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“She was lovelier than Mary Anderson; she was lovelier than Lotta. She was tall, an’ black-haired, and had a eye … well, I dunno; when she gave you the littlest flicker o’ that same eye, you felt it was about time to take an’ lie right down an’ say, ‘I would esteem it, ma’am, a sure smart favour if you was to take an’ wipe your boots on my waistcoat, jus’ so’s you could hear my heart a-beatin’. That’s the kind o’ feemale womanshewas.

“Well, when Hardenberg had caught his second wind, we begins to talk business.

“’An’ you’re to take a passenger back with you,’ says Esperanza after awhile.

“’What for a passenger might it be?’ says Hardenberg.

“She fished out her calling-card at that and tore it in two an’ gave Hardenberg one-half.

“’It’s the party,’ she says, ‘that’ll come aboard off S
an Diego on your way down an’ who will show up the other half o’ the card—the half I have here an’ which the same I’m goin’ to mail to him. An’ you be sure the halves fit before you let him come aboard. An’ when that party comes aboard,’ she says, ‘he’s to take over charge.’

“’Very good,’ says Hardenberg, mincing an’ silly like a chessy cat lappin’ cream.’Very good, ma’am; your orders shall be obeyed.’ He sure said it just like that, as if he spoke out o’ a story-book. An’ I kicked him under the table for it.

“Then we palavers a whole lot an’ settles the way the thing is to be run, an’ fin’ly, when we’d got as far as could be that day, the Signorita stood up an’ says:

“’Now me good fellows.’ ‘Twas Spanish she spoke.’Now, me good fellows, you must drink a drink with me.’ She herds us all up into the dining-room and fetches out—not whisky, mind you—but a great, fat, green-and-gold bottle o’ champagne, an’ when Ally Bazan has fired it off, she fills our glasses—dinky little flat glasses that looked like flower vases. Then she stands up there before us, fine an’ tall, all in black silk, an’ puts her glass up high an’ sings out——

“’To the Revolution!’

“An’ we all solemn-like says, ‘To the Revolution,’ an’ crooks our elbows. When we-all comes to, about half an hour later, we’re in the street outside, havin’ jus’ said good-by to the Signorita. We-all are some quiet the first block or so, and then Hardenberg says—stoppin’ dead in his tracks:

“’I pauses to remark that when a certain young feemale party havin’ black hair an’ a killin’ eye gets good an’ ready to travel up the centre aisle of a church, I know the gent to show her the way, which he is six feet one in his stocking-feet, some freckled across the nose, an’ shoots with both hands.’

“’Which the same observations,’ speaks up Strokher, twirlin’ his yeller lady-killer, ‘which the same observations,’ he says, ‘has my hearty indorsement an’ cooperation savin’ in the particular of the description o’ the gent. The gent is five foot eleven high, three feet thick, is the only son of my mother, an’ has yeller mustaches and a buck tooth.’

“’He don’t qualify,’ puts in Hardenberg.’First, because he’s a Englisher, and second, because he’s up again a American—and besides, he has a tooth that’s bucked.’

“’Buck or no buck,’ flares out Strokher, ‘wot might be the meanin’ o’ that remark consernin’ being a Englisher?’

“’The fact o’ his bein’ English,’ says Hardenberg, ‘is only half the hoe-handle.’Tother half being the fact that the first-named gent is all American. No Yank ain’t never took no dust from aft a Englisher, whether it were war, walkin’-matches, or women.’