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@@ -13,9 +13,9 @@
 			<p>That is the editor’s theory; and this is the way he carries it out:</p>
 			<p>When a batch of <abbr>MSS.</abbr> is received the editor stuffs every one of his pockets full of them and distributes them as he goes about during the day. The office employees, the hall porter, the janitor, the elevator man, messenger boys, the waiters at the café where the editor has luncheon, the man at the newsstand where he buys his evening paper, the grocer and milkman, the guard on the 5:30 uptown elevated train, the ticket-chopper at Sixty ⸻th Street, the cook and maid at his home⁠—these are the readers who pass upon <abbr>MSS.</abbr> sent in to the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Hearthstone Magazine</i>. If his pockets are not entirely emptied by the time he reaches the bosom of his family the remaining ones are handed over to his wife to read after the baby goes to sleep. A few days later the editor gathers in the <abbr>MSS.</abbr> during his regular rounds and considers the verdict of his assorted readers.</p>
 			<p>This system of making up a magazine has been very successful; and the circulation, paced by the advertising rates, is making a wonderful record of speed.</p>
-			<p>The <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Hearthstone</i> Company also publishes books, and its imprint is to be found on several successful works⁠—all recommended, says the editor, by the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Hearthstone’s</i> army of volunteer readers. Now and then (according to talkative members of the editorial staff) the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Hearthstone</i> has allowed manuscripts to slip through its fingers on the advice of its heterogeneous readers, that afterward proved to be famous sellers when brought out by other houses.</p>
+			<p>The Hearthstone Company also publishes books, and its imprint is to be found on several successful works⁠—all recommended, says the editor, by the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Hearthstone</i>’s army of volunteer readers. Now and then (according to talkative members of the editorial staff) the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Hearthstone</i> has allowed manuscripts to slip through its fingers on the advice of its heterogeneous readers, that afterward proved to be famous sellers when brought out by other houses.</p>
 			<p>For instance (the gossips say), <i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">The Rise and Fall of Silas Latham</i> was unfavourably passed upon by the elevator-man; the office-boy unanimously rejected <i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">The Boss</i>; <i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">In the Bishop’s Carriage</i> was contemptuously looked upon by the streetcar conductor; <i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">The Deliverance</i> was turned down by a clerk in the subscription department whose wife’s mother had just begun a two-months’ visit at his home; <i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">The Queen’s Quair</i> came back from the janitor with the comment: “So is the book.”</p>
-			<p>But nevertheless the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Hearthstone</i> adheres to its theory and system, and it will never lack volunteer readers; for each one of the widely scattered staff, from the young lady stenographer in the editorial office to the man who shovels in coal (whose adverse decision lost to the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Hearthstone</i> Company the manuscript of “The Under World”), has expectations of becoming editor of the magazine some day.</p>
+			<p>But nevertheless the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Hearthstone</i> adheres to its theory and system, and it will never lack volunteer readers; for each one of the widely scattered staff, from the young lady stenographer in the editorial office to the man who shovels in coal (whose adverse decision lost to the Hearthstone Company the manuscript of “The Under World”), has expectations of becoming editor of the magazine some day.</p>
 			<p>This method of the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Hearthstone</i> was well known to Allen Slayton when he wrote his novelette entitled <i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">Love Is All</i>. Slayton had hung about the editorial offices of all the magazines so persistently that he was acquainted with the inner workings of everyone in Gotham.</p>
 			<p>He knew not only that the editor of the Hearthstone handed his <abbr>MSS.</abbr> around among different types of people for reading, but that the stories of sentimental love-interest went to Miss Puffkin, the editor’s stenographer. Another of the editor’s peculiar customs was to conceal invariably the name of the writer from his readers of <abbr>MSS.</abbr> so that a glittering name might not influence the sincerity of their reports.</p>
 			<p>Slayton made <i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">Love Is All</i> the effort of his life. He gave it six months of the best work of his heart and brain. It was a pure love-story, fine, elevated, romantic, passionate⁠—a prose poem that set the divine blessing of love (I am transposing from the manuscript) high above all earthly gifts and honours, and listed it in the catalogue of heaven’s choicest rewards. Slayton’s literary ambition was intense. He would have sacrificed all other worldly possessions to have gained fame in his chosen art. He would almost have cut off his right hand, or have offered himself to the knife of the appendicitis fancier to have realized his dream of seeing one of his efforts published in the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Hearthstone</i>.</p>

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@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
 			<p>Well may the Walrus, most discerning and eclectic of beasts, place sealing-wax midway on his programme of topics that fall pertinent and diverting upon the ear.</p>
 			<p>Atwood was gone⁠—he of the hospitable back porch and ingenuous cunning. <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Gregg, with his trepanning story smouldering within him, was a whiskered volcano, always showing signs of imminent eruption, and was not to be considered in the ranks of those who might contribute to the amelioration of ennui. The new consul’s note chimed with the sad sea waves and the violent tropical greens⁠—he had not a bar of Scheherezade or of the Round Table in his lute. Goodwin was employed with large projects: what time he was loosed from them found him at his home, where he loved to be. Therefore it will be seen that there was a dearth of fellowship and entertainment among the foreign contingent of Coralio.</p>
 			<p>And then Dicky Maloney dropped down from the clouds upon the town, and amused it.</p>
-			<p>Nobody knew where Dicky Maloney hailed from or how he reached Coralio. He appeared there one day; and that was all. He afterward said that he came on the fruit steamer <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Thor</i>; but an inspection of the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Thor’s</i> passenger list of that date was found to be Maloneyless. Curiosity, however, soon perished; and Dicky took his place among the odd fish cast up by the Caribbean.</p>
+			<p>Nobody knew where Dicky Maloney hailed from or how he reached Coralio. He appeared there one day; and that was all. He afterward said that he came on the fruit steamer <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Thor</i>; but an inspection of the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Thor</i>’s passenger list of that date was found to be Maloneyless. Curiosity, however, soon perished; and Dicky took his place among the odd fish cast up by the Caribbean.</p>
 			<p>He was an active, devil-may-care, rollicking fellow with an engaging gray eye, the most irresistible grin, a rather dark or much sunburned complexion, and a head of the fieriest red hair ever seen in that country. Speaking the Spanish language as well as he spoke English, and seeming always to have plenty of silver in his pockets, it was not long before he was a welcome companion whithersoever he went. He had an extreme fondness for <i xml:lang="es">vino blanco</i>, and gained the reputation of being able to drink more of it than any three men in town. Everybody called him “Dicky”; everybody cheered up at the sight of him⁠—especially the natives, to whom his marvellous red hair and his free-and-easy style were a constant delight and envy. Wherever you went in the town you would soon see Dicky or hear his genial laugh, and find around him a group of admirers who appreciated him both for his good nature and the white wine he was always so ready to buy.</p>
 			<p>A considerable amount of speculation was had concerning the object of his sojourn there, until one day he silenced this by opening a small shop for the sale of tobacco, dulces and the handiwork of the interior Indians⁠—fibre-and-silk-woven goods, deerskin <i xml:lang="es">zapatos</i> and basketwork of tule reeds. Even then he did not change his habits; for he was drinking and playing cards half the day and night with the comandante, the collector of customs, the <i xml:lang="es">Jefe Politico</i> and other gay dogs among the native officials.</p>
 			<p>One day Dicky saw Pasa, the daughter of Madama Ortiz, sitting in the side-door of the Hotel <span xml:lang="es">de los Estranjeros</span>. He stopped in his tracks, still, for the first time in Coralio; and then he sped, swift as a deer, to find Vasquez, a gilded native youth, to present him.</p>

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@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
