BEFORE Don Juan could even utter a matutinal greeting, Mother Jenks laid finger to lip and silenced him. “Go back to Leber's and return in an hour,” she whispered. “I 'ave my reasons for wantin' that bloomin' cablegram delivered later.”

Don Juan hadn't the least idea what Mother Jenks's reasons might be, but he presumed she was up to some chicanery, and so he winked his bloodshot eye very knowingly and nodded his acquiescence in the program; whereupon Mother Jenks started to close the door. Instantly Don Juan's foot was in the jamb; in a hoarse whisper he said:

“Whilst ye're askin' favours, woman dear, ye might have the kindness to ask me if I have a mouth.”

“Bloomin' well I knows yer 'ave a mouth, for bloomin' well I smell yer blawsted breath,” Mother Jenks retorted. However, the present was no time to raise an issue with Don Juan, and so she slipped behind the bar of her cantina, poured five fingers of aguardiente, the local brand of disturbance, and handed it to Don Juan through the crack in the door.

“Here's all the hair off your head,” Don Juan CafetÉro saluted her amiably. He tossed it off at a gulp, handed Mother Jenks the glass, and departed with a whispered promise to return in an hour.

When he had gone, Mother Jenks went behind the bar and fortified herself with her morning's morning—which rite having been performed, her sleep-benumbed brain livened up immediately.

“Gord's truth!” the lady murmured. “An' me about to turn him adrift for the lawst fortnight! Well for 'im 'e allers hadmired the picture o' my sainted 'Enery, as was the spittin' image of his own fawther. 'Evings! 'Ell's bells! But that was a bit of a tight squeak! Just as I'm fully conwinced 'e's beat it an' I'm left 'oldin' the sack, all along o' my kindness of 'eart, 'e gets the cablegram 'e's been lookin' for this two months past; an' 'e allers claimed as 'ow any time'e got a cablegram it'd be an answer to 'is letter, with money to foller! My word, but that was touch an' go! An' yet Willie's got such a tykin' w'y about him, I might 'ave knowed 'e was a gentleman!”

Still congratulating herself upon her good fortune in intercepting Don Juan CafetÉro, Mother Jenks proceeded upstairs to her chamber, clothed herself, and adjourned to the kitchen, where Carmelita was already engaged in the preparation of the morning meal. After giving orders for an extra special breakfast for two, Mother Jenks returned to her cantina, and formally opened the same for the business of that day and night; while a lank Jamaica negro swept out the room and cleaned the cuspidors, she washed and polished her glassware and set her back bar in order. To her here came presently, via the tiled hallway, the object of her solicitude, a young man on the sunny side of thirty. At the first glance one suspected this individual to be a member of the Caucasian race; at the second glance one verified this suspicion. He was thin for one of his height and breadth of chest; in colour his countenance resembled that of a sick Chinaman. His hair was thick and wavy but lustreless; his dark blue eyes carried a hint of jaundice; and a generous mouth, beneath an equally generous upper lip, gave ample ground for the suspicion that while Mr. William Geary's speech denoted him an American citizen, at least one of his maternal ancestors had been wooed and won by an Irishman. An old panama hat, sad relic of a prosperous past, a pair of soiled buckskin pumps, a suit of unbleached linen equally befouled, and last but not least, the remnants of a smile that much hard luck could never quite obliterate, completed his attire—and to one a stranger in the tropics would appear to constitute a complete inventory of Mr. Geary's possessions. An experienced person, however, would have observed immediately that Mother Jenks's seedy guest had been bitten deeply and often by mosquitoes and was, in consequence, the proprietor of a low malarial fever, with its concomitant chills.

“Dulce corazon mio, I extend a greeting,” he called at the entrance. “I trust you rested well last night, Mother Jenks, and that no evil dreams were born of your midnight repast of frijoles refritos, marmalade, and arf-an'-arf!”

“Chop yer spoofin', Willie,” Mother Jenks simpered. “My heye! So I'm yer sweet'eart, eh? Yer wheedlin' blighter, makin' love to a girl as is old enough to be yer mother!”

“A woman,” Mr. Geary retorted sagely and not a whit abashed, “is at the apex of her feminine charms at thirty-seven.”

He knew his landlady to be not a day under fifty, but such is the ease with which the Irish scatter their blarney, and such the vanity of the gentler sex (for despite Mother Jenks's assault upon Carmelita, we include the lady in that pleasing category), that neither Billy Geary nor Mother Jenks regarded this pretty speech in the light of an observation immaterial, inconsequential and not germane to the matter at issue. For Mother Jenks was the eternal feminine, and it warmed the cockles of her heart to be told she was only thirty-seven, even though reason warned her that the compliment was not garnished with the sauce of sincerity. As for Billy, the sight of Mother Jenks swallowing this specious bait, together with hook, line, and sinker, always amused him and for the nonce took his mind off his own troubles. Nevertheless, there was a deeper reason for his blarney. This morning, watching the tell tale tinge of pleasure underlying the alcohol-begotten hue of the good creature's face, he felt almost ashamed of his own heartlessness—almost, but not quite.

Let us take Billy's view of his own case and view his mendacity with a kindly and tolerant eye. For two months he had existed entirely because of the leniency of Mother Jenks in the matter of credit.

He could not pay her cash, devoutly as he hoped to do some day, and he considered it of the most vital importance that in the interim he should somehow survive. Therefore, in lieu of cash he paid her compliments, which she snapped up greedily.

In the cold gray dawn of the morning after Mother Jenks always detected the bug in Billy's amber and vowed to rout him bag and baggage that very day; but when one is fond of blarney, it is hard indeed to destroy the source of it; and while Mother Jenks's courage had mounted to the point of action many a time, in the language of the sporting extra, Billy had always “beaten her to the punch”; for when instinct warned him that Mother Jenks was about to talk business, he could always rout her by declaring she was pencilling her eyebrows or rouging her cheeks.

An inventive genius was Billy. He never employed the same defensive tactics two days in succession, and when personal flattery threatened to fail him, a large crayon reproduction of the late Henry Jenks, which hung over the back bar, was a never-failing source of inspiration.

This was the “sainted'Enery” previously referred to by Mother Jenks. He had been a sergeant in Her Brittanic Majesty's Royal Horse Artillery, and upon retiring to the Reserve had harkened to a proposition to emigrate to Sobrante and accept a commission as colonel of artillery with the Government forces then in the throes of a revolutionary attack. The rebels had triumphed, and as a result 'Enery had been sainted via the customary expeditious route; whereupon his wife had had recourse to her early profession of barmaid, and El Buen Amigo had resulted.

However, let us return to our sheeps, as Mr. Geary would have expressed it. Seemingly the effect of Billy's compliment was instantly evident, for Mother Jenks set out two glasses and a bottle.

“I know yer a trifler, Willy Geary,” she simpered, “but if I do s'y it as shouldn't, I was accounted as 'andsome a barmaid as you'd find in Bristol town. I've lost my good looks, what with grief an' worritin' since losin' my sainted 'Enery, but I was 'andsome oncet.”

“I can well believe it, Mother—since you are handsome still! For my part,” he continued confidentially, as with shaking hand he filled his brandy-glass, “you'll excuse this drunkard's drink, Mother, but I need it; I had the shakes again last night—for my part, I prefer the full-blown rose to the bud.”

Mother Jenks fluttered like a debutante as she poured her drink. They touched glasses, calloused worldlings that they were.

“'Ow,” said Mother Jenks, toasting the philandering wretch.

“How!” He tossed off his drink. It warmed and strengthened him, after his night of chills and fever, and brazenly he returned to the attack.

“Changing the subject from feminine grace and charm to manly strength and virtue, I've been marking lately the resolute poise of your martyred husband's head on his fine military shoulders. There was a man, if I may judge from his photograph, that would fight a wildcat.”

“Oh, m'ybe 'e wouldn't!” Mother Jenks hastened to declare. “You know, Willie, I was present w'en they shot 'im, a-waitin' to claim 'is body. 'E kisses me good-bye, an' says 'e: 'Brace up, ol' girl. Remember your 'usband's been a sergeant in 'Er Majesty's Royal 'Orse Artillery, an' don't let the bloody blighters see yer cry.' Then 'e walks out front, with 'is fine straight back to the wall, draws a circle on 'is blue tunic with white chalk an' says: 'Shoot at that, yer yeller-bellied bounders, an' be damned to yer!'”

“To be the widow of such a gallant son of Mars,” Billy declared, “is a greater honour than being the wife of a duke.”

