A Ruler of Men (Henry)
I was walking through the City of Insolence when I saw a man named Kansas Bill Bowers selling a variety of tools on the street. I approached him and he gave me a five-dollar bill, mistaking me for a cop. We started talking and I asked him about his recent adventures. He told me about his friend, Barney O'Connor, who had a plan to liberate a small country in South America.
O'Connor had convinced Bowers to join him in the revolution, promising him a high position in the new government. They traveled to the country and set up their headquarters in a small house. O'Connor believed that the people were ready for a revolution and that they had enough support to succeed. However, when the day of the uprising came, nothing happened. It turned out that the cannon they heard was just an accident at an ice factory. O'Connor was arrested for attacking a general, but Bowers managed to marry a local woman and secure their release.
‘I’ve got her name,’ says O’Connor, and he reads off something like this: ‘Dona Isabel Antonia Inez Lolita Carreras y Buencaminos y Monteleon. She lives with her mother,’ explains O’Connor. ‘Her father was killed in the last revolution. She is sure to be in sympathy with our cause.’
They returned to New York, where Bowers showed me O'Connor, who had become a subway conductor and was using his strength to forcefully get people onto the trains.