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[C&K] Semanticate letters, telegrams, etc., remove extraneous <br/>'s
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<p>Fifty yards away, on the seaward side of the street, stood the abode of the consul for the United States. Out from the door of this building tumbled Goodwin at the call. He had been smoking with Willard Geddie, the consul, on the back porch of the consulate, which was conceded to be the coolest spot in Coralio.</p>
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<p>“Hurry up,” shouted Keogh. “There’s a riot in town on account of a telegram that’s come for you. You want to be careful about these things, my boy. It won’t do to trifle with the feelings of the public this way. You’ll be getting a pink note some day with violet scent on it; and then the country’ll be steeped in the throes of a revolution.”</p>
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<p>Goodwin had strolled up the street and met the boy with the message. The ox-eyed women gazed at him with shy admiration, for his type drew them. He was big, blonde, and jauntily dressed in white linen, with buckskin <i xml:lang="es">zapatos</i>. His manner was courtly, with a sort of kindly truculence in it, tempered by a merciful eye. When the telegram had been delivered, and the bearer of it dismissed with a gratuity, the relieved populace returned to the contiguities of shade from which curiosity had drawn it—the women to their baking in the mud ovens under the orange-trees, or to the interminable combing of their long, straight hair; the men to their cigarettes and gossip in the cantinas.</p>
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<p>Goodwin sat on Keogh’s doorstep, and read his telegram. It was from Bob Englehart, an American, who lived in San Mateo, the capital city of Anchuria, eighty miles in the interior. Englehart was a gold miner, an ardent revolutionist and “good people.” That he was a man of resource and imagination was proven by the telegram he had sent. It had been his task to send a confidential message to his friend in Coralio. This could not have been accomplished in either Spanish or English, for the eye politic in Anchuria was an active one. The Ins and the Outs were perpetually on their guard. But Englehart was a diplomatist. There existed but one code upon which he might make requisition with promise of safety—the great and potent code of Slang. So, here is the message that slipped, unconstrued, through the fingers of curious officials, and came to the eye of Goodwin:<br/></p>
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<p>Goodwin sat on Keogh’s doorstep, and read his telegram. It was from Bob Englehart, an American, who lived in San Mateo, the capital city of Anchuria, eighty miles in the interior. Englehart was a gold miner, an ardent revolutionist and “good people.” That he was a man of resource and imagination was proven by the telegram he had sent. It had been his task to send a confidential message to his friend in Coralio. This could not have been accomplished in either Spanish or English, for the eye politic in Anchuria was an active one. The Ins and the Outs were perpetually on their guard. But Englehart was a diplomatist. There existed but one code upon which he might make requisition with promise of safety—the great and potent code of Slang. So, here is the message that slipped, unconstrued, through the fingers of curious officials, and came to the eye of Goodwin:</p>
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<blockquote>
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<p>His Nibs skedaddled yesterday per jackrabbit line with all the coin in the kitty and the bundle of muslin he’s spoony about. The boodle is six figures short. Our crowd in good shape, but we need the spondulicks. You collar it. The main guy and the dry goods are headed for the briny. You know what to do.</p>
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<p class="ind15"><span class="smallcaps">Bob</span>.<br/></p>
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<footer>
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<p epub:type="z3998:sender">Bob</p>
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</footer>
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</blockquote>
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<p>This screed, remarkable as it was, had no mystery for Goodwin. He was the most successful of the small advance-guard of speculative Americans that had invaded Anchuria, and he had not reached that enviable pinnacle without having well exercised the arts of foresight and deduction. He had taken up political intrigue as a matter of business. He was acute enough to wield a certain influence among the leading schemers, and he was prosperous enough to be able to purchase the respect of the petty officeholders. There was always a revolutionary party; and to it he had always allied himself; for the adherents of a new administration received the rewards of their labours. There was now a Liberal party seeking to overturn President Miraflores. If the wheel successfully revolved, Goodwin stood to win a concession to 30,000 manzanas of the finest coffee lands in the interior. Certain incidents in the recent career of President Miraflores had excited a shrewd suspicion in Goodwin’s mind that the government was near a dissolution from another cause than that of a revolution, and now Englehart’s telegram had come as a corroboration of his wisdom.</p>
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<p>The telegram, which had remained unintelligible to the Anchurian linguists who had applied to it in vain their knowledge of Spanish and elemental English, conveyed a stimulating piece of news to Goodwin’s understanding. It informed him that the president of the republic had decamped from the capital city with the contents of the treasury. Furthermore, that he was accompanied in his flight by that winning adventuress Isabel Guilbert, the opera singer, whose troupe of performers had been entertained by the president at San Mateo during the past month on a scale less modest than that with which royal visitors are often content. The reference to the “jackrabbit line” could mean nothing else than the mule-back system of transport that prevailed between Coralio and the capital. The hint that the “boodle” was “six figures short” made the condition of the national treasury lamentably clear. Also it was convincingly true that the ingoing party—its way now made a pacific one—would need the “spondulicks.” Unless its pledges should be fulfilled, and the spoils held for the delectation of the victors, precarious indeed, would be the position of the new government. Therefore it was exceeding necessary to “collar the main guy,” and recapture the sinews of war and government.</p>
