“I’ll just have a look at some others,” said Mr. Taft.

And he did. He went all over town, and he says that every house he looked at added some new, desirable aspect to the Arellano house, until, finally, it became in his eyes a sort of palace which needed only a touch here and there to make it quite perfect.

It backed directly on the Bay, and among the first things he did was to have a seawall built which he thought added safety to the top-heavy structure, but which, during the typhoon season, really cost him more than it was worth. Every time a big wind came and roughed up the Bay a little, a part of his wall went out. His first complaint to me was that he had been “holding that wall down” all summer, and that part of it was always sure to try to get away every time he found himself particularly occupied with harassing governmental difficulties.