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The Consul
by
West Indies. The English are especially strict. The Royal Mail won’t even receive any one on board here without a certificate from the English consul saying he has not visited Las Bocas. For an American they would require the same guarantee from me. But I don’t think the regulations extend to yachts. I will inquire. I don’t wish to deprive you of any of the many pleasures of Porto Banos,” he added, smiling, “but if you were refused a landing at your next port I would blame myself.”
“It’s all right,” declared Livingstone decidedly. “It’s just as you say; yachts and warships are exempt. Besides, I carry my own doctor, and if he won’t give us a clean bill of health, I’ll make him walk the plank. At eight, then, at dinner. I’ll send the cutter for you. I can’t give you a salute, Mr. Consul, but you shall have all the side boys I can muster.”
Those from the yacht parted from their consul in the most friendly spirit.
“I think he’s charming!” exclaimed Miss Cairns. “And did you notice his novels? They were in every language. It must be terribly lonely down here, for a man like that.”
“He’s the first of our consuls we’ve met on this trip,” growled her father, “that we’ve caught sober.”
“Sober!” exclaimed his wife indignantly.
“He’s one of the Marshalls of Vermont. I asked him.”
“I wonder,” mused Hanley, “how much the place is worth? Hamilton, one of the new senators, has been deviling the life out of me to send his son somewhere. Says if he stays in Washington he’ll disgrace the family. I should think this place would drive any man to drink himself to death in three months, and young Hamilton, from what I’ve seen of him, ought to be able to do it in a week. That would leave the place open for the next man.”
“There’s a postmaster in my State thinks he carried it.” The senator smiled grimly. “He has consumption, and wants us to give him a consulship in the tropics. I’ll tell him I’ve seen Porto Banos, and that it’s just the place for him.”
The senator’s pleasantry was not well received. But Miss Cairns alone had the temerity to speak of what the others were thinking.
“What would become of Mr. Marshall?” she asked. The senator smiled tolerantly.
“I don’t know that I was thinking of Mr. Marshall,” he said. “I can’t recall anything he has done for this administration. You see, Miss Cairns,” he explained, in the tone of one addressing a small child, “Marshall has been abroad now for forty years, at the expense of the taxpayers. Some of us think men who have lived that long on their fellow-countrymen had better come home and get to work.”
Livingstone nodded solemnly in assent. He did not wish a post abroad at the expense of the taxpayers. He was willing to pay for it. And then, with “ex-Minister” on his visiting cards, and a sense of duty well performed, for the rest of his life he could join the other expatriates in Paris.
Just before dinner, the cruiser RALEIGH having discovered the whereabouts of the SERAPIS by wireless, entered the harbor, and Admiral Hardy came to the yacht to call upon the senator, in whose behalf he had been scouring the Caribbean Seas. Having paid his respects to that personage, the admiral fell boisterously upon Marshall.
The two old gentlemen were friends of many years. They had met, officially and unofficially, in many strange parts of the world. To each the chance reunion was a piece of tremendous good fortune. And throughout dinner the guests of Livingstone, already bored with each other, found in them and their talk of former days new and delightful entertainment. So much so that when, Marshall having assured them that the local quarantine regulations did not extend to a yacht, the men departed for Las Bocas, the women insisted that he and admiral remain behind.