And now, without further ado, we are pleased to announce the winners and share their stories with everyone. We'd like to congratulate each of our cigar-smoking authors, and thank everyone who took the time to submit a story.

"A Cigar Story"
by Richard E. Chierici
winner of an El Rey del Mundo Humidor and
two boxes of ERDM cigars - his choice!

I looked outside at the cold, grey sky and slipped into my jacket. It was one of those crisp autumn days, the kind that had you thinking of snow. I walked out of the house under a canopy of red, orange, and gold leaves that somehow lent warmth to an otherwise dreary day. The solitary key in my pocket, although near weightless, seemed to have a density and heft far greater than its size. My hand reluctantly reached for it and I found myself running my finger along its jagged ridge, pressing hard to feel any sensation. The sharp edges jogged me from my numbness, much like pinching one's self in an attempt to determine if you are dreaming. I entered the garage, slid the key from my pocket, and unlocked the driver side door.

As the door swung open, a faint odor of perfume wafted by, a lingering ghost that stirred many memories. The rush of emotions reopened wounds that I thought had healed enough to tackle this task. The car had belonged to my wife. It had been a present for her thirty-third birthday. She had passed away four months ago after a hard-fought battle with cancer. I had continued paying the lease on the car because I couldn't bear to go through it and remove her belongings. I had only driven the thing twice since her passing and that was only to move it from one side of the garage to the other.

I had decided to turn it in and pay the early termination fee. The pang of loss I felt every time I saw it parked there far outweighed any financial price I would pay.

After I took a small basket off the garage shelf, I began gathering up her things. I removed from the rearview mirror the small seashell bracelet that she had purchased while on vacation two years prior. It was the last vacation we had taken together, right before she had been diagnosed with cancer. I cleaned out the console, removing receipts, change, and the various items of clutter that make cars more like scrapbooks than vehicles at times. As I cleaned some stuff from behind the seats, I reached under the passenger side and felt a plastic bag. I pulled it out and, upon realizing what it was, I dropped it again. It was a humidified pouch containing two El Rey del Mundos.

I was instantly transported back four months, before my wife had passed. My wife’s chemo and radiation treatments had not been enough to stop the cancer. I had taken a leave of absence from work to be with my wife full-time. She had proposed a picnic at the beach, so we had packed up some cold grilled chicken, various cheeses, a loaf of bread and two bottles of excellent wine. As we loaded the car, my wife asked if I was going to bring any cigars. I had actually thought of bringing some earlier, but had decided against it. My wife was very tolerant and supportive of my passion for cigars, even if she didn't want me kissing her right after I smoked. That was why I had canned the idea of bringing the stogies. I didn't know how many kisses I had left with my wife and I sure wasn't going to miss out on any because of cigar-breath! She knew how much I enjoyed a cigar after a good meal so she urged me to go get some for the trip. As I went back into the house and grabbed a couple of cigars, I wondered what I had done to receive this wonderful woman into my life and why she was being taken from me in this cruel way. When I opened my humidor I instantly knew which cigars I was going to bring. I lifted the tray, bypassing Cubans and other hard-to-find goodies. I had something even more precious. In the bottom of my humidor were a dozen or so ERDM Robusto Supremas from a box my wife had bought me for our last anniversary. She had ordered them off my wish list at JR and, when they arrived, she commented on the individually tissue-wrapped cigars. We had an inside "adult" joke that they looked like a feminine hygiene product packaged that way! She would always smirk when she saw me take one out to smoke.

I must have put the cigars with the food and just thrown everything into the car. I helped her into the car and off we went.

It was a gorgeous day at the Jersey shore. We found a perfect spot and set up the spread on a big blanket. We fed each other morsels of wood grilled chicken, imported cheeses, and crusty breads while drinking some excellent wine. After we ate, I went back to the car to put away the picnic basket before we strolled some more on the beach. I looked for my cigars in the car, but didn't see them anywhere. Thinking that my wife had picked them up, I returned to the beach. When I asked her about them, she said she hadn't seen them. I didn't want to walk all the way back to the car, not when I had a beautiful woman beside me who wanted one last romantic stroll on the beach before the sun set. Cigars all but forgotten, I put my arm around my wife and we set out on the warm sand.

