The visit to the city was imitated on the three succeeding evenings by similar excursions.On one night they returned to the plaza, and the other two were spent in drifting down the harbor and along the coast on King's yacht.The President and Madame Alvarez were King's guests on one of these moonlight excursions, and were saluted by the proper number of guns, and their native band played on the forward deck.Clay felt that King held the centre of the stage for the time being, and obliterated himself completely.He thought of his own paddle-wheel tug-boat that he had had painted and gilded in her honor, and smiled grimly.
MacWilliams approached him as he sat leaning back on the rail and looking up, with the eye of a man who had served before the mast, at the lacework of spars and rigging above him.MacWilliams came toward him on tiptoe and dropped carefully into a wicker chair.
``There don't seem to be any door-mats on this boat,'' he said.
``In every other respect she seems fitted out quite complete; all the latest magazines and enamelled bathtubs, and Chinese waiter-boys with cock-tails up their sleeves.But there ought to be a mat at the top of each of those stairways that hang over the side, otherwise some one is sure to soil the deck.Have you been down in the engine-room yet?'' he asked.
``Well, don't go, then,'' he advised, solemnly.``It will only make you feel badly.I have asked the Admiral if I can send those half-breed engine drivers over to-morrow to show them what a clean engine-room looks like.I've just been talking to the chief.His name's MacKenzie, and I told him I was Scotch myself, and he said it `was a greet pleesure' to find a gentleman so well acquainted with the movements of machinery.He thought I was one of King's friends, I guess, so I didn't tell him I pulled a lever for a living myself.I gave him a cigar though, and he said, `Thankee, sir,' and touched his cap to me.''