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Page 76
"The President!" exclaimed Gordon; "but how? What does the President
know or care about Opeki? and it would take so long--oh, I see, the
cable. Is that what you have been doing?" he asked.
"Well, only once," said Stedman, guiltily; "that was when he wanted to
turn me out of the consul's office, and I had a cable that very
afternoon, from the President, ordering me to stay where I was.
Ollypybus doesn't understand the cable, of course, but he knows that
it sends messages; and sometimes I pretend to send messages for him to
the President; but he began asking me to tell the President to come
and pay him a visit, and I had to stop it."
"I'm glad you told me," said Gordon. "The President shall begin to
cable to-morrow. He will need an extra appropriation from Congress to
pay for his private cablegrams alone."
"And there's another thing," said Stedman. "In all your plans, you've
arranged for the people's improvement, but not for their amusement;
and they are a peaceful, jolly, simple sort of people, and we must
please them."
"Have they no games or amusements of their own?" asked Gordon.
"Well, not what we would call games."
"Very well, then, I'll teach them base-ball. Foot-ball would be too
warm. But that plaza in front of the King's bungalow, where his palace
is going to be, is just the place for a diamond. On the whole,
though," added the consul, after a moment's reflection, "you'd better
attend to that yourself. I don't think it becomes my dignity as
American consul to take off my coat and give lessons to young Opekians
in sliding to bases; do you? No; I think you'd better do that. The
Bradleys will help you, and you had better begin to-morrow. You have
been wanting to know what a secretary of legation's duties are, and
now you know. It's to organize base-ball nines. And after you get
yours ready," he added, as he turned into his room for the night,
"I'll train one that will sweep yours off the face of the island. For
_this_ American consul can pitch three curves."
The best laid plans of men go far astray, sometimes, and the great and
beautiful city that was to rise on the coast of Opeki was not built in
a day. Nor was it ever built. For before the Bradleys could mark out
the foul-lines for the base-ball field on the plaza, or teach their
standing army the goose step, or lay bamboo pipes for the water-mains,
or clear away the cactus for the extension of the King's palace, the
Hillmen paid Opeki their quarterly visit.
Albert had called on the King the next morning, with Stedman as his
interpreter, as he had said he would, and, with maps and sketches, had
shown his Majesty what he proposed to do toward improving Opeki and
ennobling her king, and when the King saw Albert's free-hand sketches
of wharves with tall ships lying at anchor, and rows of Opekian
warriors with the Bradleys at their head, and the design for his new
palace, and a royal sedan chair, he believed that these things were
already his, and not still only on paper, and he appointed Albert his
Minister of War, Stedman his Minister of Home Affairs, and selected
two of his wisest and oldest subjects to serve them as joint advisers.
His enthusiasm was even greater than Gordon's, because he did not
appreciate the difficulties. He thought Gordon a semi-god, a worker of
miracles, and urged the putting up of a monument to him at once in the
public plaza, to which Albert objected, on the ground that it would be
too suggestive of an idol; and to which Stedman also objected, but for
the less unselfish reason that it would "be in the way of the
pitcher's box."
They were feverishly discussing all these great changes, and Stedman
was translating as rapidly as he could translate, the speeches of four
different men--for the two counsellors had been called in--all of whom
wanted to speak at once when there came from outside a great shout,
and the screams of women, and the clashing of iron, and the pattering
footsteps of men running.
As they looked at one another in startled surprise, a native ran into
the room, followed by Bradley, Jr., and threw himself down before the
King. While he talked, beating his hands and bowing before Ollypybus,
Bradley, Jr., pulled his forelock to the consul, and told how this man
lived on the far outskirts of the village; how he had been captured
while out hunting, by a number of the Hillmen; and how he had escaped
to tell the people that their old enemies were on the war-path again,
and rapidly approaching the village.
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