"'Dijjer ever in yer life, William, see anything more saliferous?' says the capt'n to me whilst we're ridin' up to the don hidalgo's house--a hashyender, they called it--longer 'n' wider than any two blocks on Broadway, but not so high, with a red roof, an' walls o' solid marble, an' marble columns 'n' promenades around it, with thousands o' lofty trees liftin' their heads to the sky, an' balconies outside the winders, an' spoutin' fountains in the r'yal pam garden, which was the size mebby o' Central Park. It took all of a thousand servants, I should say, in pink-'n'-old-rose knee-pants, to look arter the place; an' the old don kep' a band o' musicians in a green-an'-old-gold uniform on tap all the time. The house rules there--the same engraved in silver on ivory tablets an' hung on the wall over the head o' your bed--was that if a guest woke up in the middle o' the night an' didn't feel well enough to go back to sleep, he had on'y to poke the little Injun boy who slep' on a mat afore every door with his big toe an' say to him: 'Boyo, some musico!' An' we did one night, an' in no time the still air was rent by the entrancin' strains of 'In the Sweet By 'n' By,' which was the pop'l'ar toon o' them days, an' the one we ordered. Guitars, manderlins, violins, oboes, trombones, an' cornets they had in squads, though to my mind a native instrerment called the hooloobooloo was the most truly musical of all. Shaped like the bow of a ship it was, with a hundred strings to it, an' made a noise like a breeze o' wind tryin' to steal through a forest o' trees on a summer's night. 'Twas ravishin'. "Arter the fatigues of our long an' tejus voy'ge, the hashyender o' the don was a most refreshin' place to pass a few days in, but we had our business to attend to. Not that the noble don would sully our ears by mentionin' the same to us. In those tropic countries the greatest insult to the stranger who happens to step in an' camp awhile with you is to ask him what's on his mind--not till he's been restin' up for at least a week. However, after six days o' restin' up, with salubrious fruits an' wines an' the most melojus concerts, my capt'n broaches the cause of why we're callin' on the Don Hidalgo Rodreego Cazamma." "Ah-h," says Wallie, "now we'll get it, Hiker!" "Yes," says Bill, "now we'll have it. But, lemme see now--I must tell it so it'll be clear to your young interlecks," an' he looks hard at the pipe an' then mournful-like acrost East River toward Brooklyn.