was
accommodated with lodgings within the walls of a secularized convent next door
to the Ministry of Finance. That florid person, when approached on behalf of Mr.
Gould in a proper manner, and with a suitable present, shook her head
despondently. She was good-natured, and her despondency was genuine. She
imagined she could not take money in consideration of something she could not
accomplish. The friend of Mr. Gould, charged with the delicate mission, used to
say afterwards that she was the only honest person closely or remotely connected
with the Government he had ever met. »No go,« she had said with a cavalier,
husky intonation which was natural to her, and using turns of expression more
suitable to a child of parents unknown than to the orphaned daughter of a
general officer. »No; it's no go. Pas moyen, mon garçon. C'est dommage, tout de
même. Ah! zut! Je ne vole pas mon monde. Je ne suis pas ministre - moi! Vous
pouvez emporter votre petit sac.«
    For a moment, biting her carmine lip, she deplored inwardly the tyranny of
the rigid principles governing the sale of her influence in high places. Then,
significantly, and with a touch of impatience, »Allez,« she added, »et dites
bien à votre bonhomme - entendez-vous? - qu'il faut avaler la pilule.«
    After such a warning there was nothing for it but to sign and pay. Mr. Gould
had swallowed the pill, and it was as though it had been compounded of some
subtle poison that acted directly on his brain. He became at once mine-ridden,
and as he was well read in light literature it took to his mind the form of the
Old Man of the Sea fastened upon his shoulders. He also began to dream of
vampires. Mr. Gould exaggerated to himself the disadvantages of his new
position, because he viewed it emotionally. His position in Costaguana was no
worse than before. But man is a desperately conservative creature, and the
extravagant novelty of this outrage upon his purse distressed his sensibilities.
Everybody around him was being robbed by the grotesque and murderous bands that
played their game of governments and revolutions after the death of Guzman
Bento. His experience had taught him that, however short the plunder might fall
of their legitimate expectations, no gang in possession of the Presidential
Palace would be so incompetent as to suffer itself to be baffled by the want of
a pretext. The first casual colonel of the barefooted army of scarecrows that
came along was able to expose with