His
Irish brogue had a Spanish accent--do you get that? Well, he has nothing
to do with the story, only this--Cogan used to have great ideas about
revolutions, and Martin, he knocked most of them out of him. He'd seen
twenty of them in his time, Martin had, and when he saw one of them
coming now, he just ran up his iron shutters and let it roll by.
Business was generally pretty good after a revolution. An easy-going
sort of a man, Martin. He didn't even get mad with Cogan when he'd used
up hours of his time and then only order ginger ale.
"Cogan saw the Panamanian army at dress parade one day--after the
Revolution that was. About two hundred darkies, mostly boys of thirteen
or fourteen, barefooted with high-water pants on. Cogan's notion of it
was that a dozen good huskies with baseball bats could've landed on
their peninsula any fine, sunny afternoon and in ten minutes rushed the
whole Panamanian army into the Pacific Ocean--that is, if our warships
would let them. If we'd only let the Colombians alone they'd soon've
wound up the Revolution--so Cogan thought, and told Martin so. 'But I
s'pose they've had hundreds of revolutions in South America?' he says to
Martin.
"'Hundreds,' says Martin, and blows more smoke toward the sky. Out in
front of the saloon they were sitting, both of 'em balancing between the
sidewalk and the wall on the hind legs of their chairs.
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