I was to make tea of it and give it to him and keep him from rum for a certain time. And for two weeks I did it. You know, I liked Wainwright. Both of us were broke, but Timotea sent us goat meat and plantains and tortillas every day, and at last I got the curse of drink lifted from Clifford Wainwright. He lost his taste for it. And in the cool of the evening him and me would sit on the roof of Timotea's mother's hut, eating harmless truck like coffee and rice and stewed crabs and playing the accordion.
About that time President Gomez found out that the advice of C. Wainwright was the stuff he had been looking for. The country was pulling out of debt, and the treasury had enough boodle in it for him to amuse himself occasionally with the night latch.
So down from the regular capital he sends for Clifford Wainwright and makes him his private secretary at 20,000 Peru dollars a year. Yes, sir—so much. Wainwright was on the water wagon—thanks to me and Timotea—and he was soon in clover with the government gang.
As I said, a man can do a lot more for another party than he can for himself. Wainwright with his brains got a whole country out of trouble and on its feet, but what could he do for himself? And without any special brains, but with some nerve and common sense, I put him on his feet because I never had the weakness that he did—nothing but a cigar for mine. Yes, he offered me some pretty good jobs. But I'd have had to.  Leave Aguas Kresca, so I didn't take any of them up. 