For the sake of 'Enery's memory Mother Jenks squeezed out a tear. Billy would have egged her on to a lachrymal flood, for he knew she would enjoy it, but at that moment entered Carmelita, to announce breakfast.

Mother Jenks, recalling her husband's last advice, declined to let even a Sobrantean girl see her weep. She composed herself instantly, filled her glass again, and pushed the bottle to Billy.

“'Ave another peg with Mother, Willie.”

“I'll go you, Mother, although it's really my turn to set 'em up. I would if I had the price. However, I'm expecting action on that concession of mine pretty soon, Mother, and when I get straightened out, they'll date time in the Calle de Concordia from the spending toot I'll inaugurate. Ah, Mother,” he added with a note of genuine gratitude and sincerity, “you've been awfully good to me. I don't know what I'd have done without you.” He laid his hand on her fat arm. “Mother, one of these days I'll get mine, and when I do I'm going to stake you to a nice little pub back in Bristol.”

She smiled at him with motherly tenderness and shook her head. In a concrete niche in the mortuary of the CatedrÂl de la Vera Cruz the bones of her sainted 'Enery reposed, and when her hour came she would lie beside him. Moreover, she was a tropical tramp. She had grown to like Sobrante, for all her railing against it, and she knew she would never see the chalk cliffs of Albion again.

“Yer a sweet boy, Willie,” she told him, “an' I'd trust yer for double the score, s'help me. 'Eving knows I 'aven't much, but wot I 'ave I shares freely with them I likes. I 'ave a brace o' duck heggs, 'am an' 'ot cakes, Willie, an' yer 'll breakfuss with Mother. Duck heggs, 'am an' 'ot cakes, Willie. 'Ow's that? Eh, yer precious byby.”

Billy's glistening eyes testified to the profundity of his feelings at the prospect of this Lucullan feast. It had been long since Mother Jenks's larder had yielded him anything more stable than brown beans, tortillas, fried onions, and an occasional dab of marmalade, and the task of filling in the corners of his appetite with free tropical fruit had long since grown irksome.

Mother Jenks preceded him into the shady side of the veranda, where ordinarily she was wont to breakfast in solitary state. Her table was set for two this morning, however, but this extraordinary circumstance was lost sight of by the shameless Billy in the prospect of one more real meal before the chills and fever claimed their own. He flipped an adventurous cockroach off the table and fell to with fine appetite.

He was dallying with a special brew of coffee, with condensed milk in it, when the Jamaica negro entered from the cantina to announce Don Juan Cafe-tÉro with a cablegram.

“A cablegram!” Mother Jenks cried. “Gord's truth! I'll wager the pub it's for you, Willie.”

“I wonder! Can it be possible it's come at last?” Billy cried incredulously.

“I'd not be surprised,” Mother Jenks replied. “Bob”—turning to the negro, and addressing him in her own private brand of Spanish—“give Don Juan a drink, if 'e 'asn't helped 'imself while yer back is turned, an' bring the cablegram 'ere.”

Within the minute Bob returned with a long yellow envelope, which he handed Mother Jenks. Without so much as a glance at the superscription, she handed it to Billy Geary, who tore it open and read:

Los Angeles, Calif., U. S. A., August 16, 1913.

Henrietta Wilkins,

Calle de Concordia, No. 19,

Buenaventura,

Sobrante, C. A.

Leaving to-day to visit you. Will cable from New Orleans exact date arrival.

Dolores.

The shadow of deep disappointment settled over Billy's face as he read. Mother Jenks noted it instantly.

“Wot's 'e got to s'y, Willie?” she demanded.

“It isn't a he. It's a she,” Billy replied. “Besides, the cablegram isn't for me at all. It's for one Henrietta Wilkins, Calle de Concordia, Number Nineteen, and who the devil Henrietta Wilkins may be is a mystery to me. Ever have any boarder by that name, Mother?”

Mother Jenks's red face had gone white. “'Enrietta Wilkins was my maiden nyme, Willie,” she confessed soberly, “an' there's only one human as 'ud cable me or write me by that nyme. Gord, Willie, wot's 'appened?”

“I'll read it to you, Mother.”

Billy read the message aloud; and when he had finished, to his amazement, Mother Jenks laid her head on the table and began to weep.