way with a chunk of gold that he assured me—without detail—had been hacked off by a machete, but here his feeble imagination flickered out and he wrapped the rest in a poorly wrought mystery until finally he fluttered over to Colon for the next steamer of innocent possibilities.

POINTED SCORNFULLY TO THE OUTSIDE

With these the respectable amusements were exhausted and I therefore rejoiced as I confronted that cheerful, raconteuring adventurer under the battered Panama. A ship’s purser, a drummer of smoked hams, a Coney Island barker, a soldier, a drifter, and always a teller of tales, he had lain in the trenches on Misery Hill before Santiago in support of Capron’s Battery with a gaunt group around him as he wove the drifting thread of adventure from the Bowery to the Barbary Coast in a series of robust anecdotes. And they bore the earmarks of truth.

Now, in the genial silhouette framed against the tropic glare, I realized that whatever days of waiting might be in store they would no longer be dull. A true rumor had put him in a lone commercial venture somewhere down these coasts and here at my elbow was to be placed all the shift and coil of petty adventure, whimsical romance, and the ultimate results of two years of adroit piracy in and out of the Spanish Main that had ended, as I observed, in dungaree breeches, rope-soled alpargatas, and a battered Panama hat.

Therefore through the ministrations of an occasional bottle of the native bilious beer and other transactions that shall remain private, the days sped themselves swiftly and unheeded guided by the adept hand of Romance. Again, as in the trenches, I viewed the world under Asmodean influences, but what I heard has no place in these pages; it is worth an endeavor all its own. Then, one morning, the news spread that at last the Mapocho lay at the Boca and the hour of departure for the first stage to the interior of South America was at hand; the night before was the last I saw of my genial friend. In the morning he did not appear, and it was strange, for I had expected to do the proper thing, as I saw it, realizing that dungarees and alpargatas are poor armor and that our consulates offer but a desperate and prickly hospitality.

In the afternoon I went aboard, crawling down a gangway that dropped to the deck like a ladder where, in the morning, it had reared itself with equal steepness against the Mapocho’s sides. Such are the Pacific tides at the Boca. Agamemnon, the shriveled little Barbadoes darky, scuttled about importantly, stowing our baggage and giving an occasional haughty order to some steward in a nondescript patois that passed mainly as Spanish and that often served, as I learned, better than the purest Ollendorfian Castilian. Later it appeared that Agamemnon had left one of these same steamers under a cloud—a trifling matter of a few sheets and pillow cases—and now to return clothed with trust and authority over “de fixin’s an de baggage of gent’mens” swelled him with an inarticulate triumph.

AGAMEMNON

In the long months that followed none could have given more faithful service or loyalty than this skimpy Barbadoes darky. That is within his limitations, for he could no more resist liquor than a bear can honey, but nevertheless when he had transgressed, his uncertain legs would bring him back to his duties, speechless perhaps, but with arms wavering in gestures of extenuation.

Also to Agamemnon wages meant nothing; a shilling now and again—sometimes even the equivalent of a whole dollar—advanced him with the specific understanding that it was for gambling and not for liquor. Once, in La Paz, he won a hundred and fifty dollars, Mex, and became an impossible animal until it had been frittered away. In the same city he went to the bull fight and joined in the play against the final bull that is “dedicated to the people” and fought so cleverly that we became prominent by reflection and gave a party at the corrida the following Sunday to see Agamemnon’s promised performance.

By this time Agamemnon had become a character and a score of little boys scrambled over the barrier eager to hold his hat, his coat, and his cuffs. With a flourish he handed each to its eager guardian and then, with a coat held as a capa, gave a flourish and advanced toward the bull. The crowd applauded. Agamemnon made a bow and a flourish and waggled the coat. The bull snuffed briskly and charged. Alas! The hand had lost its cunning, for Agamemnon shot ten feet skyward, turned an involuntary somersault at the apex of his flight, and then sprawled back to earth. A half dozen of the toreros drew off the bull; the small boy custodians flung his garments at him scornfully, while the Bolivian audience laughed itself hoarse as the dusty, dishevelled figure hobbled out of the ring and away from the crowd.

For himself Agamemnon asked but little although where he felt that the dignity of his position was involved he became a tower of strength. It was in the same city that he felt the hotel people were not treating him fairly, as they were not, and his remonstrance was met by a Cholo mozo who hurled a sugar bowl at his head and followed it up with a knife. Agamemnon dodged and beat down the Indian with a chair; on the instant a half dozen Cholos poured at him and the kitchen was in a riot. Backing away, he denuded the dining tables of service and used it as a light artillery fire. By the aid of an earthenware jar, some handy crockery, and a chair he was able to retreat safely across the patio and up the stairway that led to our rooms. A water pitcher laid open a skull and a wash-bowl stopped the rush long enough for him to grab a gun from the pillow when we arrived, together with some stubby Bolivian police and the bony Russian proprietor; order was restored, fortunately, for it might have been serious.

Agamemnon explained satisfactorily and incidentally showed only a minor bump or so, but his Cholo and Aymara antagonists bore most proper marks of the conflict. That night in the midst of his shoe-polishing and packing he remarked briefly: “If you gent’mens hadn’t er-come jes’ den I cer’nly would have licked dem fellers, bahs!” Apparently no victory was complete to his mind until he had accomplished a massacre.

At another time he waded into a crowd of Cholos in the interior and took from them their machetes and shot-guns, acting on his own initiative, because he knew that in that far interior laborers were too precious to waste by their own fighting. From our tent we heard two shots and the rising yells of a small riot and then, before there was time to grab a gun or gather the few white men, the figure of Agamemnon staggered up the crest of the river bank with his arms full of the commandeered machetes and trade-guns.

There was the time when a balsa upset in a boiling eddy and Agamemnon jumped in as a faithful rescuer only to still further complicate matters; also when—but it is useless, Agamemnon is a story in himself. Tireless, uncomplaining, honest, loyal, yet of the aimless tribe of bandar-log, apparently only merely the mouse of a man in a wrinkled black skin and yet the paragon of retainers. Peace be to him wherever he has drifted.