"The Path Between the Seas"

Such a tidy revolution. It seems that marvels would never cease in this book:

• The code had thirty numbered expressions for Amador to use in cables to Panama.. it shows, for example, that the conspirators had not excluded the possibility that Cromwell might be a liar.
• (Hay) said.. they could depend on the United States to stop Columbia from landing troops to put down the revolution..  Duque understood perfectly. And no sooner had he descended the front steps of the State Department than he was on his way to the Colombian legation to see Tomas Herran and tell him everything. .. Cromwell had been double-crossed.
• "Had I the moral right to take part in a revolution and to encourage its development?" The answer, he quickly decided, was yes. "Yes, because Colombia was obviously prosecuting a policy of piracy aiming at the destruction of the precious work of Frenchmen."
• Bunau-Varilla prepared everything he thought Amador would need - a ready-made revolution kit, including a proclamation of independence, a basic military plan, a scheme for the defense of Colon and Panama City, the draft of a constitution, a code by which he and the rebels could correspond.
• ... in (BV's) suitcase a strange silk "flag of liberation" that Madam BV and Biglow's daughter Grace had spent nearly all Sunday stitching together "in the greatest secrecy."
• BV: "In the majority of cases trigonometry alone can be used. I have made diplomacy as it were by trigonometry."
• He reckoned, would bring (the US gunship) over the horizon at Colon on the morning of November 2.  ...  The ship dropped anchor in the harbor at 5:30, or only about eight hours later than BV had specified.
• As Lieutenant Murphy (TR's recon man) would later confide, the prospects for a swift, neat, potentially lucrative revolution had struck them as so very certain that they were thinking of resigning their commissions forthwith and "assisting in its consummation." Their plan was to approach J. P. Morgan for the necessary financing.
• .. an extremely neat stratagem that appears also to have been the inspiration of Senora Amador (leaving the troops in Colon while hurrying the officers in a special railway car to Panama.)
• The Nashville (trained her guns).. on the Cartagena, which to the surprise of everyone got up steam and departed at full speed.
• Amador ordered (his friend/ the present Bogata appointed governer) Obaldia be taken into custody - as a matter of form.
• If the American commander stood by his own order that neither loyal nor insurgent forces could be transported on the railroad, then no insurgent force could be brought over from Panama City to challenge him.

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