The result of which advice was that in two weeks Mr. Jack Hamlin found himself dreadfully bored and _ennuyé_, but loyal to his trust with his physician, wandering in the lower coast counties. At San Luis Rey, he attended a bull-fight, and was sorely tempted to back the bull heavily, and even conceived the idea of introducing a grizzly bear, taking all the odds himself, but remembered his promise, and fled the fascination. And so the next day, in a queer old-fashioned diligence, he crossed the coast range, and drifted into the quiet Mission of San Antonio. Here he was so done up and bored with the journey and the unpromising aspect of the town, that he quietly yielded his usual profane badinage of the landlord to his loyal henchman and negro body-servant, "Pete," and went to bed at the solitary "Fonda," in the usual flea-infested bedroom of the Spanish California inn. "What does she look like, Pete?" said Jack, languidly. Pete, who was familiar with his master's peculiarities of speech, knew that the feminine pronoun referred to the town, and responded with great gravity-- "De fac' is, Mahs Jack, dah don't peah to be much show heah foh you. Deys playin' three-card monte in the bah room, but 'taint no squar game. It 'ud do you no good, it might jess rile you. Deys a fass pinto hoss hitched to a poss in de yard--a hoss dat de owner don't seem to understand nohow. If you was right smart agin, I might let you go down thar and get a bet outer some o' dem Greasers. But 'twon't do nohow. Deys a kind o' school--Sunday-school, I reckon--nex doah. Lots o' little children saying prayers, singin' and praisin' de Lord, sah." "What day is this?" asked Jack, with sudden trepidation. "Sunday, sah." Jack uttered a plaintive groan and rolled over. "Give one of these children a quarter, and tell him there's another quarter waiting for him up here." "You won't get no child to fool wid dis day, Mahs Jack, shuah. Deys bound to get licked when dey goes. Folks is mighty hard on dem boys, Sunday, sah; and it's de Lord's day, Mahs Jack." Partly for the sake of horrifying his attendant, who notwithstanding his evil associations was very devout, Jack gave way to violent denunciation of any system of theology that withheld children from romping with him any day he might select. "Open that window," he groaned, finally, "and shove the bed alongside of it. That'll do. Hand me that novel. You needn't read to me to-day; you can finish that Volney's 'Ruins' another time." It may be remarked here that it had been Jack's invalid habit to get Pete to read to him. As he had provided himself with such books as were objectionable to Pete, as they were always utterly incomprehensible when filtered through his dialect, and as he always made the reader repeat the more difficult words, he extracted from this diversion a delicious enjoyment, which Pete never suspected.