 			<p>Smith looked business, but he was no advertiser. He commented upon the scenery, remarking upon its fidelity to the pictures in the geography; and then inquired for the United States consul. Goodwin pointed out the starred-and-striped bunting hanging above the little consulate, which was concealed behind the orange-trees.</p>
 			<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Geddie, the consul, will be sure to be there,” said Goodwin. “He was very nearly drowned a few days ago while taking a swim in the sea, and the doctor has ordered him to remain indoors for some time.”</p>
 			<p>Smith plowed his way through the sand to the consulate, his haberdashery creating violent discord against the smooth tropical blues and greens.</p>
-			<p>Geddie was lounging in his hammock, somewhat pale of face and languid in pose. On that night when the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Valhalla’s</i> boat had brought him ashore apparently drenched to death by the sea, Doctor Gregg and his other friends had toiled for hours to preserve the little spark of life that remained to him. The bottle, with its impotent message, was gone out to sea, and the problem that it had provoked was reduced to a simple sum in addition⁠—one and one make two, by the rule of arithmetic; one by the rule of romance.</p>
+			<p>Geddie was lounging in his hammock, somewhat pale of face and languid in pose. On that night when the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Valhalla</i>’s boat had brought him ashore apparently drenched to death by the sea, Doctor Gregg and his other friends had toiled for hours to preserve the little spark of life that remained to him. The bottle, with its impotent message, was gone out to sea, and the problem that it had provoked was reduced to a simple sum in addition⁠—one and one make two, by the rule of arithmetic; one by the rule of romance.</p>
 			<p>There is a quaint old theory that man may have two souls⁠—a peripheral one which serves ordinarily, and a central one which is stirred only at certain times, but then with activity and vigour. While under the domination of the former a man will shave, vote, pay taxes, give money to his family, buy subscription books and comport himself on the average plan. But let the central soul suddenly become dominant, and he may, in the twinkling of an eye, turn upon the partner of his joys with furious execration; he may change his politics while you could snap your fingers; he may deal out deadly insult to his dearest friend; he may get him, instanter, to a monastery or a dance hall; he may elope, or hang himself⁠—or he may write a song or poem, or kiss his wife unasked, or give his funds to the search of a microbe. Then the peripheral soul will return; and we have our safe, sane citizen again. It is but the revolt of the Ego against Order; and its effect is to shake up the atoms only that they may settle where they belong.</p>
 			<p>Geddie’s revulsion had been a mild one⁠—no more than a swim in a summer sea after so inglorious an object as a drifting bottle. And now he was himself again. Upon his desk, ready for the post, was a letter to his government tendering his resignation as consul, to be effective as soon as another could be appointed in his place. For Bernard Brannigan, who never did things in a halfway manner, was to take Geddie at once for a partner in his very profitable and various enterprises; and Paula was happily engaged in plans for refurnishing and decorating the upper story of the Brannigan house.</p>
 			<p>The consul rose from his hammock when he saw the conspicuous stranger in his door.</p>

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@@ -49,7 +49,7 @@
 			<p>“I have none,” said I, “and, if you please, I am about to leave for my supper.”</p>
 			<p>I pushed my chair back creakingly. This ancient landlubber was becoming as great an affliction as any cross-bowed mariner. He shook a musty effluvium from his piebald clothes, overturned my inkstand, and went on with his insufferable nonsense.</p>
 			<p>“I wouldn’t mind it so much,” he complained, “if it wasn’t for the work I must do on Good Fridays. Ye know about Pontius Pilate, sir, of course. His body, whin he killed himself, was pitched into a lake on the Alps mountains. Now, listen to the job that ’tis mine to perform on the night of ivery Good Friday. The ould divil goes down in the pool and drags up Pontius, and the water is bilin’ and spewin’ like a wash pot. And the ould divil sets the body on top of a throne on the rocks, and thin comes me share of the job. Oh, sir, ye would pity me thin⁠—ye would pray for the poor Wandering Jew that niver was a Jew if ye could see the horror of the thing that I must do. ’Tis I that must fetch a bowl of water and kneel down before it till it washes its hands. I declare to ye that Pontius Pilate, a man dead two hundred years, dragged up with the lake slime coverin’ him and fishes wrigglin’ inside of him widout eyes, and in the discomposition of the body, sits there, sir, and washes his hands in the bowl I hold for him on Good Fridays. ’Twas so commanded.”</p>