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@ -27,19 +27,18 @@
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<p>“Not me,” said Johnny, promptly and incorrectly, holding up a foot encased in a disreputable deerskin <i xml:lang="es">zapato</i>. “I haven’t been a victim to shoes in months.”</p>
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<p>“But you’ve got ’em, though,” went on Keogh. “And there’s Goodwin and Blanchard and Geddie and old Lutz and Doc Gregg and that Italian that’s agent for the banana company, and there’s old Delgado—no; he wears sandals. And, oh, yes; there’s Madama Ortiz, ‘what kapes the hotel’—she had on a pair of red slippers at the baile the other night. And Miss Pasa, her daughter, that went to school in the States—she brought back some civilized notions in the way of footgear. And there’s the comandante’s sister that dresses up her feet on feast-days—and <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Geddie, who wears a two with a Castilian instep—and that’s about all the ladies. Let’s see—don’t some of the soldiers at the cuartel—no: that’s so; they’re allowed shoes only when on the march. In barracks they turn their little toeses out to grass.”</p>
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<p>“ ‘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.”</p>
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<p>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:<br/></p>
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<blockquote>
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<p class="noindent"><span class="smallcaps"><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Obadiah Patterson</span>,<br/><span class="ind2">Dalesburg, Ala.</span></p>
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<p class="noindent">Dear Sir: In reply to your favour of July 2nd, I have the honour 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.</p>
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<p>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:</p>
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<blockquote epub:type="letter">
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<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Obadiah Patterson, Dalesburg, Ala.</p>
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<p><span epub:type="salutation">Dear Sir</span>: In reply to your favour of July 2nd, I have the honour 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.</p>
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<p>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 honour to be, sir,</p>
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<p class="ind6">Your Obt. Servant,</p>
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<p class="noindent">
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<span class="ind10"><span class="smallcaps">John De Graffenreid Atwood</span>,</span>
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<br/>
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<span class="ind10">U. S. Consul at Coralio.</span>
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</p>
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<p class="noindent"><abbr>P.S.</abbr>—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</p>
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<p class="ind15"><span class="smallcaps">Johnny</span>.<br/></p>
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<footer>
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<p epub:type="valediction">Your Obt. Servant,</p>
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<p epub:type="z3998:sender">John De Graffenreid Atwood,</p>
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<p>U. S. Consul at Coralio.</p>
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</footer>
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<p epub:type="z3998:postscript"><abbr>P.S.</abbr>—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</p>
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<p epub:type="z3998:sender">Johnny</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>“I throw in that postscript,” explained the consul, “so Uncle Obadiah won’t take offence 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 <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Ariadne</i> takes the mail out tomorrow if they make up that load of fruit today.”</p>
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<p>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.</p>
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@ -86,10 +85,10 @@
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<p>“Keep cheerful,” said the optimistic Keogh. “And let ’em open the store. I’ve been busy myself this afternoon. We can stir up a temporary boom in footgear anyhow. I’ll buy six pairs when the doors open. I’ve been around and seen all the fellows and explained the catastrophe. They’ll all buy shoes like they was centipedes. Frank Goodwin will take cases of ’em. The Geddies want about eleven pairs between ’em. Clancy is going to invest the savings of weeks, and even old Doc Gregg wants three pairs of alligator-hide slippers if they’ve got any tens. Blanchard got a look at Miss Hemstetter; and as he’s a Frenchman, no less than a dozen pairs will do for him.”</p>
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<p>“A dozen customers,” said Johnny, “for a $4,000 stock of shoes! It won’t work. There’s a big problem here to figure out. You go home, Billy, and leave me alone. I’ve got to work at it all by myself. Take that bottle of Three-star along with you—no, sir; not another ounce of booze for the United States consul. I’ll sit here tonight and pull out the think stop. If there’s a soft place on this proposition anywhere I’ll land on it. If there isn’t there’ll be another wreck to the credit of the gorgeous tropics.”</p>
