The room was about full of curly-headed Cubans and South American brunettes of different shades; and the atmosphere was international with cigarette smoke, lit up by diamond rings and edged off with a whisper of garlic.
"That Denver Galloway was sure a relief to the eye.Six feet two he was, red-headed and pink-gilled as a sun-perch.And the air he had!
Court of Saint James, Chauncy Olcott, Kentucky colonels, Count of Monte Cristo, grand opera--all these things he reminded you of when he was doing the honours.When he raised his finger the hotel porters and bell-boys skated across the floor like cockroaches, and even the clerk behind the desk looked as meek and unimportant as Andy Carnegie.
"Denver passed around, shaking hands with his guests, and saying over the two or three Spanish words he knew until it was like a coronation rehearsal or a Bryan barbecue in Texas.
"I watched the little man he told me to.'Twas a little foreign person in a double-breasted frock-coat, trying to touch the floor with his toes.He was the colour of vici kid, and his whiskers was like excelsior made out of mahogany wood.He breathed hard, and he never once took his eyes off of Denver.There was a look of admiration and respect on his face like you see on a boy that's following a champion base-ball team, or the Kaiser William looking at himself in a glass.
"After Denver goes his rounds he takes me into his private office.
"'What's your report on the dingy I told you to watch?' he asks.
"'Well,' says I, 'if you was as big a man as he takes you to be, nine rooms and bath in the Hall of Fame, rent free till October 1st, would be about your size.'
"'You've caught the idea,' says Denver.'I've given him the wizard grip and the cabalistic eye.The glamour that emanates from yours truly has enveloped him like a North River fog.He seems to think that Senor Galloway is the man who.I guess they don't raise 74-inch sorrel-tops with romping ways down in his precinct.Now, Sully,' goes on Denver, 'if you was asked, what would you take the little man to be?'
"'Why,' says I, 'the barber around the corner; or, if he's royal, the king of the boot-blacks.'
"'Never judge by looks,' says Denver; 'he's the dark-horse candidate for president of a South American republic.'
"'Well,' says I, 'he didn't look quite that bad to me.'
"Then Denver draws his chair up close and gives out his scheme.
"'Sully,' says he, with seriousness and levity, 'I've been a manager of one thing and another for over twenty years.That's what I was cut out for--to have somebody else to put up the money and look after the repairs and the police and taxes while I run the business.I never had a dollar of my own invested in my life.I wouldn't know how it felt to have the dealer rake in a coin of mine.But I can handle other people's stuff and manage other people's enterprises.I've had an ambition to get hold of something big--something higher than hotels and lumber-yards and local politics.I want to be manager of something way up--like a railroad or a diamond trust or an automobile factory.
Now here comes this little man from the tropics with just what I want, and he's offered me the job.'
"'What job?' I asks.'Is he going to revive the Georgia Minstrels or open a cigar store?'
"'He's no 'coon,' says Denver.'He's General Rompiro--General Josey Alfonso Sapolio Jew-Ann Rompiro--he has his cards printed by a news-
ticker.He's the real thing, Sully, and he wants me to manage his campaign--he wants Denver C.Galloway for a president-maker.Think of that, Sully! Old Denver romping down to the tropics, plucking lotus-
flowers and pineapples with one hand and making presidents with the other! Won't it make Uncle Mark Hanna mad? And I want you to go too, Sully.You can help me more than any man I know.I've been herding that brown man for a month in the hotel so he wouldn't stray down Fourteenth Street and get roped in by that crowd of refugee tamale-
eaters down there.And he's landed, and D.C.G.is manager of General J.A.S.J.Rompiro's presidential campaign in the great republic of--what's its name?'
"Denver gets down an atlas from a shelf, and we have a look at the afflicted country.'Twas a dark blue one, on the west coast, about the size of a special delivery stamp.
"'From what the General tells me,' says Denver, 'and from what I can gather from the encyclopaedia and by conversing with the janitor of the Astor Library, it'll be as easy to handle the vote of that country as it would be for Tammany to get a man named Geoghan appointed on the White Wings force.'
"'Why don't General Rumptyro stay at home,' says I, 'and manage his own canvass?'
"'You don't understand South American politics,' says Denver, getting out the cigars.'It's this way.General Rompiro had the misfortune of becoming a popular idol.He distinguished himself by leading the army in pursuit of a couple of sailors who had stolen the plaza--or the carramba, or something belonging to the government.The people called him a hero and the government got jealous.The president sends for the chief of the Department of Public Edifices."Find me a nice, clean adobe wall," says he, "and send Senor Rompiro up against it.Then call out a file of soldiers and--then let him be up against it."
Something,' goes on Denver, 'like the way they've treated Hobson and Carrie Nation in our country.So the General had to flee.But he was thoughtful enough to bring along his roll.He's got sinews of war enough to buy a battleship and float her off in the christening fluid.'
"'What chance has he got to be president?'
"'Wasn't I just giving you his rating?' says Denver.'His country is one of the few in South America where the presidents are elected by popular ballot.The General can't go there just now.It hurts to be shot against a wall.He needs a campaign manager to go down and whoop things up for him--to get the boys in line and the new two-dollar bills afloat and the babies kissed and the machine in running order.