-			<p>Clearly, the matter had progressed far beyond the scope of the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Bugle’s</i> local column. There might have been employment here for the alienist or for those who circulate the pledge; but I had had enough of it. I got up, and repeated that I must go.</p>
+			<p>Clearly, the matter had progressed far beyond the scope of the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Bugle</i>’s local column. There might have been employment here for the alienist or for those who circulate the pledge; but I had had enough of it. I got up, and repeated that I must go.</p>
 			<p>At this he seized my coat, grovelled upon my desk, and burst again into distressful weeping. Whatever it was about, I said to myself that his grief was genuine.</p>
 			<p>“Come now, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Ader,” I said, soothingly; “what is the matter?”</p>
 			<p>The answer came brokenly through his racking sobs:</p>
@@ -66,7 +66,7 @@
 			<p>And then my capillaries relaxed, for I dimly saw him footing it away through the darkness. But he walked so swiftly and silently and contrary to the gait promised by his age that my composure was not all restored, though I knew not why.</p>
 			<p>That night I was foolish enough to take down some dust-covered volumes from my modest shelves. I searched “Hermippus Redivvus” and “Salathiel” and the “Pepys Collection” in vain. And then in a book called “The Citizen of the World,” and in one two centuries old, I came upon what I desired. Michob Ader had indeed come to Paris in the year 1643, and related to the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Turkish Spy</i> an extraordinary story. He claimed to be the Wandering Jew, and that⁠—</p>
 			<p>But here I fell asleep, for my editorial duties had not been light that day.</p>
-			<p>Judge Hoover was the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Bugle’s</i> candidate for congress. Having to confer with him, I sought his home early the next morning; and we walked together downtown through a little street with which I was unfamiliar.</p>
+			<p>Judge Hoover was the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Bugle</i>’s candidate for congress. Having to confer with him, I sought his home early the next morning; and we walked together downtown through a little street with which I was unfamiliar.</p>
 			<p>“Did you ever hear of Michob Ader?” I asked him, smiling.</p>
 			<p>“Why, yes,” said the judge. “And that reminds me of my shoes he has for mending. Here is his shop now.”</p>
 			<p>Judge Hoover stepped into a dingy, small shop. I looked up at the sign, and saw “Mike O’Bader, Boot and Shoe Maker,” on it. Some wild geese passed above, honking clearly. I scratched my ear and frowned, and then trailed into the shop.</p>

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@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
 			<p>Geddie laid down his pen and gathered his Panama hat and umbrella. By the sound he knew it to be the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Valhalla</i>, one of the line of fruit vessels plying for the Vesuvius Company. Down to <i xml:lang="es">niños</i> of five years, everyone in Coralio could name you each incoming steamer by the note of her siren.</p>
 			<p>The consul sauntered by a roundabout, shaded way to the beach. By reason of long practice he gauged his stroll so accurately that by the time he arrived on the sandy shore the boat of the customs officials was rowing back from the steamer, which had been boarded and inspected according to the laws of Anchuria.</p>
 			<p>There is no harbour at Coralio. Vessels of the draught of the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Valhalla</i> must ride at anchor a mile from shore. When they take on fruit it is conveyed on lighters and freighter sloops. At Solitas, where there was a fine harbour, ships of many kinds were to be seen, but in the roadstead off Coralio scarcely any save the fruiters paused. Now and then a tramp coaster, or a mysterious brig from Spain, or a saucy French barque would hang innocently for a few days in the offing. Then the customhouse crew would become doubly vigilant and wary. At night a sloop or two would be making strange trips in and out along the shore; and in the morning the stock of Three-Star Hennessey, wines and drygoods in Coralio would be found vastly increased. It has also been said that the customs officials jingled more silver in the pockets of their red-striped trousers, and that the record books showed no increase in import duties received.</p>
-			<p>The customs boat and the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Valhalla</i> gig reached the shore at the same time. When they grounded in the shallow water there was still five yards of rolling surf between them and dry sand. Then half-clothed Caribs dashed into the water, and brought in on their backs the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Valhalla’s</i> purser and the little native officials in their cotton undershirts, blue trousers with red stripes, and flapping straw hats.</p>