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<p>Keogh left, feeling that he could be of no use. Johnny laid a handful of cigars on a table and stretched himself in a steamer chair. When the sudden daylight broke, silvering the harbour ripples, he was still sitting there. Then he got up, whistling a little tune, and took his bath.</p>
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<p>At nine o’clock he walked down to the dingy little cable office and hung for half an hour over a blank. The result of his application was the following message, which he signed and had transmitted at a cost of $33:<br/></p>
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<p>At nine o’clock he walked down to the dingy little cable office and hung for half an hour over a blank. The result of his application was the following message, which he signed and had transmitted at a cost of $33:</p>
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<blockquote>
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<p class="noindent"><span class="smallcaps">To Pinkney Dawson</span>,<br/><span class="ind2">Dalesburg, Ala.</span></p>
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<p>Draft for $100 comes to you next mail. Ship me immediately 500 pounds stiff, dry cockleburrs. New use here in arts. Market price twenty cents pound. Further orders likely. Rush.<br/></p>
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<span epub:type="salutation">To Pinkney Dawson</span>, Dalesburg, Ala.</p>
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<p>Draft for $100 comes to you next mail. Ship me immediately 500 pounds stiff, dry cockleburrs. New use here in arts. Market price twenty cents pound. Further orders likely. <span class="signature">Rush.<span></p>
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</blockquote>
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</section>
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</body>
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@ -80,15 +80,14 @@
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<p>“Am I <i xml:lang="es">preso</i> by the military or by the civil authority?”</p>
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<p>“Surely there is no martial law in effect now, señor.”</p>
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<p>“<i xml:lang="es">Bueno</i>. Now go or send to the alcalde, the <i xml:lang="es">Jues de la Paz</i> and the <i xml:lang="es">Jefe de los Policios</i>. Tell them I am prepared at once to satisfy the demands of justice.” A folded bill of the “long green” slid into the sergeant’s hand.</p>
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<p>Then Dicky’s smile came back again, for he knew that the hours of his captivity were numbered; and he hummed, in time with the sentry’s tread:<br/></p>
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<table style="margin: 0 auto">
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<tr>
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<td>
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<i>“They’re hanging men and women now,<br/> For lacking of the green.”</i>
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<br/>
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</td>
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</tr>
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</table>
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<p>Then Dicky’s smile came back again, for he knew that the hours of his captivity were numbered; and he hummed, in time with the sentry’s tread:</p>
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<blockquote epub:type="z3998:verse">
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<p>
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<span>“They’re hanging men and women now,<span>
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<br/>
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<span>For lacking of the green.”</span>
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</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>So, that night Dicky sat by the window of the room over his shop and his little saint sat close by, working at something silken and dainty. Dicky was thoughtful and grave. His red hair was in an unusual state of disorder. Pasa’s fingers often ached to smooth and arrange it, but Dicky would never allow it. He was poring, tonight, over a great litter of maps and books and papers on his table until that perpendicular line came between his brows that always distressed Pasa. Presently she went and brought his hat, and stood with it until he looked up, inquiringly.</p>
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<p>“It is sad for you here,” she explained. “Go out and drink <i xml:lang="es">vino blanco</i>. Come back when you get that smile you used to wear. That is what I wish to see.”</p>
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<p>Dicky laughed and threw down his papers. “The <i xml:lang="es">vino blanco</i> stage is past. It has served its turn. Perhaps, after all, there was less entered my mouth and more my ears than people thought. But, there will be no more maps or frowns tonight. I promise you that. Come.”</p>
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</h2>
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<p>Vaudeville is intrinsically episodic and discontinuous. Its audiences do not demand dénoûements. Sufficient unto each “turn” is the evil thereof. No one cares how many romances the singing comédienne may have had if she can capably sustain the limelight and a high note or two. The audiences reck not if the performing dogs get to the pound the moment they have jumped through their last hoop. They do not desire bulletins about the possible injuries received by the comic bicyclist who retires headfirst from the stage in a crash of (property) chinaware. Neither do they consider that their seat coupons entitle them to be instructed whether or no there is a sentiment between the lady solo banjoist and the Irish monologist.</p>
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<p>Therefore let us have no lifting of the curtain upon a tableau of the united lovers, backgrounded by defeated villainy and derogated by the comic, osculating maid and butler, thrown in as a sop to the Cerberi of the fifty-cent seats.</p>
