“What! These are not _de modo_. Does he think we know nothing here?” Bragdon was much taken aback, but later was able to convince other purchasers of the advantages of the good old-fashioned shoe that would go on either foot. His snipe toes, Bonapartes, goose-and-ganders, Swiss hunting, were soon disposed of. And then came Bragdon’s prize. He opened a case in which were numerous small boxes. Opening one, he extracted a sliver of wood tipped with a yellow and blue substance. Calling attention to what he was about to do, he struck the small stick upon a wall and immediately it flamed, burning like a tiny taper with a full flame, and emitting a sulphurous odor. Bragdon set the flame to his pipe, puffed in, and lit it; then taking a cigarette from the hand of the astonished Steven, he lit that too before the flame flickered and died out, having consumed the small stick. “_Diablo!_ What is it?” The Santa Feans went wild. “Matches,” said Bragdon, “they are called; a new thing, just discovered in England last year. I have with me here some of the very first packet brought into the United States. You will see that they are phosphorescent?” he held up one proudly. “_Fosforo!_” shouted some one, and the name stuck. Everyone gathered round to see the miracle. Fire in a minute. No scratching of flintlocks, no need of burning glasses. “_Por mi vida_ (By my life),” said St. Vrain to Steven, “it is a pity that he could not have produced one of those little boxes that wet night when we could not strike flint or rub a stick to heat a bit of broth for his own young. _Sacré!_” The packages went like tortillas, and Bragdon had at length to admit that there were no more. Don Anabel was himself enormously interested, and pleased, too, with this new fancy, though it was his opinion that the things were not in the least practical and would never be of much real use or value. It was annoying, but he had to pay the tall youth, who was again thrust upon him by St. Vrain, at the rate of four dollars a yard for the two bolts of linen which he decided to take, and in the end he was induced also to buy for his own use and for the use of Doña Gertrudis a piece of cloth, a fine black it was, at twenty dollars the yard. Luis did a good piece of work here in forcing the American down a dollar a yard. This exertion was not at all distasteful to Luis. It appealed to the gaming instinct which every youth of Mexico or New Spain had.