Kieran roused himself. "No, there wasn't any girl in Zanzibar. If there
had been, a fellow couldn't be advertising her to the crew of an
oil-tanker at high-noon, could he? No! But there _was_ a girl, and there
was a friend of mine--call him Cogan. Oh, not a bad fellow--no worse,
maybe no better, than you or I, or most any of the old crowd we used to
know, and he happened to drift down the Isthmus way--into Colon--during
the Revolution. Ever there?"
"Once, just after the Revolution."
"And what did you think of it--the Revolution?"
"M-m--it surely did happen most opportunely for our interests."
"Didn't it, though? And did you ever notice that quite a few of the
revolutions in those Central American latitudes happen most opportunely
for some northern interest or other? Well, Cogan was there during the
Revolution. He told me of a saloon there, about a minute's walk up from
the big steamship dock on the street next the water-side--remember that
street?"
"Where the railroad starts to cross the Isthmus to Panama?"
"That's it. And this saloon was on that street--it may be there yet--the
Fourth of July saloon with its big American ensign painted on the wall
opposite the bar. Remember it?"
"M-m-h-h."
"Well, it was run by a Brooklyn Irishman named Martin Jackson, and Cogan
said he remembered the shock he got when he first heard him talk.
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