Later, upon returning to the car, the cigars had been completely forgotten. Once home, they had further slipped into obscurity. I had plenty in my humidor and more pressing matters weighed heavily on my mind.

As I stood in the garage, I began to think of all the great times my wife and I had shared. Our courtship, our wedding day (where my father-in-law introduced me to my first cigar), and the birth of our son (more cigars passed around). I recalled our early years, living in a cramped apartment where space was at a premium, but love and laughter were abundant. I spent many a frozen night on the balcony, stogie clenched in hand, the only space available to enjoy a cigar in peace without disturbing others. I thought of the Sunday afternoon "victory cigars" I had enjoyed after watching our son play Pop Warner football. I chuckled as I recalled there were more "victory cigars" than victories. For every bright light and milestone of my adult life, cigars and, more importantly, my wife had been there to share it.

I came out of my daydream and looked at the cigars in my hand. I opened the seal on the bag and slid the cigars out. A light rolling between my fingers told me that they were still in smokable shape. I peeled off the white tissue paper and inspected it. Other than a slight chip, the cigars were fine. I thought to myself, "What the heck?" and threw open the overhead garage door. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cutter - another gift from my wife - and snipped the head. It cut clean and didn't crack - not bad for a cigar that had been out of the humidor for four months. I toasted the foot a little, rolling the cigar before taking the torch to it proper. It lit evenly and easily. The first draw produced a mouthful of smoke that told me the cigar wasn’t dried out. Apparently, an imported red convertible also makes for a good humidor!

As I went back to my task of cleaning out the car, my mood changed.

I realized something: Cigars, like life, are short lived. One must savor the triumphs, yet not rest on them. There will be good times and bad times, just as we all occasionally get a plugged cigar. The idea is to take something positive away from the bad experiences, so that the future victories are that much sweeter. And while there was now a gaping hole in my life that would not be easily filled, I had begun to move forward. Whenever I was missing my wife, I would remember those good times. I would hold them out as proof that things would be good again. As I smoked that cigar, I could almost see those good times in each swirl of smoke. I caught fleeting glimpses of future glories.

After all, my son would be graduating high school, then college. There would be a wedding too and not too far after, the birth of my first grandchild. I decided I would put the remaining El Rey del Mundos away. Swearing a silent oath, I decided to pull one out at each of these milestones and remember my wife. It will be her way of saying "I’m here. I see it too."

"The Little Man's Cigars"
by Ray Costello
winner of 20-ct El Rey del Mundo Sampler

In 1962, I was ten years old when the chubby little man came to my door in our sleepy old little town of Dundee, Illinois. I had done something bad that day before school, during school, and after school so I feared that this rotten-toothed man in a worn green suit was coming to tell my father what I had done so he could take me away to the St. Charles boy's reformatory. But I had that feeling all the time.

I heard the doorbell ring and I was ready for him, even though I had no idea what to do or where to run. I quickly hid in the front-hall closet and prayed for him to go away. My father was sitting in the den watching "Gunsmoke" on TV when the doorbell rang. Dad would usually wait until three or four doorbell rings before he answered the door and when he answered it, after the fourth ring, he was ready to kill the person who had disturbed his show.

It was during a Hamms beer commercial when my dad opened the door and stepped outside onto the porch with the man. I didn't know what they were talking about but I knew I had to get out of the front-hall closet and get down to the basement, where I could escape through the window if things went bad for me.

My dad invited the man into the house, which was a very bad sign. If the guy was a salesman, my dad would have kicked his ass and gone back to "Gunsmoke." I felt that it would only be a matter of moments before I was summoned by my father to be confronted by this stranger and his "false" accusations. What was I going to do? Which one of my day's offenses was he here to address? At first, I thought he was here because of what I did after school.

I had tagged along home with my classmate, Biagio, after school that afternoon and I had convinced him that we should shoot his father's hunting arrows straight up into the air in his backyard to "bomb" the six-inch, green plastic army men that we had positioned there. My first deadly, four-bladed hunting arrow sailed straight up, was caught by the wind, and traveled over the fence and bushes into Biagio's neighbor's backyard. We heard screaming from an older man and an older woman. Fear and intense anger was the combination of sounds, which drove a powerful chill of fear up our spines. I shoved the empty bow into Biagio's trembling arms and I raced off for home.

