Our charming _quartette_ lasted in all its harmony for half an hour, during which volley after volley of family secrets was discharged into my eager ears. So rapid was the talk, and so quickly was its thread taken up and spun out by each of the three, that I had no opportunity to interpose. At length, however, in a momentary lull and in a jocular manner,--but in rather bad Spanish,--I ventured to ask my loving and talkative mamma, "what amount of property my worthy father had deemed proper to leave on earth _for his son_ when he took his departure to rest _con Dios_?" I thought it possible that this agreeable drama was a Spanish joke, got up _al' improvista_, and that I might end it by exploding the dangerous mine of money: besides this, it was growing late, and my return to the galliot was imperative. But alas! my question brought tears in an instant into my mother's eyes, and I saw that the scene was _not_ a jest. Accordingly, I hastened, in all seriousness, to explain and insist on their error. I protested with all the force of my Franco-Italian nature and Spanish rhetoric, against the assumed relationship. But all was unavailing; they argued and persisted; they brought in the neighbors; lots of old women and old men, with rusty cloaks or shawls, with cigars or _cigarillos_ in mouth, formed a jury of inquest; so that, in the end, there was an unanimous verdict in favor of my Galician nativity! Finding matters had indeed taken so serious a turn, and knowing the impossibility of eradicating an impression from the female mind when it becomes imbedded with go much apparent conviction, I resolved to yield; and, assuming the manner of a penitent prodigal, I kissed the girls, embraced my mother, passed my head over both shoulders of my grand-dame, and promised my progenitors a visit next day. As I did not keep my word, and two suns descended without my return, the imaginary "mother" applied to the ministers of law to enforce her rights over the truant boy. The _Alcalde_, after hearing my story, dismissed the claim; but my dissatisfied relatives summoned me, on appeal, before the governor of the district, nor was it without infinite difficulty that I at last succeeded in shaking off their annoying consanguinity. I have always been at a loss to account for this queer mistake. It is true that my father was in Spain with the French army during Napoleon's invasion, but that excellent gentleman was a faithful spouse as well as valiant soldier, and I do not remember that he ever sojourned in the pleasant port of Ferrol! * * * * *