She
would walk past the hotel, ask some one to call him out and talk a few
moments on some trivial excuse, leaving him expecting to see her at
her home at seven.
She unpinned her hat and gave it to Mateo. "Keep this, and wait here
till I come," she ordered. Then she draped the mantilla over her head
as she usually did when walking after sunset, and went straight to the
Orilla del Mar.
She was glad to see the bulky, white-clad figure of Tio Pancho
standing alone on the gallery.
"Tio Pancho," she said, with a charming smile, "may I trouble you to
ask Mr. Merriam to come out for just a few moments that I may speak
with him?"
Tio Pancho bowed as an elephant bows.
"Buenas tardes, Senora Conant," he said, as a cavalier talks. And
then he went on, less at his ease:
"But does not the senora know that Senor Merriam sailed on the _Pajaro_
for Panama at three o'clock of this afternoon?"
II
THE THEORY AND THE HOUND
Not many days ago my old friend from the tropics, J. P. Bridger,
United States consul on the island of Ratona, was in the city. We
had wassail and jubilee and saw the Flatiron building, and missed
seeing the Bronxless menagerie by about a couple of nights. And
then, at the ebb tide, we were walking up a street that parallels and
parodies Broadway.
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