Was the hunting arrow incident the reason that the little man was here? I carefully inched my way back over to the basement steps and I crawled like a cat on the inside edges of the stairs so I would not make any creaking sounds. I needed to hear what the man was saying so I could prepare my defense. I listened carefully and I wondered if he was here because of the midday crow incident.

Our little Catholic school was in the middle of the Catholic cemetery. None of us ever saw crows anywhere in town except for out in the cemetery. They were huge birds and I wanted to get one. Pete, Rich, and me built a snare that we saw in the "Popular Mechanics" magazine. All we had to do was find a dead squirrel and place it under the bowed tree limbs and, when the bird picked up the squirrel, WHAM! - we would have him. And "WHAM!", just like that, we got them! After we drank our chocolate milk and ate our peanut butter and soggy-blue-bread jelly sandwiches, we hustled out to Samuel Colson's mausoleum to see if we had caught one. We caught two of the biggest crows that you had ever seen and they were all tangled up in the net! They tried to bite us! I took one of the crows and held him under my coat. Pete tried to corral the other bird but when he thought it was about to bite him, he shushed it away and off it flew. I had our only bird stashed in my coat and it was bigger than any cat that we had ever seen! When we got back to the classroom, I had no place to put that crow so I put it in the bookwell under my seat and I covered the hole with my big, fat geography book. Halfway through the afternoon, during English, the crow started cawing. Sister Mary Coangelo was halfway convinced that the cawing was from outside until she held up her finger and said to the class, "Quiet!" The crow remained quiet also, but only for a few moments, and then it cawed. It was clear to Sister Coangelo that this sound was not coming from the cemetery outside. She carefully followed her ears to my desk, kneeled down, and removed my geography book. She abruptly fell backward as the crow leaped out and flew around the room. She opened the back door and our magnificent black crow was gone.

Why was this little man here? Was he someone from the Catholic Church who came to throw me out of school or excommunicate me? My fears were boundless.

I listened to the conversation between the man and my father. Most of the discussion was muffled but the bits and pieces that I heard fit painfully into my paranoia. Maybe he was here about what I had done that morning before school.

Every morning I walked by Dave and Mark's homes and we all went to school together. It had been garbage day in our town and we always spent a little extra time poking through our neighbors' refuse. Mr. William's garbage had a real gem that day. We had found the greatest find any kid could ever find in someone's garbage. We found a machine gun! We couldn't believe it! Actually, it must have been a movie prop because it was plugged and it didn't look like it had ever been in any war. I am sorry to say that I will not be able to tell this story. Let me just say that we took a shortcut to the school through the widow Mrs. Porchenski's orchard and I am truly sorry that I scared her.

I heard my Dad and the stranger coming toward the basement stairs so I quickly and quietly retreated, and hid under the pool table.

"I can’t tell you how much time I’ve spent in this room," he told my father. I realized that the man had once lived in our house.

"Would you mind if I spent a few moments alone in here to reflect on my memories in silence?"

My Dad said, "Sure, I'll be upstairs watching my show. But don’t take too long!" And my dad went back upstairs to finish "Gunsmoke."

The stranger walked around the room and, when he got to the paneling, he looked around, pulled out a knife, and worked one of the panels free from the wall. He reached behind the wall and took out a small wooden box. After he put the panel back on the wall he went over to the rusty basement window and placed the box outside on the sidewalk, which ran along the side of the house. As soon as he went upstairs, I pulled the window open and grabbed the little wooden box. I went up through the basement stairs and out the back door to my clubhouse, where I buried the box in a shallow dirt hole amongst the white rhubarb that grew under the linoleum floor. I peered out of a crack in the clubhouse door and I saw the stranger come around the side of our house. He couldn't find his box. He frantically looked all around until he realized that it was gone. He was very angry but he finally got into his Oldsmobile and slowly drove away.

I ran back in the house and I watched the street from my upstairs bedroom for at least a half an hour. Whatever was in the box was mine and I was hoping that it was a treasure beyond my wildest dreams. When I went back to the clubhouse and opened the wooden box, I found that it was filled with El Rey del Mundo cigars. It wasn't the fortune that I had dreamed about, but it was more than good enough for me and my friends.

When the weekend finally arrived, Biagio, Pete, Rich, Dave, Mark, and I took the cigars to the Fox River and we smoked them under the Main Street Bridge. We hacked, we coughed, we faked, but we cherished our find. It was our first treasure and we completely indulged in it. Two cigars apiece!

