkum kept the duplicate blue-print of the elevation tacked on the wall over his desk to show our clients the wide range of our business, and I would now and then try to translate the newspapers which Lawton sent by every mail. These would generally refer to the dissatisfaction felt by many of the Moccadorians over the present government, one editorial, as near as I could make out, going so far as to hint that a secret movement was on foot to oust the “Usurper” Alvarez and restore the old government under Paramba. No reference was ever made to the lighthouse. We knew, of course, that it had arrived, for the freight had been paid: this we learned from the brokers who shipped it; but whether it was still in storage at San Juan or was flashing red and white–a credit to Onativia’s energy and a godsend to incoming shipping–was still a mystery.

Mawkum would often laugh whenever Garlicho’s or Onativia’s name was mentioned, and once in a while we would discuss the difficulties they must have encountered in the erection of the structure in the open sea. One part of the transaction we could never understand, and that was why Garlicho had allowed the matter to lapse if the lighthouse was needed so badly, and what were his reasons for sending Onativia to renew the negotiations instead of coming himself.

All doubts on this and every other point were set at rest one fine morning by the arrival of a sunburned gentleman with gray side-whiskers, a man I had not seen for years.

“Why, Lawton!” I cried, grasping his hand. “This is a surprise. Came by the Tampico, did you? Oh, but I am glad to see you! Here, draw up a chair. But stop–not a word until I ask you some questions about that lighthouse.”

The genial Scotchman broke out into a loud laugh.

“Don’t laugh! Listen!” I said to him. “Tell me, why didn’t Garlicho go on with the work, and what do you know about Onativia?”

Lawton leaned back in his chair and closed one eye in merriment.

“Garlicho did not go on with the work, my dear friend, because he was breaking stone in the streets of San Juan with a ball and chain around his ankle. When Paramba came back to power he was tried for high treason and condemned to be shot. He saved his neck by turning over the lighthouse papers to Onativia. As to Carlos Onativia, he is a product of the soil. Started life as a coolie boss in a copper mine, became manager and owner, built the bridge over the Quitos River and the railroad up the Andes; is the brightest man in Moccador and the brains of the Paramba Government. One part of his duty is to keep the people satisfied, and he does it every single time; another is to divide with Paramba every dollar he makes.”

“But the lighthouse!” I interrupted. “Is it up? You must have passed it on your way out of the harbor.”

“Up? Yes, and lighted every night–up in the public garden in San Juan among the palms and bananas. The people eat ice-cream on the first platform and the band plays Sundays in the balcony under the boat davits. The people are wild about it–especially the women. It was the last coat of red lead that did it.”

And again the office rang with Lawton’s laugh.