Reginald Wright Kauffman

“ Dan said to himself: “Now we are getting down to cases.”
“To speak frankly,” the planter softly elaborated, “the Santo Domingan government places an exorbitant export duty on my product, so that I find it expedient to minimize, for my reports to them, its quantity. Add to this the import duty in the United States, and without some petty subterfuge I simply could not compete. I should be a ruined man.” He spread out his fat hands as if in helplessness. Pedro sympathetically cocked his head and blinked into space. ”

“ There appeared to be an odd understanding between the pair; almost, there was a threat in Pedro's beady gaze. With a slight tremor, Stone looked from the brilliantly feathered creature to its master.
Villeta's head bent above his parrot now as he stroked its plumage. The voice in which he replied to his vis-à-vis was suave and unsuspicious. “You would hardly be able to see the cane from your window, my friend. We grow it on an outlying farm.”
“Rut your work”—Dan wavered between doubt and belief; he was determined to pin the man down—“that is here, isn't it, Don Ramon? ”

“ If you can put him into working condition by the day after to-morrow—you seem to work miracles—there is no need for you to stay the month. I shall, indeed, pay you double the price I first mentioned in recognition of the cure. Meanwhile”—he beamed with his own lavishness—“I mean to pay you one thousand dollars right away.”
The man seemed determined to placate him. Sitting perfectly still at the breakfast table, Dan watched Don Ramon, with Pedro perched securely on a shoulder, hurry from the room ”