“I left it with his nibs, the President of Baracoa. Ernesto and I have been dining with him at the palace this evening. That’s why we’re feeling so good now. His bubble water was the best I’ve ever sampled. Some class to your little friend Gale--dining with presidents and cabinet ministers.” “Do you realize what you’re saying?” Hawley demanded sharply. “You can’t really mean that you showed Portiforo the tip you got from your office. You’re too level-headed, I’m sure, to do a fool thing like that. It must be the wine that makes you tell me such nonsense. Come, pull yourself together, Gale, and talk sense.” “I am talking sense,” Gale replied, with a show of indignation. “Sure I showed Portiforo the telegram. What was the harm in that? He knew all about the tip already.” “He knew about it?” Hawley exclaimed, with an anxious frown. “Sure! That’s why he invited me to come and eat with him. He wanted to pump me as to how much I knew about this Felix business. You can’t keep anything from that wise old guy. He’s the slickest article I’ve ever been up against.” CHAPTER XIX. A FORCED PLAY. The next morning, Hawley received a note at his hotel. It was from Virginia Throgmorton, and it said: “I must see you at once. Something very alarming has happened. I am going out riding this afternoon, as usual. Will you meet me at the same place? If you can’t be there tell bearer.” Hawley sent word by the bearer, one of the men-servants of Minister Throgmorton’s household, that he would surely be there. The steamship _Panama_ was due to arrive and leave that afternoon, and if he kept this appointment he would be unable to sail on her; but he had already fully decided that he was not going back to the United States just yet. He hated to disappoint Señora Felix, but the latest developments had removed from his mind all doubts as to what course he should follow. Virginia Throgmorton’s pretty face wore a very grave and perturbed expression when Hawley galloped up to the old trysting place on the steed he had hired for the occasion. “I don’t think I was followed,” she began, “but if I was it can’t be helped. I have some news so important and serious that I had to run the risk of meeting you once more.” “Is it about our friend Gale?” the Camera Chap inquired, having a shrewd suspicion of the cause of the girl’s anxiety. “Yes; how did you guess--or do you know about that dinner last night?” “I know a little about it, I think,” Hawley answered. “I met Gale last evening on Avenida Juarez, as he was returning from the palace, and he told me that he had been President Portiforo’s guest at dinner.” A shade flitted across the girl’s face. “Did he tell you what took place at that dinner?” The Camera Chap nodded grimly.