“So now you say he’s fallen into a bushel of money, and has a fine house, and drives his trotters in New York? Well! By gum! But this _is_ a strange world! Why couldn’t some decent man have gotten the rocks? I tell you what we ought to do; we ought to take a nice photograph of that pot-hole, of which the general features are impressed on his memory perfect enough not to need no label, I guess, and send it on to him with the compliments of Bloody-Ripping-Thunder, for him to hang as the principal ornament in his art gallery! Old Falk a millionaire! Well, wouldn’t that cramp you! I’ve got to have something to take the taste of that out of my mouth. Yes, the same, Jimmy, with plain water on the side. Well, here’s luck, young feller, even to old Falk!” IV THE LITTLE CANOE ITS INTRODUCTION AND DESTRUCTION AT PORTO RICO My friend the Señor Don is of a precise and military bearing, clad with a dignity that enhances his scant five feet of stature to herculean proportions. He is a handsome little man with pompadour hair and a bold “Wilhelm der Kaiser” mustache. His speech is exact, somewhat cold, yet with a flavor of melancholy to it, like the style of Thackeray. When he expresses himself in English, it is with seriousness, that seriousness which marks all his enterprises, but it is with some honest mistakes concerning the language as a whole. A fine love for our free institutions is also characteristic of the Señor Don. I can not tell you how his sad story of the little canoe affects me. I may only try. “When I am to mek retoorn to Puerto Rico, Hooaleece” (which is part of my name on the Spanish tongue), said he, “I have bear in my mind the indolence of those people. Not like that rooggèd American who enjoy the manly art of boxing the eye of hees frien’, or to mek strong resistance on the field of the ball of the foot, or splash t’rough the water in aquatic spooorts. No, hombre! Not sooch do they mek in Puerto Rico. Nuzzing more rrrrobust than to smoke cigarillos and to drink chocolatay, and I say, Thees ees the end of these people. What manner of civilizassyone will mek the drinking of chocolatay and the perpetual smoking of cigarillos? That of the conqueror? No. That of the arts? No. That of what, then? That of nuzzing. “Well, what then? I say, I shall to missionary these people. To them I shall introduce the can-ooo American. It ees a beginning. Bimeby the boxing-glove, the ball of the foot, the base-ball, but gradooally--poco á poco. At first the can-ooo. There it ees to sit still, after the manner of Puerto Rico, becows, if you are not to sit with precceesion, that can-ooo will to set up, and some man must fish you. I buy can-ooo. I have it transport at mooch expense. I veesit Señor Córdova at hees home upon the sea, and there also has arrrrrived my little can-ooo. “‘Ah!’ says the señor, ‘what ees thees leetle bo-at? Eet ees very pretty!’