The drummer agreed, and climbed stiffly off his horse. Notwithstanding the Englishman's brusquerie, Strawbridge rather liked the tall, brown, pale-eyed man. After the perpetual tepid courtesy of the Venezuelans his downrightness was as bracing as a cold shower.
Once Tolliver had decided to accept Thomas Strawbridge as a respectable white man in good standing, he did it wholeheartedly. He preceded his guest through a yard set with flowers in formal stone-bordered beds, a mode of flower arrangement dear to an Englishwoman's heart, no matter in what part of the world she is. The stone house had a wide wooden porch running completely around it. In front this was furnished with mats, a number of pieces of porch furniture, and a swing; around at one side were littered harness, garden tools, two or three boxes, and a number of large calabashes sawed off at the top. All the doors and windows were screened with copper gauze. Tolliver went to the door and spoke through the screen.
"Lizzie," he called, "Mr. Strawbridge, an American gentleman, will lunch with us," and a moment later a woman's pleasant voice called back, "Ask him whether he will have green or black tea, George."
While the two men were seated on the porch, looking ovethe grove, Tolliver, with an Englishman's pertinacity, returned to the topic of American dollar-chasing.
"I don't see how you run around with these scrapings," he criticized. "My eyes, man! you've got to be careful who you sell rifles to in this bloody country! Half these beggars can't be trusted with firearms—" He broke off, peering out into his barn lot. "Look—look yonder, at those women catching up my chickens! When an army of liberation sets out from Canalejos, about half of 'em stop at my ranch, load up with my live stock, and go back home—the damn, thiev-
