At the mention of the word “funds,” Roland, who had become thoroughly bored with the lecture on Paranoyan history, sat up and took notice. He had an instinctive feeling that he was about to be called upon for a subscription to the cause of the distressful country's freedom. Especially by Bombito. He was right. A moment later Maraquita began to make a speech. She spoke in Paranoyan, and Roland could not follow her, but he gathered that it somehow had reference to himself. As, at the end of it, the entire company rose to their feet and extended their glasses toward him with a mighty shout, he assumed that Maraquita had been proposing his health. “They say 'To the liberator of Paranoya!'” kindly translated the Peerless One. “You must excuse,” said Maraquita tolerantly, as a bevy of patriots surrounded Roland and kissed him on the cheek. “They are so grateful to the savior of our country. I myself would kiss you, were it not that I have sworn that no man's lips shall touch mine till the royal standard floats once more above the palace of Paranoya. But that will be soon, very soon,” she went on. “With you on our side we can not fail.” What did the woman mean? Roland asked himself wildly. Did she labor under the distressing delusion that he proposed to shed his blood on behalf of a deposed monarch to whom he had never been introduced? Maraquita's next remarks made the matter clear. “I have told them,” she said, “that you love me, that you are willing to risk everything for my sake. I have promised them that you, the rich Senor Bleke, will supply the funds for the revolution. Once more, comrades. To the Savior of Paranoya!” Roland tried his hardest to catch the infection of this patriotic enthusiasm, but somehow he could not do it. Base, sordid, mercenary speculations would intrude themselves. About how much was a good, well-furnished revolution likely to cost? As delicately as he could, he put the question to Maraquita. She said, “Poof! The cost? La, la!” Which was all very well, but hardly satisfactory as a business chat. However, that was all Roland could get out of her. * * * * * The next few days passed for Roland in a sort of dream. It was the kind of dream which it is not easy to distinguish from a nightmare. Maraquita's reticence at the supper-party on the subject of details connected with the financial side of revolutions entirely disappeared. She now talked nothing but figures, and from the confused mass which she presented to him Roland was able to gather that, in financing the restoration of royalty in Paranoya, he would indeed be risking everything for her sake.