FullReads

“I heard somebody cough, and I turned around. There stood a little, round, fat man with a brown face and white clothes, a first-class- looking little man, with a four-karat diamond on his finger and his eye full of interrogations and respects. I judged he was a kind of foreigner–may be from Russia or Japan or the archipelagoes.

“‘Hist!’ says the round man, full of concealments and confidences. ‘Will the senor respect the discoveryments he has made, that the mans on the ship shall not be acquaint? The senor will be a gentleman that shall not expose one thing that by accident occur.’

“‘Monseer,’ says I–for I judged him to be a kind of Frenchman– ‘receive my most exasperated assurances that your secret is safe with James Clancy. Furthermore, I will go so far as to remark, Veev la Liberty–veev it good and strong. Whenever you hear of a Clancy obstructin’ the abolishment of existin’ governments you may notify me by return mail.’

“‘The senor is good,’ says the dark, fat man, smilin’ under his black mustache. ‘Wish you to come aboard my ship and drink of wine a glass.’

“Bein’ a Clancy, in two minutes me and the foreigner man were seated at a table in the cabin of the steamer, with a bottle between us. I could hear the heavy boxes bein’ dumped into the hold. I judged that cargo must consist of at least 2,000 Winchesters. Me and the brown man drank the bottle of stuff, and he called the steward to bring another. When you amalgamate a Clancy with the contents of a bottle you practically instigate secession. I had heard a good deal about these revolutions in them tropical localities, and I begun to want a hand in it.

“‘You goin’ to stir things up in your country, ain’t you, monseer?’ says I, with a wink to let him know I was on.

“‘Yes, yes,’ said the little man, pounding his fist on the table. ‘A change of the greatest will occur. Too long have the people been oppressed with the promises and the never-to-happen things to become. The great work it shall be carry on. Yes. Our forces shall in the capital city strike of the soonest. ~Carrambos!~’

“‘~Carrambos~ is the word,’ says I, beginning to invest myself with enthusiasm and more wine, ‘likewise veeva, as I said before. May the shamrock of old–I mean the banana-vine or the pie-plant, or whatever the imperial emblem may be of your down-trodden country, wave forever.’

“‘A thousand thank-yous,’ says the round man, ‘for your emission of amicable utterances. What our cause needs of the very most is mans who will the work do, to lift it along. Oh, for one thousands strong, good mans to aid the General De Vega that he shall to his country bring those success and glory! It is hard–oh, so hard to find good mans to help in the work.’

“‘Monseer,’ says I, leanin’ over the table and graspin’ his hand, I don’t know where your country is, but me heart bleeds for it. The heart of a Clancy was never deaf to the sight of an oppressed people. The family is filibusterers by birth, and foreigners by trade. If you can use James Clancy’s arms and his blood in denuding your shores of the tyrant’s yoke they’re yours to command.’

“General De Vega was overcome with joy to confiscate my condolence of his conspiracies and predicaments. He tried to embrace me across the table, but his fatness, and the wine that had been in the bottles, prevented. Thus was I welcomed into the ranks of filibustery. Then the general man told me his country had the name of Guatemala, and was the greatest nation laved by any ocean whatever anywhere. He looked at me with tears in his eyes, and from time to time he would emit the remark, ‘Ah! big, strong, brave mans! That is what my country need.’