"Oh, boss," exclaimed the negro, "I feel that we shall h'experience good-fartune to-day." "Did you buy a ticket?" "No, sar, I reinvested all my monies travelling on those railroad trains." "Now see how foolish you are. If you'd stayed at home you might have bought the winning number to-day." "I prefer to h'accompany you. But--I have been thinking to make you a proposition of partnership. Master h'Auntony. I will stay home and dream numbers which you can purchase with your salary. In that manner we shall certainly burst this lottery." "Oh, I see! You'll sleep while I rustle the coin to play. What's your idea of a fair division of the profits?" "It is sometimes exceedingly fatiguing to dream," said Allan, defensively. "Sometimes one wastes an entire day and has no success." "That's merely a question of diet. I could make you dream your head off." "But I do not desire the profits, however, for being partners with you. I would like you to have plenty of monies, that is all. I love you, sar." "Don't! You embarrass me." "It is true, chief, I would die and--" "Yes, yes, kill yourself." "I pray to God h'every day that some bad man will h'assault you in order that I may die for you." The Jamaican was growing excited, as usual when he dwelt upon this subject. "I would h'enjoy to shed my blood for you, sar. I would like to see it running--running--running--" He waved his arms wildly. "Don't bleed to death." "I wish to suffer and scream and groan, so that you will be knowing--" "Never mind. I think I get the idea. But I'm not going to allow it, and I'm not going to allow you to dream--you sleep too much as it is. Besides, your dreams are no good. Look at that whale dream of yours, for instance." "Oh, sar, the 'fish' number did not win, to be sure, but 'water' did." "But you didn't dream about water, it was about fish, 'vivid' fish." "I did not chance to think of the water," acknowledged Allan, "but there was the whale lying upon the h'edge of the h'ocean, h'all the time." The drawing, which was for a capital prize of fifteen thousand dollars "silver," had drawn a larger crowd than usual, and when the two reached Cathedral Square they found the lottery building thronged to overflowing with the usual polyglot elements that make up these Latin-American gatherings--negroes, Indians, Panamanians, Spaniards, Americans--while in the Plaza itself other groups were waiting to hear the report.