“When I think that, I am almost to weep. My friends to see me fish for fish with myself before their eyes! Behold the beautiful Margarita! Will it not to melanchate her days of youth to rrrremember, ‘Through a telescope I saw my dear friend dissolve een the water?’ Sad, thees. Well, then, eet ees unavoiadabble. So to mek en end manful--strong. Therefore I smile again. But that smile he take all my strength. I wish not to show disrespec’ for thees so noble country, yet eet ees the coostom for to mek the dollar. On that account some work is not so well done. That air-tink, on which depend my life, he leak. The can-ooo ees sinking, sinking. My ear against hees side, I can hear that little noise--shhhh!--where the water run in and the air run out. Eet ees the hour-glass marking how long I shall remain een the country. When he feel oop--pop! A Dios, el mundo! “And eet ees so slow! I am of eempatient deesposeecion. With the long waiting I am not simpatico. I look how fast the water come up on that can-ooo, and I esteemate that I have to sit in those cold water for five hours. And my friends observe t’rough the telescope! Misericordia! Eet ees too dam mooch! For five hours must I smile and sink! “And when I think that Córdova shall say, ‘Ah, but he ees not eenteresting, thees fellow! Eet ees a pairformance monotonoose to sit there in the water! He ees not really an American! Not sooch do they, I give my word!’ then I geenash my tooth, and I shall to tear my hair, but how may I unclasp that little can-ooo? “Now, to any man thees would seem suffeecent--a meesery plenty for the heart to hold. Yet listen! Here am I, three miles from shore in the stormy ocean, grasping a sinking can-ooo, while eet ees necessary that I seem to enjoy myself, to compensate my friends who witness t’rough the telescope--ees eet not the leemit? Hear me! Now comes the shark! Madre de Dios! How shall I now perform? Shall I make a great splash with my feet to enfrighten that wrrretched repteel away? “And Margarita mek observation of me in the actions of the little playful child. Ah, my heart shall burst! In her eyes to become reediculous! Si, yet here comes the shark to bite me by the leg. To splash eet ees reediculous, but what can be so mooch reediculous as a man without some legs? Eet ees time I splash. Vigorosely I the water spatter. The shark, that cowardly insect, run away--only to get hees friends. Around me they circulate, each one putting oopon me the obstruction of hees cold, unfeeling eye. And it rains. In the air ees water! in the ocean ees water; in the water ees sharks. I am tire of water; I regret that I have not brought the ball of the foot or the boxer-glove to eenvigorate thees island.