He halted, as though the subject had lost interest for him, and gazed pleasantly at the sunny bay and up at the moving palms. “Then,” said the Governor, as though he had not been interrupted, “as you have no means of support, you will help support the colony until you can earn money to leave it. That will do, sergeant.” The young man placed his hat upon his head and turned to move away, but at the first step he swayed suddenly and caught at the negro’s shoulder, clasping his other hand across his eyes. The sergeant held him by the waist, and looked up at the Governor with some embarrassment. “The young gentleman has not been well, Sir Charles,” he said, apologetically. The stranger straightened himself up and smiled vaguely. “I’m all right,” he murmured. “Sun’s too hot.” “Sit down,” said the Governor. He observed the stranger more closely. He noticed now that beneath the tan his face was delicate and finely cut, and that his yellow hair clung closely to a well-formed head. “He seems faint. Has he had anything to eat?” asked the Governor. The sergeant grinned guiltily. “Yes, Sir Charles; we’ve been feeding him at the barracks. It’s fever, sir.” Sir Charles was not unacquainted with fallen gentlemen, “beach-combers,” “remittance men,” and vagrants who had known better days, and there had been something winning in this vagrant’s smile, and, moreover, he had reported that thorn in his flesh, the consular agent, to the proper authorities. He conceived an interest in a young man who, though with naked feet, did not hesitate to correspond with his Minister of Foreign Affairs. “How long have you been ill?” he asked. The young man looked up from where he had sunk on the steps, and roused himself with a shrug. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’ve had a touch of Chagres ever since I was on the Isthmus. I was at work there on the railroad.” “Did you come here from Colon?” “No; I worked up the Pacific side. I was clerking with Rossner Brothers at Amapala for a while, because I speak a little German, and then I footed it over to Puerto Cortez and got a job with the lottery people. They gave me twenty dollars a month gold for rolling the tickets, and I put it all in the drawing, and won as much as ten.” He laughed, and sitting erect, drew from his pocket a roll of thin green papers. “These are for the next drawing,” he said. “Have some?” he added. He held them towards the negro sergeant, who, under the eye of the Governor, resisted, and then spread the tickets on his knee like a hand at cards. “I stand to win a lot with these,” he said, with a cheerful sigh. “You see, until the list’s published I’m prospectively worth twenty thousand dollars. And,” he added, “I break stones in the sun.” He rose unsteadily, and saluted the Governor with a nod. “Good-morning, sir,” he said, “and thank you.”