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“Why I foolishly slipped on a piece of orange peel in town—just at the corner of San Juan de Latrán and Madero. And I fell right down. And of course, the first thing I did when I got up was to push the piece of orange peel into the gutter. And would you believe it, that lot of Mex—” she caught herself up—“that lot of fellows standing there at the corner laughed heartily at me, when they saw me doing it. They thought it an excellent joke.”

“Of course they would,” said the Judge. “They were waiting for the next person to come along and fall.”

“Did nobody help you?” asked Kate.

“Oh no! If anyone has an accident in this country, you must never, never help. If you touch them even, you may be arrested for causing the accident.”

“That's the law!” said the Judge. “If you touch them before the police arrive, you are arrested for complicity. Let them lie and bleed, is the motto.”

“Is that true? “said Kate to Don Ram\'on.

“Fairly true,” he replied. “Yes, it is true you must not touch the one who is hurt.”

“How disgusting!” said Kate.

“Disgusting!” cried the Judge. “A great deal is disgusting in this country, as you'll learn if you stay here long. 1 nearly lost my life on a banana skin; lay in a darkened room for days, between life and death, and lame for life from it.”

“How awful!” said Kate, “What did you do when you fell?”

“What did I do? Just smashed my hip.”

It had truly been a terrible accident, and the man had suffered bitterly.

“You can hardly blame Mexico for a banana skin,” said Owen, elated. “I fell on one in Lexington Avenue; but fortunately I only bruised myself on a soft spot.”

“That wasn't your head, was it?” said Mrs Henry.

“No,” laughed Owen. “The other extreme.”

“We've got to add banana skins to the list of public menaces,” said young Henry. “I'm an American, and I may any day turn bolshevist, to save my pesos, so I can repeat what I heard a man saying yesterday. He said there are only two great diseases in the world to-day—Bolshevism and Americanism; and Americanism is the worst of the