Once, with some instinctive motion of his body, he put his horse at a hand gallop, and riding over to one of the soldiers offered some individual suggestions. The man plainly did not understand, and a minute later the instructor had changed mounts with the man, and presently the pony was wheeling hither and thither in response to his bit, as a boat answers its rudder. Exactly at ten o’clock the door of a square building in the town opened; a little trumpeter came out, and the clear notes of a bugle--so appropriate to the fierce brilliance of the morning--were flung out like a banner upon the air. It was the signal that the lesson was over. The men formed into fours, and jogged away under the command of a non-commissioned officer, leaving the American alone. He sat a moment, watching the retreating backs, as he took a grass cigarette case from his breeches pocket, and lit a little yellow native cigarette. Then he turned his horse with one hand, and cantered away across the savannah. As he did so, the motion and the clear brightness of the morning moved him to song. Pushing back his hat from his forehead he lifted his head: “Oh, I’m not in a hurry to fuss or to worry, For fear I should grow too stout, And I don’t care a bit if my boots don’t fit, For I walk just as well without.” He stopped in front of one of the toy houses, and shouted “Oh, Señor Doctor.” The door, which stood open, was at once filled by the figure of a man in crash clothes. He was middle-aged and wore spectacles, so powerful that the eyes appeared to glare upon you with unspeakable ferocity, until, seeing round them or over, you found the expression friendly in the extreme. “Ah, ha, Don Luis,” he said, “I did not know you were a singer.” “And a poet, my dear Doctor,” returned the other, bowing. “My own words. Could you hear them across the savannah?” “I could have heard them over the frontier. Will you come in?” “No, _gracias_,” he answered. “I only stopped in to ask you to a party this evening, Doctor, for the lovely Rosita. It became necessary to do something to cut out that handsome young dog of a native. Will you come?” The doctor gave a sound indicative of hesitation. “What kind of a party?” he asked cautiously. “Oh, a perfectly respectable little party,” returned Vickers, “not a bit like my last. At least it will begin respectably. It will end as my guests please. Will you come early or late, Doctor?” “Early,” said the doctor; “it is always permitted to go home. No, wait a moment,” he added, as he saw Vickers preparing to go. “I want to ask you something. Did you ever know a big American who lived on the Pacific side--a man named Lee? Not a relation of yours, was he?” “Certainly he is not,” retorted Vickers. “I have not many causes for gratitude, but that is one. I met him only once, and then he borrowed fifteen pesos from me on the strength of a hypothetical likeness between us.” “There is a certain resemblance,” observed the doctor.