“His name,” responded Noah, “is Rivera--Michael Rivera--and his blood flows a fantastic, almost a formidable mixture. His mother was a maid of my mother; an Irish lass she was, and came out of Tipperary. The father, on the far other hand, was a Spanish Jew; by trade a bull-fighter, the foremost toreador of Seville, where, when my family was visiting in Spain, the impressionable Tipperary maiden lost her heart to him as he flourished bloodily about the arena. They were married by the padre, for Rivera senior, while pure Jew, was none the less pure Catholic; under Spanish law he could have had no place among the bull-fighters else, since in Spain it is not permitted to be cruel unless one first be Christian. My protege, who goes for the swords, is the fruit of that union; now, his parents being dead, and because he was born among my people, he abides with me. He has a drowsy, honest soul--though hot enough when moved--and he loves me. He would accept death for me like a dog.” “And what is his part with you?” asked Kendall. The tale of Rivera interested us. “No part,” responded Noah, “more than to go where I go, and come where I come; to fetch and to carry and to do my word. He is well taught of books; but owns ideas not at all, for he has no width nor current of conjecture. Yet you are not to believe him a fool. He is silent, but blithe to obey, and true as blade to hilt. I keep him for he would have otherwise no support. If I turned him on the world, he could not make a dollar--nor guard it if he should. In that fiscal particular, the Jew in him has balked and broken down.” Noah laughed lightly. “The faithful Rivera,” he went on, “has, however, certain advantages. There is a compensation, an equilibrium, in nature. Rivera, slow of brain, possesses the muscle-power of a Hercules; moreover, in those twin arts of boxing and wrestling, it's to be doubted if his over-lord exists. Some day, in some moment of brutality--being now and again overtaken of such--I shall have Rivera to England to beat Bendigo and Ward. The prize-ring is his one opening for eminence. And I--as does the immortal Byron, who has more pride of fisticuffs than verse--applaud the ring.” While Noah talked, I was yielding him my meed of tacit admiration. Here was a man, a creature of quills and ink, too, within minutes of meeting, edge to edge, with one keen of his weapon, and a declared adept among sword fighters. And clearly, the business was no more upon his spirit than if the day bore no grim promise, but only smiles. It was more than courage, it was the absolute absence of fear; he leaned back with his sherry, and the little story of his young Spanish Irish-Jew, as though hate were not at that same moment of time whetting a rapier with hope against his life. His foreclaim of being cold and steady was not a boast which wanted feet to stand upon.