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Page 13
"'Don't be a fool,' says O'Connor, interrupting. 'But that's the only
woman in the world for me, Bowers. The O'Connors are as quick to love as
they are to fight. I shall wear that rose over me heart when I lead me
men into action. For a good battle to be fought there must be some woman
to give it power.'
"`Every time,' I agreed, 'if you want to have a good lively scrap.
There's only one thing bothering me. In the novels the light-haired
friend of the hero always gets killed. Think 'em all over that you've
read, and you'll see that I'm right. I think I'll step down to the
Botica Espanola and lay in a bottle of walnut stain before war is
declared.'
"'How will I find out her name?' says O'Connor, layin' his chin in his
hand.
"'Why don't you go across the street and ask her?' says I.
"'Will ye never regard anything in life seriously?' says O'Connor,
looking down at me like a schoolmaster.
"'Maybe she meant the rose for me,' I said, whistling the Spanish
Fandango.
"For the first time since I'd known O'Connor, he laughed. He got up and
roared and clapped his knees, and leaned against the wall till the tiles
on the roof clattered to the noise of his lungs. He went into the back
room and looked at himself in the glass and began and laughed all over
from the beginning again. Then he looked at me and repeated himself.
That's why I asked you if you thought an Irishman had any humor. He'd
been doing farce comedy from the day I saw him without knowing it; and
the first time he had an idea advanced to him with any intelligence in
it he acted like two twelfths of the sextet in a 'Floradora' road
company.
"The next afternoon he comes in with a triumphant smile and begins to
pull something like ticker tape out of his pocket.
"'Great !' says I. 'This is something like home. How is Amalgamated
Copper to-day?'
"'I've got her name,' says O'Connor, and he reads off something like
this: 'Dona Isabel Antonia Inez Lolita Carreras y Buencaminos y
Monteleon. She lives with her mother,' explains O'Connor. 'Her father
was killed in the last revolution. She is sure to be in sympathy with
our cause.'
"And sure enough the next day she flung a little bunch of roses clear
across the street into our door. O'Connor dived for it and found a piece
of paper curled around a stem with a line in Spanish on it. He dragged
the interpreter out of his corner and got him busy. The interpreter
scratched his head, and gave us as a translation three best bets:
'Fortune had got a face like the man fighting'; 'Fortune looks like a
brave man'; and 'Fortune favors the brave.' We put our money on the last
one.
"'Do ye see?' says O'Connor. 'She intends to encourage me sword to save
her country.'
"'It looks to me like an invitation to supper,' says I.
"So every day this senorita sits behind the barred windows and exhausts
a conservatory or two, one posy at a time. And O'Connor walks like a
Dominecker rooster and swells his chest and swears to me he will win her
by feats of arms and big deeds on the gory field of battle.
"By and by the revolution began to get ripe. One day O'Connor takes me
into the back room and tells me all.
"'Bowers,' says he, 'at twelve o'clock one week from to-day the struggle
will take place. It has pleased ye to find amusement and diversion in
this project because ye have not sense enough to perceive that it is
easily accomplished by a man of courage, intelligence, and historical
superiority, such as meself. The whole world over,' says he, 'the
O'Connors have ruled men, women, and nations. To subdue a small and
indifferent country like this is a trifle. Ye see what little,
barefooted manikins the men of it are. I could lick four of 'em
single-handed.'
"'No doubt,' says I. 'But could you lick six? And suppose they hurled an
army of seventeen against you?'
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