ceiling decorations from every corner of the building, 
that make the Opera House such a woth while thing t o 
visit. Then he came to the point. He told me that the 
taxi driver had reported that Mrs. Ames had helped her¬ 
self to one of hie orcrxids and that fearing she might 
have run off with something of value, there being many 
rare Indian species for which huge sums of money hdd 
been paid by a man who could ill afford to lose a penney, 
he had visited the Hotel, inf//ormed the Bursar cf 
his plight and had then come to the square to find ue, 
the Pursar having informed him that Blanche and I had 
departed after dinner to listen to music somewhere. I 
was thoroughly disgusted with the whole affair and ae 
I Had set myself firmly against handing out mpney, this 
being what the old man surely wanted me to do, I think 
I might be in Gan Jose at this minute standing on the 
sidewalk in fro nt Q]tf the Opera House, taliking to 
Clausen, if some tourists had not come along and accepted 
ClauseH’s offer, that he show them the "President’s Box", 
I hope the old fellow picked up a few dollars, and was 
saved from total disappointment. 
I have been working this summer on Honduran 
©chids and on the "mean genus Stelies". With the former 
I am making magnificent headway, with the latter I am 
comparable to the frog in the well, I simply hate Stelis 
now. And to make matters worse, I have just received 
a "thing" from Honduras that seems to be a hybrid be- 
unknown species 
