Meanwhile I must change my dwelling-place. For the quartermaster
of Corozal had need of all the rooms within his domain, need so
imperative that seventeen bona fide and wrathy employees were even
then bunking in the pool-room of Corozal hotel. Work on the Zone
was moving steadily Pacificward and the accommodations refused to
come with it--at least at the same degree of speed.
Nor was I especially averse to the transfer. The room-mate with
whom fate had cast me in House 81 was a pleasant enough fellow, a
youth of unobjectionable personal manners even though his "eight-
hour graft" was in the sooty seat of a steam-crane high above
Miraflores locks. But he had one slight idiosyncrasy that might in
time have grown annoying. On the night of our first acquaintance,
after we had lain exchanging random experiences till the evening
heat had begun a retreat before the gentle night breeze, I was
awakened from the first doze by my companion sitting suddenly up
in his cot across the room.
"Say, I hope you're not nervous?" he remarked.
"Not immoderately."
"One of my stunts is night-mare," he went on, rising to switch on
the electric light, "and when I get 'em I generally imagine my
room-mate is a burglar trying to go through my junk and--"
He reached under his pillow and brought to light a "Colt's" of 45
caliber; then crossing the room he pointed to three large
irregular splintered holes in the wall some three or four inches
above me, and which I had not already seen simply because I had
not chanced to look that way.
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