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has dined—ah, then—" She kissed her fingers airily toward the window.

My weariness lessened as she talked, and when I had swallowed the fiery liquor she handed me it changed to genial lassitude.

"Señorita," I exclaimed, "my life is saved! I am revived as if I had partaken of the miracle-waters of Santa Ana. Permit me to extend my everlasting gratitude."

She leaned, laughing, against the white-washed wall. She was slim, yet rounded, supple, and slow of movement. In repose her attitudes were singularly picturesque. Heavy wreaths of blue-black hair crowned her head, in which a cheap Amapalan shell-comb, studded with gilt stars, hung at a precarious angle. Her eyes were long, full, and dark, her "lips a thread of scarlet," her smooth skin a curious lavender color from the quantities of rice powder with which she had endeavored, Spanish fashion, to hide its tawny bronze.

"I'm very glad I came," said I, reflectively.

"Good!" She refilled my glass.

"To your eyes!" I bowed gallantly.

With a toss of her pretty head, she gathered the bottles and glasses upon her gaudy red-and-purple tray, and turned to the door.

"Dinner soon," she said over her shoulder, with a flash of eyes and teeth. "Pierre will be happy to have a foreign gentleman to cook for. It will be an event."

With this enigmatic statement, she left me to digest the aguardiente and listen to the band in the square.

I was awakened from a gentle doze by the coming of an Indian servant, who spread the table with a red-and- white cloth and set the cover for the promised meal. He disappeared and, a moment later, returned, bearing a steaming bowl. As a distinguished guest, it was evidently expected that I would dine alone in my room. I took my place, cast a questioning glance at the creamy liquid set before me, and tasted. It was a positive shock, and my gastronomic angel made a large entry in his book of events. Such savor! Such perfume! Such delicate pampering of the palate! What could it mean—that delicious, appetizing after-taste that left the excited esophagus clamoring for more? Could this be the culinary transport of a Central American carne-stewing cook? Never! I tasted again, and with half-closed eyes sat back in my chair. A picture disclosed itself to my inner vision—a picture of the little front room of the "Tour d' Argent" on the quai in Paris, with that magician Frédérique bending above a pressoir where the succulent carcasses of freshly carved ducks exuded priceless juices under his knowing hand. So vivid was the impression that when I unclosed my eyelids I felt surprised at my surroundings. Once more I addressed myself to the soup. No, I was not mistaken; there lingered the true Frédéérique touch—the nameless signature of the great artist. Chicken timbales followed. Those astonished and grateful Israelites of the wilderness, miraculously fed upon manna from heaven, could not have experienced greater wonder and delight than. I, or more truly given thanks. Then came a roast—a roast in this land of pans and pots! And a salad—a salad in which the garlic was but a dreamy suspicion of that misused vegetable, and the oil mixed just in the right proportion with the gold and verdant meat of the alligator-pear. To crown all, a soufflé,—a soufflé au confitures,—a yellow flower as light as a puff of swansdown, a delicate morsel of exquisitely flavored sunset cloud!

"It will be an event," had said the señorita. She was right. It had been an event, and more. But how, in the name of all that was marvelous, could such a feast of the gods appear in Agua Caliente, a little Central American town a hundred miles from the coast, eight thousand feet up in the Sierra, cut off, for six months of the year, from all save difficult mule-back communication with even the spavined, one-horse, tumble-down, dictator-ridden capital? Little, sleepy Agua Caliente, known only to coffee-merchants and tax-gatherers—Agua Caliente, three hundred years behind all the civilized world, and sheltering a chef, a cordon bleu, a genius!

"I will investigate at once," I resolved, and stepped out upon the gallery encircling the court. I paused a moment. No one with a sense of color, a single throb of romance, or a corpuscle of adventurous blood, can ever become quite oblivious to the great variety of Central American life. Below, in the lantern-lighted court, a laughing crowd of picturesquely dressed men and women lounged and smoked. From beneath the arcade on the left a stream of