Quacco grinned. "Very, sir; find myself great man here. My story please people--better country dis dan de coast of Africa." "Glad you find it so; but where, in heaven's name, got you that rig? you don't mean to follow me to Mr Roseapple's in such a dress?" "Certainly I do, with massa's permission." And he snuffed the air as if his _amour propre_ had been somewhat wounded by my disapproval of the mode in which it had pleased him to make his toilet. "But you will be laughed at, and get me into some ridiculous scrape." "No, no, massa; never fear Quacco's discretion--never fear. I have much practice in Havanna, in wait on gentlemen at table. Ah, you sall see, massa--but one ting I sall pretend, dat I is one Spanish negro; dis will give de interest to me, you know." (_Interest!_ thought I, like to laugh in his face.) "So tell de captain dere, not to peach upon Quacco--say I am one Spanish sarvant you got from de governor Señor Cien Fuegos." I laughed heartily at this instance of barbarous puppyism, and at the figure he cut when I had leisure to look at him. First, he had powdered his black woolly cocoa-nut shaped skull with flour, until it was perfectly white, the little crispy curls making it look like a large cauliflower, or a round furze bush with a drift of snow well grained into it. To the short, well-greased wool, he had attached a long slender queue abaft, like a yard of pig-tail tobacco, that hung straight down his back, over an old faded Spanish-cut sky-blue silk coat, thickly studded with large sparkling cut-steel buttons, all too short at the wrists, and too long at the skirts; so that while the monkey-looking paws were largely uncovered, the latter reached half-way down his leg; a faded white satin embroidered waistcoat, the flaps coming down over his hips; black silk small clothes, and a pair of large old-fashioned shoes, very high in the instep--these, with a pair of great lackered buckles, completed his dress. As an ultra ornament, he sported a very flashy pink watch-ribbon, with a great bunch of brass keys and seals, but to what substitute for a horologe these gaudy ornaments were attached, the deponent sayeth not. As for his cucumber shanks, they were naked, and unless one had been particular in the inspection, so as to perceive the little tufts of black wool that covered them, like a miniken forest of fir-trees, you could not have made out whether he had silk stockings on or not. To perfect his equipment and give him the true _finish_, he had acquired a little "_sombrero de ires picas_," or old fashioned cocked hat, an amber-headed cane, and when you add one gold ear-ring and another of silver, an enormous silver brooch, with a stone in it, more like a petrified oyster than any thing else, in the breast of his gaudily befrilled shirt, with a pair of green spectacles on his nose, over which his low tatooed forehead fell back like a monkey's, you have our friend Quacco before you, as well as I can paint him.