Spilled milk draws few tears from an Anchurian administration. Many are its lacteal sources; and the clocks' hands point forever to milking time. Even the rich cream skimmed from the by the bewitched Miraflores did not cause the newly-installed to waste time in unprofitable regrets. The government set about supplying the deficiency by increasing the import duties and by "suggesting" to wealthy private citizens that contributions according to their means would be considered and in order. Prosperity was expected to attend the of Losada, the new president. The office-holders and military favourites organized a new "Liberal" party, and began to lay their plans for a re-succession. Thus the game of Anchurian politics began, like a Chinese comedy, to unwind slowly its length. Here and there Mirth peeps for an instant from the wings and illumines the florid lines.
A dozen quarts of in conjunction with an informal sitting of the president and his cabinet led to the establishment of the navy and the appointment of Felipe Carrera as its admiral.
Next to the champagne the credit of the appointment belongs to Don Sabas Placido, the newly confirmed Minister of War.
The president had requested a convention of his cabinet for the discussion of questions and for the transaction of certain routine matters of state. The session had been signally tedious; the business and the wine dry. A sudden, humour of Don Sabas, him to the deed, spiced the grave affairs of state with a whiff of agreeable playfulness.
In the order of business had come a bulletin from the coast department of Orilla del reporting the by the custom-house officers at the town of Coralio of the Estrella del Noche and her of drygoods, patent medicines, granulated sugar and three-star brandy. Also six Martini rifles and a barrel of American whisky. Caught in the act of , the sloop with its cargo was now, according to law, the property of the republic.
The Collector of Customs, in making his report, departed from the conventional forms so far as to suggest that the be converted to the use of the government. The prize was the first capture to the credit of the department in ten years. The collector took opportunity to pat his department on the back.
It often happened that government officers required transportation from point to point along the coast, and means were usually lacking. Furthermore, the sloop could be manned by a loyal crew and employed as a coast guard to discourage the pernicious art of smuggling. The collector also ventured to nominate one to whom the charge of the boat could be safely intrusted—a young man of Coralio, Felipe Carrera—not, be it understood, one of extreme wisdom, but loyal and the best sailor along the coast.
It was upon this hint that the Minister of War acted, executing a rare piece of that so enlivened the of executive session.
In the constitution of this small, banana republic was a forgotten section that provided for the maintenance of a navy. This provision—with many other wiser ones—had lain since the establishment of the republic. Anchuria had no navy and had no use for one. It was characteristic of Don Sabas—a man at once merry, learned, whimsical and audacious—that he should have disturbed the dust of this musty and sleeping to increase the humour of the world by so much as a smile from his indulgent colleagues.
With mock seriousness the Minister of War proposed the creation of a navy. He argued its need and the glories it might achieve with such gay and that the overcame with its humour even the swart dignity of President Losada himself.
The champagne was bubbling in the of the statesmen. It was not the custom of the grave governors of Anchuria to enliven their sessions with a so apt to cast a veil of over sober affairs. The wine had been a thoughtful compliment tendered by the agent of the Vesuvius Fruit Company as a token of relations—and certain deals—between that company and the republic of Anchuria.
The jest was carried to its end. A formidable, official document was prepared, encrusted with seals and with fluttering ribbons, bearing the florid signatures of state. This commission conferred upon el Señor Don Felipe Carrera the title of Flag Admiral of the Republic of Anchuria. Thus within the space of a few minutes and the of a dozen "extra dry," the country took its place among the powers of the world, and Felipe Carrera became entitled to a of nineteen guns whenever he might enter port.
The southern races are lacking in that particular kind of humour that finds entertainment in the defects and misfortunes by Nature. Owing to this defect in their constitution they are not moved to laughter (as are their northern brothers) by the spectacle of the , the feeble-minded or the insane.
Felipe Carrera was sent upon earth with but half his wits. Therefore, the people of Coralio called him "El pobrecito loco"—"the poor little crazed one"—saying that God had sent but half of him to earth, retaining the other half.
A sombre youth, , and speaking only at the rarest times, Felipe was but negatively "loco." On shore he generally refused all conversation. He seemed to know that he was badly handicapped on land, where so many kinds of understanding are needed; but on the water his one talent set him equal with most men. Few sailors whom God had carefully and completely made could handle a sailboat as well. Five points nearer the wind than even the best of them he could sail his sloop. When the elements raged and set other men to , the deficiencies of Felipe seemed of little importance. He was a perfect sailor, if an imperfect man. He owned no boat, but worked among the crews of the and that skimmed the coast, trading and freighting fruit out to the steamers where there was no harbour. It was through his famous skill and boldness on the sea, as well as for the pity felt for his mental imperfections, that he was recommended by the collector as a suitable of the captured sloop.
When the outcome of Don Sabas' little pleasantry arrived in the form of the and commission, the collector smiled. He had not expected such prompt and overwhelming response to his recommendation. He despatched a muchacho at once to fetch the future admiral.
The collector waited in his official quarters. His office was in the Calle Grande, and the sea breezes hummed through its windows all day. The collector, in white and canvas shoes, with papers on an antique desk. A parrot, perched on a pen rack, seasoned the official tedium with a fire of choice Castilian imprecations. Two rooms opened into the collector's. In one the clerical force of young men of with glitter and parade their several duties. Through the open door of the other room could be seen a bronze babe, guiltless of clothing, that rollicked upon the floor. In a grass hammock a thin woman, a pale lemon, played a guitar and swung in the breeze. Thus surrounded by the routine of his high duties and the visible tokens of agreeable domesticity, the collector's heart was further made happy by the power placed in his hands to brighten the fortunes of the "innocent" Felipe.
Felipe came and stood before the collector. He was a lad of twenty, not ill-favoured in looks, but with an expression of distant and pondering . He wore white cotton trousers, down the seams of ............