Probably he had also kissed all the women of the Cubapines
and Porsslania. It was only the women of the East that he could not
find heart to salute in the same way. Here was a hero indeed, who
insulted one-half of his own nation! It might have been expected that
the Western press would have come to Sam's support, but they did not.
They accused him of gross deception in not announcing that he had been
from the first engaged to be married. Their young women had been
fraudulently induced to kiss lips which had already been monopolized,
but which they had been led to believe to be as free as the air of
heaven. Black indeed must be the soul of a man who could stoop to such
deception! As the days went on the public became more excited and the
attacks more ferocious. It was rumored that his _fiancee_ had married
him against his will, that she was a virago and a termagant. Would the
country be contented to see the Executive Mansion ruled by petticoats,
and by those of a hussy at that? What sort of a hero was the man who
could be ordered about by a woman and could not call his soul his own?
Then they began to overhaul his record. Was he really the hero of San
Diego? Was it not the mistakes of Gomaldo which caused his defeat? Was
it not true that the boasted subjugation of the Moritos was brought
about by the superstitious fear of the savages inspired by the figures
tattooed on the captain's body? And the capture of Gomaldo, was it
anything but a green-goods game on a large scale? What, too, was the
burning of the great White Temple but an act of vandalism? And as for
the friendship and praise of the Emperor, who was the Emperor, anyway,
but an effete product of an exhausted civilization? Then had not
Captain Jinks opposed the promotion of men from the ranks? What sort of
a democrat was this? Sam felt these thrusts keenly.
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