EVERY now and again each of us, either through his own choice or by force of circumstance, drops out of step with the rest of the world, and retires from it into the isolation of a sick-room, or to the loneliness of the deck of an ocean steamer, and for some short time the world somehow manages to roll on without him. He is like a man who falls out of line in a regiment to fasten his shoelace or to fill his canteen, and who hears over his shoulder the hurrying tramp of his comrades, who are leaving him farther and farther behind, so that he has to run briskly before he can catch up with them and take his proper place once more in the procession. I shall always consider the ten days we spent at Corinto, on the Pacific side of Nicaragua, while we waited for the steamer to take us south to Panama, as so many days of non-existence, as so much time given to the mere exercise of living, when we were no more of this world than are the prisoners in the salt-mines of Siberia, or the keepers of light-houses scattered over sunny seas, or the men who tend toll-gates on empty country lanes. And so when I read in the newspapers last fall that three British ships of war were anchored in the harbor of Corinto, with their guns loaded to the muzzles with ultimatums and no one knows what else besides, and that they meant to levy on the customs dues of that sunny little village, it was as much of a shock to me as it would be to the inhabitants of Sleepy Hollow were they told that that particular spot was wanted as a site for a World’s Fair. For no ships of any sort, certainly no ships of war, ever came to Corinto while we occupied the only balcony of its only hotel. Indeed, that was why we were there, and had they come we would have gone with them, no matter to what port they were bound, even to the uttermost parts of the earth. We had come to Corinto from the little island of Amapala, which lies seventy-five miles farther up the coast, and which guards the only port of entry to Honduras on the Pacific seaboard. It is supposed to belong to the Republic of Honduras, but it is in reality the property of Rossner Brothers, who sell everything from German machetes to German music-boxes, and who could, if they wanted it, purchase the entire Republic of Honduras in the morning, and make a present of it to the Kaiser in the course of the afternoon. You have only to change the name of Rossner Brothers to the San Rosario Mining Company, to the Pacific Mail, to Errman Brothers, to the Panama Railroad Company, and you will identify the actual rulers of one or of several of the republics of Central America. [Illustration: PRINCIPAL HOTEL AND PRINCIPAL HOUSE AT CORINTO]