+			<p>The customs boat and the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Valhalla</i> gig reached the shore at the same time. When they grounded in the shallow water there was still five yards of rolling surf between them and dry sand. Then half-clothed Caribs dashed into the water, and brought in on their backs the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Valhalla</i>’s purser and the little native officials in their cotton undershirts, blue trousers with red stripes, and flapping straw hats.</p>
 			<p>At college Geddie had been a treasure as a first-baseman. He now closed his umbrella, stuck it upright in the sand, and stooped, with his hands resting upon his knees. The purser, burlesquing the pitcher’s contortions, hurled at the consul the heavy roll of newspapers, tied with a string, that the steamer always brought for him. Geddie leaped high and caught the roll with a sounding “thwack.” The loungers on the beach⁠—about a third of the population of the town⁠—laughed and applauded delightedly. Every week they expected to see that roll of papers delivered and received in that same manner, and they were never disappointed. Innovations did not flourish in Coralio.</p>
 			<p>The consul re-hoisted his umbrella and walked back to the consulate.</p>
 			<p>This home of a great nation’s representative was a wooden structure of two rooms, with a native-built gallery of poles, bamboo and nipa palm running on three sides of it. One room was the official apartment, furnished chastely with a flattop desk, a hammock, and three uncomfortable cane-seated chairs. Engravings of the first and latest president of the country represented hung against the wall. The other room was the consul’s living apartment.</p>
@@ -61,7 +61,7 @@
 			<p>Stepping to the water’s edge, Geddie hurled the unopened bottle far out into the sea. It disappeared for a moment, and then shot upward twice its length. Geddie stood still, watching it. The moonlight was so bright that he could see it bobbing up and down with the little waves. Slowly it receded from the shore, flashing and turning as it went. The wind was carrying it out to sea. Soon it became a mere speck, doubtfully discerned at irregular intervals; and then the mystery of it was swallowed up by the greater mystery of the ocean. Geddie stood still upon the beach, smoking and looking out upon the water.</p>
 			<p>“Simon!⁠—Oh, Simon!⁠—wake up there, Simon!” bawled a sonorous voice at the edge of the water.</p>
 			<p>Old Simon Cruz was a half-breed fisherman and smuggler who lived in a hut on the beach. Out of his earliest nap Simon was thus awakened.</p>
-			<p>He slipped on his shoes and went outside. Just landing from one of the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Valhalla’s</i> boats was the third mate of that vessel, who was an acquaintance of Simon’s, and three sailors from the fruiter.</p>
+			<p>He slipped on his shoes and went outside. Just landing from one of the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Valhalla</i>’s boats was the third mate of that vessel, who was an acquaintance of Simon’s, and three sailors from the fruiter.</p>
 			<p>“Go up, Simon,” called the mate, “and find <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Gregg or <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goodwin or anybody that’s a friend to <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Geddie, and bring ’em here at once.”</p>
 			<p>“Saints of the skies!” said Simon, sleepily, “nothing has happened to <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Geddie?”</p>
 			<p>“He’s under that tarpauling,” said the mate, pointing to the boat, “and he’s rather more than half drownded. We seen him from the steamer nearly a mile out from shore, swimmin’ like mad after a bottle that was floatin’ in the water, outward bound. We lowered the gig and started for him. He nearly had his hand on the bottle, when he gave out and went under. We pulled him out in time to save him, maybe; but the doctor is the one to decide that.”</p>

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@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
 			<p>And then the early morning people began to pass through the square to their work⁠—sullen people, with sidelong glances and glum faces, hurrying, hurrying, hurrying. And I got my theme cut out clear from the bird notes, and wrought it into a lesson, and a poem, and a carnival dance, and a lullaby; and then translated it all into prose and began to write.</p>
 			<p>For two hours my pencil traveled over my pad with scarcely a rest. Then I went to the little room I had rented for two days, and there I cut it to half, and then mailed it, white-hot, to the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Sun</i>.</p>
