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Goodwin was not to be disputed. He was a loyal supporter of the government, and enjoyed the full confidence of the new president. His rectitude had been the capital that had brought him fortune in Anchuria, just as it had formed the lucrative "graft" of Mellinger, the secretary of Miraflores. "I thank you, Senor Goodwin," said Falcon, "for speaking plainly.
I'll knock out the props and launch you proper in the pellucid waters of this tropical mud puddle. You'll have to be christened, and if you'll come with me I'll break a bottle of wine across your bows, according to Hoyle. "Well, for two days Homer P. Mellinger did the honors. That man cut ice in Anchuria. He was It. He was the Royal Kafoozlum.
A colonel and a battalion of bare-toed infantry turned out and went back to the scene of the musicale with us, but the conspirator gang was gone. But we recaptured the phonograph with honours of war, and marched back to the cuartel with it playing 'All Coons Look Alike to Me. "The next day Mellinger takes me and Henry to one side, and begins to shed tens and twenties.
"'I want to buy that phonograph, says he. 'I liked that last tune it played at the soiree. "'This is more money than the machine is worth, says I. "''Tis government expense money, says Mellinger. 'The government pays for it, and it's getting the tune-grinder cheap. "Me and Henry knew that pretty well.
It was a cornet solo, very neat and beautiful, and the name of it was 'Home, Sweet Home. Not one of them fifty odd men in the room moved while it was playing, and the governor man kept his eyes steady on Mellinger. I saw Mellinger's head go up little by little, and his hand came creeping away from the package. Not until the last note sounded did anybody stir.
They say Mellinger never travelled a mile after that without his phonograph. I guess it kept him reminded about his graft whenever he saw the siren voice of the boodler tip him the wink with a bribe in its hand." "I suppose he's taking it home with him as a souvenir," remarked the consul. "Not as a souvenir," said Keogh. "He'll need two of 'em in New York, running day and night."
"Mine and Henry's money was counterfeit. Everything was on Homer P. Mellinger. That man could find rolls of bills concealed in places on his person where Hermann the Wizard couldn't have conjured out a rabbit or an omelette. He could have founded universities, and made orchid collections, and then had enough left to purchase the colored vote of his country.
His right elbow laid out the governor man on the gridiron, and he made a lane the length of the crowd so wide that a woman could have carried a step-ladder through it without striking against anything. All Mellinger and me had to do was to follow. "It took us just three minutes to get out of that street around to military headquarters, where Mellinger had things his own way.
We knew that it had saved Homer P. Mellinger's graft when he was on the point of losing it; but we never let him know we knew it. "'Now you boys better slide off further down the coast for a while, says Mellinger, 'till I get the screws put on these fellows here. If you don't they'll give you trouble.
His job's over now; and I guess old Mellinger is glad." "Why does he disappear to music, like Zo-zo, the magic queen?" asked Johnny. "Just to show 'em that he doesn't care?" "That noise you heard is a phonograph," said Keogh. "I sold him that. Mellinger had a graft in this country that was the only thing of its kind in the world.
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