Thirty years later, Pete organized a golf date at Kemper Lakes for all of us. Mark couldn't make it because he had died of kidney disease a decade earlier. The rest of us had not seen each other in at least twenty years. We stood on the first hole and Pete pulled out a box of El Rey del Mundo cigars. He gathered us all together and said, "These are the same cigars that we smoked over thirty years ago together under the Main Street Bridge."

They were the greatest cigars that we ever smoked... ever! And it was the worst game of golf any of us had ever played that day, but nobody cared.

"My Lucky Day"
by David Parker
winner of 7-ct El Rey del Mundo Sampler

A few years back, and a couple of weeks before Christmas, I had taken a few days off to get some work done around the house (including some "Honey Do's"). As usual, I spent the first day procrastinating. The second day, I went around to all the local tobacconists. There was a special where, if you purchased one Romeo y Julieta, you got another free, limit one to a customer. I picked up about a half-dozen sticks. The last day, I tried to fit three days' work into one.I cleaned out the garage, hung Christmas lights, changed the oil in a car, a Jeep, and a motorcycle, cut wood, and cleaned out the gutters. I finished up just before dark. Now, I am only this active about once a year. I was too tired to eat and too sore to walk upstairs and take a shower, but not too tired to relax with a Fat One before going inside to the wife. Remembering the Romeos I purchased the day before, I fired one up and was about halfway through when my wife called down to me to remind me that I promised to pick up a ring at the jewelry store. Grumbling, I made the fifteen-minute drive to the mall. The parking lot was full of Christmas shoppers and I had to park about two or three hundred yards away. I didn't mind the walk; I could just about finish the Romeo before entering the mall. By the time I reached the main entrance, the cigar was about one and a half inches long. (Did you ever have a cigar that was so good, you hated for it to end? Well, this was one of those cigars.) I had to go inside, and the cigar was pretty much spent, so I put the stogie in a large ashtray that sits in front of the main entrance, and went inside the mall. While I was waiting for the clerk get the ring, I noticed my reflection in one of the store's mirrors. Wow, I looked like I just woke up from a three-day drunk under a bridge! Hadn't shaved in three days, bits of leaves in my hair, the front of my pants wet, and oil splattered on my face. I paid for the ring, stuck it in my coat pocket, and slipped out of the store from a side entrance.

On the way back to the car, I had to pass by the ashtray at the mall entrance. There was my cigar, in the middle of 1217 cigarette butts. It looked like a turd in a bowl of rice. Maybe there is still some fire in the hole? I picked up the stogie, brushed off the sand, and took a deep draw... NOTHING! Took another, and another, and finally, a great big gob of smoke. About this time, I notice a small crowd of people, some in formal attire, is watching me with a look of disgust on their faces.

I spit out some gravel that I had missed, took another deep draw, and said to the people watching, "A Romeo y Julieta Belicoso, this must be my lucky day."

I walked off into the parking lot thinking, "The cost of this Romeo: $6.00. The last few puffs on this old stogie: priceless."

"The Mana Lani Proposal"
by Ron Mack
winner of 7-ct El Rey del Mundo Sampler

It was June 1995, and it had been a fabulous week at the Mana Lani Resort in Kona, Hawaii. I was the fortunate recipient of a free, all-expense-paid trip to the resort, part of the company's "quota club" trip that was awarded to the salesperson who was able to exceed their yearly quota. The trip had been fantastic.Per the usual Hawaiian islands weather, the days were perfect and 80 degrees, the evenings, after the brief afternoon showers, were a slight trade wind - 72-74 degrees. I couldn't have asked for better.

It was the last night that my girlfriend and I were to be at the resort before flying home the next day. We had planned to go to a restaurant off site that was about a 25-minute drive away. Unfortunately, we had decided that we should have some cocktails by the pool that afternoon. Then after getting back to the room and showering and getting ready for dinner, we decided to open a bottle of wine and toast the last beautiful sunset that we would see from our balcony during this trip. Well, needless to say, by the time we finished that great bottle of Cabernet, I decided that it might not be the wisest thing to hop behind the wheel of the car and hit the road! So I decided we should go down to the restaurant at the hotel, The Canoe House.

