Renson's "bush" troubles were legion. Not only were there the
seducing brown "Spigoty" women out in the wilderness to help him
on his descending trail, but when and wherever fire-water of
whatever nationality or degree of voltage showed its neck--and it
is to be found even in "the bush"--there was Renson sure to give
battle--and fall. "It's no use bein' a man unless you're a hell of
a man," was Renson's "influenced" philosophy. How different this
was from his native good sense when the influence was turned off
was demonstrated when he returned from cautiously reconnoitering a
cottage far back in the wilds one dark night and reported as his
reason for postponing the enumerating: "If you'd butt in on one o'
them Martinique booze festivals they'd crown you with a bottle."
Already one or two enumerators had gone back to private life--by
request. Particularly sad was the case of our dainty, blue-blooded
Panamanian. As with many Panamanians, and not a few of the self-
exalted elsewhere, he was more burdened with blue corpuscles than
with gray matter. At any rate--
On our cards, after the query "Color?" was a small space, a very
small space in which was to be written quite briefly and
unceremoniously "W," "B," or "Mx" as the case might be. Uncle Sam
was in a hurry for his census. Early one afternoon our Panamanian
helpmate burst upon one of his numerous aristocratic relatives in
his royal thatched domains in the ancestral bush.
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