I recollect now, sir, you are the American sailor he saw one
time in Colon. He has conversed many times of you. The senora will not
like it, you understand, you a sailor, but with the senorita, it is but
to charm the more. She loves me, her hard dog of an uncle, because I,
who have adventured, can tell her a thousand tales. You have adventured
also and she is yet her father's child. Do not mind that I speak
frankly, but come. If I speak thus to you, it is because I know that
you, senor, are one to understand and to trust. We shall be glad to see
you. You go with Ferrero now? Ver-ry good.' Juan stood up and with his
cane he saluted profoundly. 'Good-by, sir. Ferrero, a Dios.' He went as
he came, with a rush.
"Stirred up by Juan, Cogan thought of calling that very night on Luis
Roca and his family. But he did not go, nor next day, nor that week. He
saw Juan regularly in the bull-ring, and always Juan urged him afresh,
but Cogan did not go to see the Rocas. 'Later,' perhaps, he said to
Juan, who stared wonderingly at him but did not ask why.
"And so things went for several weeks, until that morning when the
American battle fleet came steaming into Callao harbor. Cogan was one of
twenty or thirty thousand who crowded to the stone pier that day, and
when the beautiful white ships came rounding in, he felt very proud. And
the yellow tongues of flame flashing and the white sides of the great
war-ships gleaming through the smoke--it made a tremendous impression on
everybody; but to Cogan's eyes the tears came.
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