It was your classic outdoor, gourmet Hawaiian restaurant. Open-air seating right on the beach, and that oh-so-perfect weather. Since I had no reservation, I just crossed my fingers that the maitre d' would be able to seat us. We were in luck; he sat us at the perfect table: Next to a palm tree, right next to the sand, just slightly removed from the rest of the restaurant. I won't bore you with the details of the dinner, but each course just got better and better. The drinks flowed, the ambiance was perfect. The waves were crashing on the beach. It was, indeed, paradise.

We ordered our dessert. I ordered my after-dinner drink and lit up my El Rey del Mundo Flor de Llaneza (of course, ordered from JR!). So far, so good. It lit great, tasted even better, and was just perfect. So there we are. Dessert served, drinks refreshed, cigar getting better and better with every puff. Nothing could beat this! Well, unbeknownst to me, my girlfriend (who soon became my wife) thought that I had planned all this (including drinking too much in the afternoon) to get this perfect location in the restaurant, on the sand, etc... so that I could propose to her! Well, I'm sitting back, enjoying my cigar and sipping my drink, when she finally looks over at me and says, "You aren't going to ask me to marry you here, are you?" I looked at her dumfounded and said no! I had been planning and shopping for the ring, but hadn't picked it up yet. She though that this was all pre-arranged, and had been sitting there in anticipation of a marriage proposal. You could have cut the silence with a knife. She finally looked over at me and said, "I just want to get married, and I thought you were going to propose. I don't care if I get the ring, just give me the damn cigar band!" So, getting down on one knee, I slipped the band off the El Rey, held her left hand and proposed to her... and she accepted!

I have since replaced the cigar band with the "real" engagement ring, but to this day (we have been married for six years and have two beautiful, wonderful children), we still joke about how perfect the evening ended up.

Thanks for coming to my rescue El Rey!

"How Bill Clinton Paid for my Latest Order
from JR Cigars: A True Story"
by Michael Townsend
winner of 7-ct El Rey del Mundo Sampler

Yesterday I called into work and told them I was going to be a little late, probably not in until around one. The Monday before, I had received a panicked call from a woman desperately in need of signs for her disc jockey service. She had an important gig lined up for the upcoming Friday: A new community skateboard park was being unveiled, and there was going to be a big dedication ceremony.Of course, what public dedication would be complete without a few politicians, and Senator Hillary Clinton decided this was a good event for her to get some airtime.

I make signs and other miscellaneous art-related items on the side, so for the rest of the week I had to get the banner materials together, crank out some graphics on the computer, and basically work like a madman after my real job to get these made with such short notice. After working into the night on Thursday and smoking cigar after cigar to keep sane, I decided to finish up in the morning, run the banners over to the park and get to work a little late. That was the plan, anyways, and of course a SNAFU was about to unfold.

The finishing touches and lettering were to be done with an airbrush but, of course, the airbrush doesn’t want to cooperate and Plan B begins: I have to do all of the letting by hand and THEN dry the paints with a pair of hairdryers at lightning speed the likes of which would have made Festus from "Gunsmoke" green with envy. I raced the clock at every turn. The banners now dry, I jump in my truck and head to town. Bad luck still with me, I made horrible time through midday traffic to the WRONG park in the WRONG town!

Thirty-seven minutes later, I arrive at the right park, bribe the parking-lot guy with a cigar for a not-so-legal parking spot, and head toward the pavilion. The music has already started, and there are skate rats and parents galore - not to mention police and Secret Servicemen eyeing me as I’m politely trying to push through the crowd. The music stops as I get about five rows of people back, and I hear the D.J. announcing someone. It’s Bill Clinton! Everyone is trying to get a glimpse of him and I’m just trying to make my way up front, cigar clenched in my teeth, puffing madly (an effective crowd mover, I found out), and repetitively saying "'Scuse me" to those in my way.

Suddenly, I’m three inches from a Secret Service woman with a cell phone, and six feet away from the podium and ol’ Slick Willie himself! Not paying much attention to him, I motion to the D.J.'s husband and make the exchange of the banners. My mission complete, Hillary then takes the stand and says her speech. The ceremony is over and, like all good politicians, the Clintons begin to work the crowd, shaking hands and signing autographs. Then it hits me: I have a Mayorga Crystal Maduro Tube and a black Sharpie marker (I’m an artist, what can I say?) in my pocket. As Mr. President makes his way to me, I gesture with the marker and cigar tube and, to my surprise, he looks at me, smiles and SIGNS THE TUBE! Hillary glances over as he’s doing this and is obviously not too pleased with her hubby.