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<p>But our programme ends with a brief “turn” or two; and then to the exits. Whoever sits the show out may find, if he will, the slender thread that binds together, though ever so slightly, the story that, perhaps, only the Walrus will understand.<br/></p>
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<p>
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<i>Extracts from a letter from the first vice-president of the Republic Insurance Company, of New York City, to Frank Goodwin, of Coralio, Republic of Anchuria.</i>
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<br/>
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</p>
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<blockquote>
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<p class="noindent">My Dear <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goodwin:—Your communication per <abbr>Messrs.</abbr> Howland and Fourchet, of New Orleans, has reached us. Also their draft on N. Y. for $100,000, the amount abstracted from the funds of this company by the late J. Churchill Wahrfield, its former president. … The officers and directors unite in requesting me to express to you their sincere esteem and thanks for your prompt and much appreciated return of the entire missing sum within two weeks from the time of its disappearance. … Can assure you that the matter will not be allowed to receive the least publicity. … Regret exceedingly the distressing death of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wahrfield by his own hand, but … Congratulations on your marriage to Miss Wahrfield … many charms, winning manners, noble and womanly nature and envied position in the best metropolitan society …</p>
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<p class="noindent">
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<span class="ind12">Cordially yours,</span>
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</p>
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<p class="noindent">
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<span class="ind12"><span class="smallcaps">Lucius E. Applegate</span>,</span>
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<br/>
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<span class="ind12">First Vice-President</span>
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<br/>
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<span class="ind12">the Republic Insurance Company.</span>
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</p>
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<p>But our programme ends with a brief “turn” or two; and then to the exits. Whoever sits the show out may find, if he will, the slender thread that binds together, though ever so slightly, the story that, perhaps, only the Walrus will understand.</p>
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<p><i>Extracts from a letter from the first vice-president of the Republic Insurance Company, of New York City, to Frank Goodwin, of Coralio, Republic of Anchuria.</i></p>
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<blockquote epub:type="z3998:letter">
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<p><span epub:type="salutation">My Dear <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goodwin</span>:—Your communication per <abbr>Messrs.</abbr> Howland and Fourchet, of New Orleans, has reached us. Also their draft on N. Y. for $100,000, the amount abstracted from the funds of this company by the late J. Churchill Wahrfield, its former president. … The officers and directors unite in requesting me to express to you their sincere esteem and thanks for your prompt and much appreciated return of the entire missing sum within two weeks from the time of its disappearance. … Can assure you that the matter will not be allowed to receive the least publicity. … Regret exceedingly the distressing death of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wahrfield by his own hand, but … Congratulations on your marriage to Miss Wahrfield … many charms, winning manners, noble and womanly nature and envied position in the best metropolitan society …</p>
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<footer>
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<p epub:type="valediction">Cordially yours,</p>
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<p epub:type="z3998:sender">Lucius E. Applegate</p>
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<p>First Vice-President</p>
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<p>The Republic Insurance Company.</p>
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</footer>
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</blockquote>
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<h3><i>The Vitagraphoscope</i><br/> (Moving Pictures)</h3>
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<h3><i>The Vitagraphoscope</i> (Moving Pictures)</h3>
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<h3>
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<i>The Last Sausage</i>
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</h3>
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<p>As yet there had been no actual uprising in Coralio. Military law prevailed, and the ferment was bottled for the time. And then came the word that everywhere the revolutionists were encountering defeat. In the capital the president’s forces triumphed; and there was a rumour that the leaders of the revolt had been forced to fly, hotly pursued.</p>
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<p>In the little telegraph office at Coralio there was always a gathering of officials and loyal citizens, awaiting news from the seat of government. One morning the telegraph key began clicking, and presently the operator called, loudly: “One telegram for <i xml:lang="es">el Almirante</i>, Don Señor Felipe Carrera!”</p>
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<p>There was a shuffling sound, a great rattling of tin scabbard, and the admiral, prompt at his spot of waiting, leaped across the room to receive it.</p>
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<p>The message was handed to him. Slowly spelling it out, he found it to be his first official order—thus running:<br/></p>
