"No--but in a general way you represent Society; and in a particular way you represent my last chance. I've had to come down to it, old man--I tried to do it a month ago when Losada's man was here turning things over; but I couldn't do it then. Now it's different. I want a thousand dollars, Goodwin; and you'll have to give it to me.""Only last week," said Goodwin, with a smile, "a silver dollar was all you were asking for.""An evidence," said Blythe, flippantly, "that I was still virtuous--though under heavy pressure. The wages of sin should be something higher than a peso worth forty-eight cents. Let's talk business.
I am the villain in the third act; and I must have my merited, if only temporary, triumph. I saw you collar the late president's valiseful of boodle. Oh, I know it's blackmail; but I'm liberal about the price. I know I'm a cheap villain--one of the regular sawmill-drama kind--but you're one of my particular friends, and I don't want to stick you hard.""Suppose you go into the details," suggested Goodwin, calmly arranging his letters on the table.
"All right," said "Beelzebub." "I like the way you take it.
I despise histrionics; so you will please prepare yourself for the facts without any red fire, calcium or grace notes on the saxophone.
"On the night that His Fly-by-night Excellency arrived in town I was very drunk. You will excuse the pride with which I state that fact;but it was quite a feat for me to attain that desirable state.
Somebody had left a cot out under the orange trees in the yard of Madama Ortiz's hotel. I stepped over the wall, laid down upon it, and fell asleep. I was awakened by an orange that dropped from the tree upon my nose; and I laid there for a while cursing Sir Isaac Newton, or whoever it was that invented gravitation, for not confining his theory to apples.
"And then along came Mr. Miraflores and his true-love with the treasury in a valise, and went into the hotel. Next you hove in sight, and held a pow-wow with the tonsorial artist who insisted upon talking shop after hours. I tried to slumber again; but once more my rest was disturbed--this time by the noise of the popgun that went off upstairs. Then that valise came crashing down into an orange tree just above my head; and I arose from my couch, not knowing when it might begin to rain Saratoga trunks. When the army and the constabulary began to arrive, with their medals and decorations hastily pinned to their pajamas, and their snickersnees drawn, I crawled into the welcome shadow of a banana plant. Iremained there for an hour, by which time the excitement and the people had cleared away. And then, my dear Goodwin--excuse me--I saw you sneak back and pluck that ripe and juicy valise from the orange tree. I followed you, and saw you take it to your own house. Ahundred-thousand-dollar crop from one orange tree in a season about breaks the record of the fruit-growing industry.
