All his days are very much alike, for Spanish children are brought up very simply, and have little excitement, though they have many pleasures. There are little visits paid to aunts and cousins, visits remembered not too pleasantly by the pet dog and parrot of his aunt. The parrot was brought from Cuba by Uncle Enrico, the priest. The bird knows Fernando well, and scolds terribly in most unchurchly language every time he approaches the cage. The French poodle, too, does not greatly care for a visit from Fernando, for the boy cannot help teasing, and the fat, stupid dog, his Aunt Isabel's darling, does nothing but lie around on silken cushions and eat comfits. Fernando likes animals, and would never really hurt one, but there is something in the calm self-satisfaction of Beppino which stirs up all the mischief in him, and Aunt Isabel has been heard to exclaim: "Fernando will be my death! He is a dear boy, and if it came to choosing between him and Beppo, I am quite sure that I would take my nephew, but, thank Heaven, I have not to choose!" Fernando's own dog was different. He found him one day close by the garden railing, a poor, ragged fellow, lean and hungry, with a lame foot, but a pair of pleading and wistful brown eyes, which, with all their misery, had yet a look of good-fellowship within them which appealed to Fernando's gay nature, as the pitiful plight of the little fellow appealed to his tender heart. The dog put a pink tongue through the railing and licked Fernando's hand, and that clinched the bargain. Henceforth the two were friends. Fernando persuaded Manuel to bathe and tie up the wounded foot, and feed the puppy. That was all the boy dared at first, but the next day he found the dog in the same place and fed him again. Every day after that the little tramp followed him to school, and when school was over his yellow-haired dogship awaited his benefactor. Manuel winked at the friendship, and allowed Mazo, as Fernando called him, to have many a good meal at the garden gate. Manuel was a great stickler for the proprieties, but he had been a boy once, and there were some things that Fernando's lady mother would not at all have comprehended, that good old Manuel understood perfectly. Mazo was far more interesting to Fernando than the thoroughbred, ladylike pets of his mother, and it was a sore subject with him that Mazo, who was so clever, who could whip the tramp dogs of any of his school friends, should be kept outside the house. His mother did not seem to realize that Mazo's fighting qualities were what made him valuable. One fatal day, when she had driven to the _paseo_ a little earlier than usual, and had seen a fight between Mazo and another little dog, equally disreputable, she had cried out: "Fernando, come away from that ferocious beast! He must be mad!" and she had seemed anything but reassured when Fernando had tried to calm her by saying: