第98章

"'Now, what you want,' says the consul, 'is not to get excited.I'll send you over some chewing tobacco and some banana fritters when I go back.The United States can't interfere in this.You know you were caught insurging against the government, and you're subject to the laws of this country.To tell the truth, I've had an intimation from the State Department--unofficially, of course--that whenever a soldier of fortune demands a fleet of gunboats in a case of revolutionary /katzenjammer/, I should cut the cable, give him all the tobacco he wants, and after he's shot take his clothes, if they fit me, for part payment of my salary.'

"'Consul,' says I to him, 'this is a serious question.You are representing Uncle Sam.This ain't any little international tomfoolery, like a universal peace congress or the christening of the /Shamrock IV/.I'm an American citizen and I demand protection.I demand the Mosquito fleet, and Schley, and the Atlantic squadron, and Bob Evans, and General E.Byrd Grubb, and two or three protocols.What are you going to do about it?'

"'Nothing doing,' says the consul.

"'Be off with you, then,' says I, out of patience with him, 'and send me Doc Millikin.Ask Doc to come and see me.'

"Doc comes and looks through the bars at me, surrounded by dirty soldiers, with even my shoes and canteen confiscated, and he looks mightily pleased.

"'Hello, Yank,' says he, 'getting a little taste of Johnson's Island, now, ain't ye?'

"'Doc,' says I, 'I've just had an interview with the U.S.consul.I gather from his remarks that I might just as well have been caught selling suspenders in Kishineff under the name of Rosenstein as to be in my present condition.It seems that the only maritime aid I am to receive from the United States is some navy-plug to chew.Doc,' says I, 'can't you suspend hostility on the slavery question long enough to do something for me?'

"'It ain't been my habit,' Doc Millikin answers, 'to do any painless dentistry when I find a Yank cutting an eye-tooth.So the Stars and Stripes ain't lending any marines to shell the huts of the Colombian cannibals, hey? Oh, say, can you see by the dawn's early light the star-spangled banner has fluked in the fight? What's the matter with the War Department, hey? It's a great thing to be a citizen of a gold-

standard nation, ain't it?'

"'Rub it in, Doc, all you want,' says I.'I guess we're weak on foreign policy.'

"'For a Yank,' says Doc, putting on his specs and talking more mild, 'you ain't so bad.If you had come from below the line I reckon I would have liked you right smart.Now since your country has gone back on you, you have to come to the old doctor whose cotton you burned and whose mules who stole and whose niggers you freed to help you.Ain't that so, Yank?'

"'It is,' says I heartily, 'and let's have a diagnosis of the case right away, for in two weeks' time all you can do is to hold an autopsy and I don't want to be amputated if I can help it.'

"'Now,' says Doc, business-like, 'it's easy enough for you to get out of this scrape.Money'll do it.You've got to pay a long string of 'em from General Pomposo down to this anthropoid ape guarding your door.

About $10,000 will do the trick.Have you got the money?'

"'Me?' says I.'I've got one Chili dollar, two /real/ pieces, and a /medio/.'

"'Then if you've any last words, utter 'em,' says that old reb.'The roster of your financial budget sounds quite much to be like the noise of a requiem.'

"'Change the treatment,' says I.'I admit that I'm short.Call a consultation or use radium or smuggle me in some saws or something.'

"'Yank,' says Doc Millikin, 'I've a good notion to help you.There's only one government in the world that can get you out of this difficulty; and that's the Confederate States of America, the grandest nation that ever existed.'

"Just as you said to me I says to Doc; 'Why, the Confederacy ain't a nation.It's been absolved forty years ago.'

"'That's a campaign lie,' says Doc.'She's running along as solid as the Roman Empire.She's the only hope you've got.Now, you, being a Yank, have got to go through with some preliminary obsequies before you can get official aid.You've got to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederate Government.Then I'll guarantee she does all she can for you.What do you say, Yank?--it's your last chance.'

"'If you're fooling with me, Doc,' I answers, 'you're no better than the United States.But as you say it's the last chance, hurry up and swear me.I always did like the corn whisky and 'possum anyhow.I believe I'm half Southerner by nature.I'm willing to try the Klu-klux in place of the khaki.Get brisk.'

"Doc Millikin thinks awhile, and then he offers me this oath of allegiance to take without any kind of a chaser: