Achmed Abdullah

“ He had made a bully start in Paris, winning a hundred thousand dollars at poker—draw, stud, and down-the-river, and, when Laurette had gone to Rome to fill an engagement and he, dutifully, had trailed along, had doubled his pile there by selling what he called a “swell line of fake ancestors” to various snobbish ladies with the help of an impecunious East Indian Rajah.
Indeed a good beginning. But two hundred thousand was not a million, and Laurette said so:
“You’re eight hundred thousand smackers to the bad. And I don’t want to marry anybody except you—nor do I want to die an old maid!” ”

“ Too, men from all the corners of the globe—men who go down to the sea in ships and come up from the sea, as often as not, in hansom cabs to spend the bitter wages of six weeks’ battling with storm and rotten timbers in one night’s scarlet spree amongst the girls and the pubs of sneering Limehouse. ”

“ In the meantime the Sultan of Maskat and Admiral d’Alvarez had gone to the Fireflies’ Supper Club where, what with the former’s fez and earrings and the latter’s splendid uniform, they were quite the rage of the women—stout burgess ladies, mostly from Hempsted Heath and Queen’s Gate, the sort who employ two parlor maids, know DeBrett’s Peerage by heart, and only rarely drop their H’s. ”

“ And here now, like an answer to d’Alvarez’ prayers came this resplendent and wealthy Oriental potentate who—he showed an extraordinary familiarity with Central American affairs—declared himself a friend of Santa Anna and an enemy of San Sonate; who seemed a good sport, spending money like water and entertaining the admiral at numerous dinner and theater parties, and who, when the latter finally took the bit between his teeth and mentioned a loan, did not shy off like the cold-blooded London business men, but replied in his charming broken English:
“All right, Mister Admiral. ”

“ Romance that starts with a double drink of gin and perhaps a chandoo pipe in the backroom of a Wapping tavern and winds up, quite possibly in a perambulator with a half-breed child peeping out, wonderingly, protestingly! ”

“ So ex-cowboy, publicity specialist and admiral left the banquet and went to Canfield’s room where, after a long conversation, they signed certain papers, shook hands, and parted with expression of glowing, mutual respect, and it was a few days later that Canfield told Laurette about his hunch of earning the rest of his million before they sailed home to America as man and wife, and went direct from her hotel to the admiral’s boarding house back of the British Museum. ”

“ A month or two earlier, San Sonate had lent its admiral aboard with instructions, also a handsome sum of money, to buy a gunboat in one of the British yards. He had started negotiations with Messrs. M’Corquodale, M'Eachrane, M’Murtrie & M’Kilree, ship builders, Glasgow, Belfast and London, for the purchase of a neat little craft, built originally for another small nation that had become bankrupt, complete from spanker boom to scuttlebutt and with a full complement of guns that were not too rusty for casual Central American warfare. ”

“ Canfield suppressed a smile.
“Can’t you buy another ship here, or perhaps in Holland or Norway?”
“No ship builder would sell to us in wartime. It would be against the law of nations. And so—que cosa hay mas cruel here I am; an admiral—and no ship—no crew. ....”
“But still you have the dough!”
“The—what?”
“The old pesetas!”
“Sir!” thundered the admiral. “Do you imagine that I would steal?”
“Keep your shirt on, old timer. I meant nothing of the sort. But I do mean that wherever there’s the kale, there’s a way. Tell me,” he went on after a pause, “where’s that gunboat now? ”

“ Gladstone, proceeded to prove that modern, meretricious, sabre-rattling imperialism was at the root of this as of all other evils, and that naturally—what with the League of Nations and the Fourteen Points and the Awakening of Subject Races—the Sultan of Maskat was right in making an alliance with France. For at least, with all its faults, France was a republic. ”

“ You—with your million dollars—why—you got about as much chance to earn them as—”
“Maybe I’ll laugh last, kid,” he interrupted
“Sure—and he who laughs last is usually the dumbest!”
Yes. The Sultan was almost forgotten.
But there was one man on whom he made a vivid impression, and this was Señor d’Alvarez, the admiral of Santa Anna, a short, obese, clean-shaven individual with avaricious eyes and a favorite pose in which he fancied he resembled Napoleon. ”

“ Some day we talkee money. I have plenty. Tonight we no talkee money. Tonight we dancee, eh?”
The Sultan excused himself, saying he was going to telephone to the Fireflies’ Supper Club to reserve a table, and, strangely, it was Canfield Smith who a few minutes later called up Mr. Burton Pinkney, the publicity specialist. ”

“ Have no more. Nor credit. Can not provision ship.
(signed) d’Alvarez, Admiral."
“Treasury empty. You used last money to buy ship. This is a war not a tea fight. Hurry over. Bombard San Sonate port. Then collect war indemnity.
(signed) Zelaya, President”
“Can’t sail without money.
(signed) d’Alvarez, Admiral.”
“Borrow. (signed) Zelaya, President.”
“No credit. (signed) d’Alvarez, Admiral.”
“Get money or credit somehow.
(signed) Zelaya, President.”
“How? (signed) d’Alvarez, Admiral.”
There had been no reply to his last cablegram. The gunboat had stopped taking on provisions. ”