Evening star., 1909-08-29

chose a restaurant. Thus | kept impoverished
but happy | watched her and drink-she had
a pretty taste for still wines, too-with a growing
fascination and fattening bankroll
Thus matters stood,-my rush of Margarida still
progress the rushing snews harder to get all the
time and the brother with the Rodrigues treasure
unaccountaby detained in Paris Budapest or
Antwerp or the Tyrol. as Margarida Nariously
guessed,-when one leaden afternoon ! had what
Ella Wheeler Wilcox William Jennings Bryan
would call a cruel awakening.
decide whether | would wouldn't flow
ing gold bullion sash with fgure-ofeight knot at
the waist when | became GeneraSsimo OF the Gov
ernment forces OF Costa Rca under the general
directions of my patroness, Margarida Maria Rod
rigues when | hailed from the second story
window of a neat house facing the little park The
haer was an old friend whom hadn't in years
He crusty bachelor for whom had done
chores years before reporting on rubber and ma
hogany properties in South America and the like
Come in here you old lamingo, and give
cheer! he called down to me- and his
wthered old serving woman met me at the front
door and conducted me up stairs to my friend.
He sitting at the window from which he
had esped me- nursing bath-sppered foot His
cherished corn giving him a living death This
he bawled at soon as | entered the rOom
warning me not to get within one hundred octilion
miles of that We famed the years for
brief space, and then my grizzled friend bawled for
Where in the of all the bayonets of
Billebedad is that Internal Rosita Salazar: he
bawled at her.
had sent a message around to the sign of the gded
foot and Rosita would be arriving any minute.
Gilded f.i foot glded foot, foot found myself re-
lately had something or other to do with a glded
foot and where the
Then nv Margarda's S dislike for the gded foot
in the little side street the first day Of my meet
ing with her popped into my mind. | smiled at the
memory. My Margarida sensitive soul!
reflected.
This Rosita that you re bowling SO camorouslv
for said to my old friend with the idea of taking
his mind off his pedal trouble what and who is
Rosta? What does she do for you chloroform
you something?'
q Rosta' he rasped groaning is my manana
fatty. She's Rosta the Always Late. Blast it all,
in unconsecrated ground; but wish she'd get a
wigge on her two hundred and fifty odd pounds
and come over here, that's all!
Very illuminating said l. But what does
Rosta do-read Dante to YOU cool your fevered
brow teach you how do honton lacework,
mangle typewriter, sing folk songs to you -
So Stop that. you Internal Jabberer he beloved
at 'Rosita's my pedicure, and she's
HE broke off suddenly because just at that in
IL stant Margarida Maria Rodriguez carrying a
little black hand satchel, ushered in by the
grinnng old servant
- Rosita you plumpiferous angel attend to this
flaming fend of a foot of mine quick! grunted my
old friend-th,ls addressing my Margarida.
my Margarida and exchanged only one glance
just But it suficiency There was fun
lurking around each of Margarda's three chns
But a hydraulic press couldn't have squeezed a
peseta's worth of fun out of me just then. didn't
see the joke until hour 50 later and then
laughed so hard in the street that cop
hotfootng to Bellevue's psychopathic ward.
And SO, after that exchange of glances with
my-but longer my -Margarda, | withdrew to
another and read the poems of Emilio Castelar,
with the book turned upside down, while Rosita
Margarida assuaged the ache of my friends
pageous corn After hour he summoned
me back to his room. He alone
This Rosta of yours l said to him. and my
voice sounded hoarse in my own ears, has she been
in New York long,
- Pretty nigh all her life, | reckon replied my
friend chrpilY She's been knOckin the tar out