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<p>The message was handed to him. Slowly spelling it out, he found it to be his first official order—thus running:</p>
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<blockquote>
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<p>Proceed immediately with your vessel to mouth of Rio Ruiz; transport beef and provisions to barracks at Alforan.</p>
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<p class="ind15">Martinez, General.<br/></p>
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<p class="signature">Martinez, General.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>Small glory, to be sure, in this, his country’s first call. But it had called, and joy surged in the admiral’s breast. He drew his cutlass belt to another buckle hole, roused his dozing crew, and in a quarter of an hour <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">El Nacional</i> was tacking swiftly down coast in a stiff landward breeze.</p>
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<p>The Rio Ruiz is a small river, emptying into the sea ten miles below Coralio. That portion of the coast is wild and solitary. Through a gorge in the Cordilleras rushes the Rio Ruiz, cold and bubbling, to glide, at last, with breadth and leisure, through an alluvial morass into the sea.</p>
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops" epub:prefix="z3998: http://www.daisy.org/z3998/2012/vocab/structure/, se: https://standardebooks.org/vocab/1.0" xml:lang="en-US">
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<head>
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<title>Preface</title>
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<title>The Proem</title>
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<link href="../css/core.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
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<link href="../css/local.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
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</head>
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<section id="preface" epub:type="preface">
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<h2>The Proem</h2>
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<h3>
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<span class="small">BY THE CARPENTER</span>
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<b>by the carpenter</b>
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</h3>
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<p>They will tell you in Anchuria, that President Miraflores, of that volatile republic, died by his own hand in the coast town of Coralio; that he had reached thus far in flight from the inconveniences of an imminent revolution; and that one hundred thousand dollars, government funds, which he carried with him in an American leather valise as a souvenir of his tempestuous administration, was never afterward recovered.</p>
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<p>For a <i>real</i>, a boy will show you his grave. It is back of the town near a little bridge that spans a mangrove swamp. A plain slab of wood stands at its head. Someone has burned upon the headstone with a hot iron this inscription:<br/> </p>
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<div class="arial">
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<p class="noindent">RAMON ANGEL DE LAS CRUZES</p>
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<p class="noindent">Y MIRAFLORES</p>
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<p class="noindent">PRESIDENTE DE LA REPUBLICA</p>
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<p class="noindent">DE ANCHURIA</p>
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<p class="noindent">QUE SEA SU JUEZ DIOS<br/> </p>
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</div>
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<p>For a <i>real</i>, a boy will show you his grave. It is back of the town near a little bridge that spans a mangrove swamp. A plain slab of wood stands at its head. Someone has burned upon the headstone with a hot iron this inscription:</p>
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<blockquote>
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<p>RAMON ANGEL DE LAS CRUZES</p>
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<p>Y MIRAFLORES</p>
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<p>PRESIDENTE DE LA REPUBLICA</p>
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<p>DE ANCHURIA</p>
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<p>QUE SEA SU JUEZ DIOS</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>It is characteristic of this buoyant people that they pursue no man beyond the grave. “Let God be his judge!”—Even with the hundred thousand unfound, though greatly coveted, the hue and cry went no further than that.</p>
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<p>To the stranger or the guest the people of Coralio will relate the story of the tragic end of their former president; how he strove to escape from the country with the public funds and also with Doña Isabel Guilbert, the young American opera singer; and how, being apprehended by members of the opposing political party in Coralio, he shot himself through the head rather than give up the funds, and, in consequence, the Señorita Guilbert. They will relate further that Doña Isabel, her adventurous bark of fortune shoaled by the simultaneous loss of her distinguished admirer and the souvenir hundred thousand, dropped anchor on this stagnant coast, awaiting a rising tide.</p>
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<p>They say, in Coralio, that she found a prompt and prosperous tide in the form of Frank Goodwin, an American resident of the town, an investor who had grown wealthy by dealing in the products of the country—a banana king, a rubber prince, a sarsaparilla, indigo, and mahogany baron. The Señorita Guilbert, you will be told, married Señor Goodwin one month after the president’s death, thus, in the very moment when Fortune had ceased to smile, wresting from her a gift greater than the prize withdrawn.</p>
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