“Present my compliments to General Crespo,” I said, in reply to this amazing intimation, “and remind him, if you please, that I was his friend when my friendship was worth having. Tell him, too, that if this is the way he treats his friends he is a contemptible snake,” or words to that effect. The Intendiente was plainly surprised at both my words and my manner and without asking a question he sent me back to the prison. The next morning he directed my release in person. “There is no reason for you to be angry with General Crespo,” he said, by way of explanation, “for he has ordered your unconditional release. You are free to go where you please and stay as long as you please.” “Which,” I replied, “is no compliment to me and in no way lessens the outrage to which I have been subjected.” From the Casa Publica I went to the Grand Hotel and when my traps arrived there I found that they had been, as I supposed, thoroughly ransacked, but nothing was missing. In the following days I encountered many men whom I had known well or intimately fifteen years before, when Caracas was my home for a longer period than any other city in the world had ever been, and I was soon enjoying myself renewing acquaintance with old friends, among whom were members of some of the oldest families in Venezuela. To all of them who asked if I had seen the President, I said I had not and that I did not propose to call on him, as I had been shamefully mistreated by his order. Two or three weeks after my arrival the Minister of War sent for me and said he understood I was the agent of a house that sold munitions of war. I said that was true, and when he expressed surprise that I had not called on him I told him I had been subjected to a great injustice through him and through General Crespo, and that while I did not expect an apology from either one I could at least show them how I felt about it by staying away from them, even though I punished myself and my firm by so doing. However, if he was interested, I said I would be glad to show him my samples and quote prices. He said he was interested, and proved it by giving me a large order. Beyond a shrug of the shoulders, which might have meant any one of a dozen things, he made no comment on my complaint of ill treatment. Not long after this I went one evening, by invitation, to the home of a doctor friend of mine and was astonished to be ushered into the presence of President Crespo. It developed that the doctor was one of Crespo’s intimate associates, though I had not known it up to that time. The President greeted me with a smile and said, as he extended his hand, “As Mahomet would not come to the mountain, the mountain had to come to Mahomet.”