I know this is long and you’re wondering what does Bill Clinton signing a cigar tube have to do with him paying for my next order of cigars...

Well, as I’m walking away with a big, giant, ear-to-ear grin, making sure not to smudge the ink, a suit comes over to me and says that the mayor wants to talk to me. I’m thinking, "Oh crap. I’m spending the next week in a prison."

"Can I see it?" he says.

I hold the tube so he can see the signature. He studies it for a moment and smirks, telling me he watched the whole thing unfold.

"That’s GREAT! Say, you want to sell it?"

I tell him no thanks, I want to keep it, and that I’m a cigar guy and this is a one-of-a-kind item. Then he starts naming prices.

"I’ll give you fifty bucks for it. A hundred." I don’t even blink. "Two-fifty. All right, five hundred."

With that I say, "SOLD!" and hand over the tube. He reaches into his wallet, pulls out the cash, and we part ways. And THAT is how Bill Clinton paid for my last order at JR Cigar.

"Untitled"
by Les Armstrong
winner of 7-ct El Rey del Mundo Sampler

A couple of years ago, my buddy told me that he was getting married. So, with about a year's advance notice, I went looking for a nice box of cigars to take to the wedding. I decided on a box of Macanudo Vintage '93. They were pricey, but well worth it and, having a year to put them away to age, they seemed like a good investment. Anyway, about three months before the wedding, I broke my favorite (and only) cigar ashtray. I proceeded to fill a coffee can with kitty litter to use temporarily. My three-year-old daughter helped me fill the coffee can. When she asked me what I was doing, I told her that I was going to put my cigars butts in the litter.

A few days later, I was rooting around in the coolerdor looking for singles to put in my desktop humi. The coolerdor is in the basement closet, not too far from the cat's litter box. I proceeded to carry a handful of singles upstairs to the humi. A few minutes later, my daughter comes upstairs and informs me that she just finished "helping" me put my cigars in the kitty litter.

I go downstairs to find that she had got hold of the box of Mac Vintage and carefully placed each one into the cat's litter box! I was angry for about a second and then I could only laugh. I ended up losing the entire box (there was no cellophane on the cigars) and I gave my daughter the empty box for her crayons. I wound up buying a box of Punch Punch to take to the wedding.

"Ambassador Santa"
by J. Parker
winner of 7-ct El Rey del Mundo Sampler

It was about twelve years ago, back in the dark days before the glossy cigar mags educated us all on the embargo laws and how hiding cigars in our dirty socks might affect the flavor. I was crossing the border in Detroit, the Ambassador Bridge, after a relaxing Christmastime visit to Toronto. But vacation life must have dulled the senses because I couldn't grasp the embargo concept.

I kept offering to pay more and more tariff but the customs agent just kept stretching his vowels like he was talking to someone in a noisy bar, lip-readable and loud: "CUUUUUU-ba, CAAAAAAAA-stro,
ill-EEEEEEEE-gal."

We volleyed back and forth without changing our words until a silence broke out of frustration. And I was sure the fate of my cigars was being measured in that pause. I couldn't be trying to deceive anybody; the box sat on the front seat in plain sight - surely he understood this. Or did he want them all for himself?

"Look," I said, "it's three days 'til Christmas. How do I get these into the country? " The agent shook his head disdainfully at my shameless use of Santa, yet by letting me and my Bolivars pass he would become a Santa himself. "Break the seal on it," he said, "I don't know where you got 'em." And he looked away.

A line of cars stretching back to Canada left no time for difficult math, so I plunged at a number and gratitude proved equal to the size of my hand, though firmer than any handshake. Four came out of the box but one fell back in. They were plump robustos and the tips of my fingers couldn't connect around the fat tobacco. I handed him whatever was in my grasp.

"I was hoping you'd do that," he said. And I drove away.

On the Michigan interstate I lit one up and went over the figures with a smoke-filled clarity. Had I shown my appreciation properly? At 25 to a box, one robusto would have disgraced cigar smokers the world over. Two? On the cheap side. Four? Unnecessary. Three, as my fingers had guessed, had proved a very fair treaty.