 			<p>The next morning I was up by daylight and spent two cents of my capital for a paper. If the word “sparrow” was in it I was unable to find it. I took it up to my room and spread it out on the bed and went over it, column by column. Something was wrong.</p>
-			<p>Three hours afterward the postman brought me a large envelope containing my <abbr>MS.</abbr> and a piece of inexpensive paper, about 3 inches by 4⁠—I suppose some of you have seen them⁠—upon which was written in violet ink, “With the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Sun’s</i> thanks.”</p>
+			<p>Three hours afterward the postman brought me a large envelope containing my <abbr>MS.</abbr> and a piece of inexpensive paper, about 3 inches by 4⁠—I suppose some of you have seen them⁠—upon which was written in violet ink, “With the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Sun</i>’s thanks.”</p>
 			<p>I went over to the square and sat upon a bench. No; I did not think it necessary to eat any breakfast that morning. The confounded pests of sparrows were making the square hideous with their idiotic “cheep, cheep.” I never saw birds so persistently noisy, impudent, and disagreeable in all my life.</p>
 			<p>By this time, according to all traditions, I should have been standing in the office of the editor of the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Sun</i>. That personage⁠—a tall, grave, white-haired man⁠—would strike a silver bell as he grasped my hand and wiped a suspicious moisture from his glasses.</p>
 			<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> McChesney,” he would be saying when a subordinate appeared, “this is <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Henry, the young man who sent in that exquisite gem about the sparrows in Madison Square. You may give him a desk at once. Your salary, sir, will be $80 a week, to begin with.”</p>

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@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
 			<p>Eight hundred people dream life away in a green-embowered village that follows the horseshoe curve of its bijou harbour. They are mostly Spanish and Indian mestizos, with a shading of San Domingo Negroes, a lightening of pure-blood Spanish officials and a slight leavening of the froth of three or four pioneering white races. No steamers touch at Ratona save the fruit steamers which take on their banana inspectors there on their way to the coast. They leave Sunday newspapers, ice, quinine, bacon, watermelons and vaccine matter at the island and that is about all the touch Ratona gets with the world.</p>
 			<p>The <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Pajaro</i> paused at the mouth of the harbour, rolling heavily in the swell that sent the whitecaps racing beyond the smooth water inside. Already two dories from the village⁠—one conveying fruit inspectors, the other going for what it could get⁠—were halfway out to the steamer.</p>
 			<p>The inspectors’ dory was taken on board with them, and the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Pajaro</i> steamed away for the mainland for its load of fruit.</p>
-			<p>The other boat returned to Ratona bearing a contribution from the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Pajaro’s</i> store of ice, the usual roll of newspapers and one passenger⁠—Taylor Plunkett, sheriff of Chatham County, Kentucky.</p>
+			<p>The other boat returned to Ratona bearing a contribution from the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Pajaro</i>’s store of ice, the usual roll of newspapers and one passenger⁠—Taylor Plunkett, sheriff of Chatham County, Kentucky.</p>
 			<p>Bridger, the United States consul at Ratona, was cleaning his rifle in the official shanty under a breadfruit tree twenty yards from the water of the harbour. The consul occupied a place somewhat near the tail of his political party’s procession. The music of the band wagon sounded very faintly to him in the distance. The plums of office went to others. Bridger’s share of the spoils⁠—the consulship at Ratona⁠—was little more than a prune⁠—a dried prune from the boardinghouse department of the public crib. But $900 yearly was opulence in Ratona. Besides, Bridger had contracted a passion for shooting alligators in the lagoons near his consulate, and was not unhappy.</p>
 			<p>He looked up from a careful inspection of his rifle lock and saw a broad man filling his doorway. A broad, noiseless, slow-moving man, sunburned almost to the brown of Vandyke. A man of forty-five, neatly clothed in homespun, with scanty light hair, a close-clipped brown-and-gray beard and pale-blue eyes expressing mildness and simplicity.</p>
 			<p>“You are <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bridger, the consul,” said the broad man. “They directed me here. Can you tell me what those big bunches of things like gourds are in those trees that look like feather dusters along the edge of the water?”</p>