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“‘Bout right,” agreed the consul. “Not over twenty out of the three thousand ever felt leather on their walking arrangements. Oh, yes; Coralio is just the town for an enterprising shoe store–that doesn’t want to part with its goods. Wonder if old Patterson is trying to jolly me! He always was full of things he called jokes. Write him a letter, Billy. I’ll dictate it. We’ll jolly him back a few.”

Keogh dipped his pen, and wrote at Johnny’s dictation. With many pauses, filled in with smoke and sundry travellings of the bottle and glasses, the following reply to the Dalesburg communication was perpetrated:

MR. OBADIAH PATTERSON, Dalesburg, Ala.

~Dear Sir~: in reply to your favor of July 2d. I have the honor to inform you that, according to my opinion, there is no place on the habitable globe that presents to the eye stronger evidence of the need of a first-class shoe store than does the town of Coralio. There are 3,000 inhabitants in the place, and not a single shoe store! The situation speaks for itself. This coast is rapidly becoming the goal of enterprising business men, but the shoe business is one that has been sadly overlooked or neglected. In fact, there are a considerable number of our citizens actually without shoes at present.

Besides the want above mentioned, there is also a crying need for a brewery, a college of higher mathematics, a coal yard, and a clean and intellectual Punch and Judy show. I have the honor to be,

Your Obt. Servant,
~John De Graffenreid Atwood~,
U.S. CONSUL AT CORALIO.

P.S.–Hello! Uncle Obadiah. How’s the old burg racking along? What would the government do without you and me? Look out for a green-headed parrot and a bunch of bananas soon, from your old friend

~Johnny~,

“I throw in that postscript,” explained the consul, “so Uncle Obadiah won’t take offense at the official tone of the letter! Now, Billy, you get that correspondence fixed up, and send Pancho to the post- office with it. The ~Ariadne~ takes the mail out tomorrow if they make up that load of fruit today.”

The night programme in Coralio never varied. The recreations of the people were soporific and flat. They wandered about, barefoot and aimless, speaking lowly and smoking cigar or cigarette. Looking down on the dimly lighted ways one seemed to see a threading maze of brunette ghosts tangled with a procession of insane fireflies. In some houses the thrumming of lugubrious guitars added to the depression of the ~triste~ night. Giant tree-frogs rattled in the foliage as loudly as the end man’s “bones” in a minstrel troupe. By nine o’clock the streets were almost deserted.

Not at the consulate was there often a change of bill. Keogh would come there nightly, for Coralio’s one cool place was the little porch of that official residence. The brandy would be kept moving; and before midnight sentiment would begin to stir in the heart of the self-exiled consul. Then he would relate to Keogh the story of his ended romance. Each night Keogh would listen patiently to the tale, and be ready with untiring sympathy.

“But don’t you think for a minute”–thus Johnny would always conclude his woeful narrative–“that I’m grieving about that girl, Billy. I’ve forgotten her. She never enters my mind. If she were to enter that door right now, my pulse wouldn’t gain a beat. That’s all over long ago.”

“Don’t I know it?” Keogh would answer. “Of course you’ve forgotten her. Proper thing to do. Wasn’t quite 0. K. of her to listen to the knocks that–er–Dink Pawson kept giving you.”

“Pink Dawson!”–a word of contempt would be in Johnny’s tones–“Poor white trash! That’s what he was. Had five hundred acres of farming land, though; and that counted. Maybe I’ll have a chance to get back at him some day. The Dawsons weren’t anybody. Everybody in Alabama knows the Atwoods. Say, Billy–did you know my mother was a De Graffenreid?”