"H'm!" I muse, "music _hath_ charms! At all events he must not be allowed to suppose that I notice, much less care for, his defection," and I turn to talk animatedly with Captain Ball about Mazatlan. His wife comes up with an aggressive-looking Californian who has asked several persons to present him, but I've successfully evaded his acquaintance till now. "It's not often we have the pleasure of a word with you," says Mrs. Ball, after introducing her companion. "Baron de Bach is such a monopolist. Just see how he is engrossing Miss Rogers now. What a pretty girl she is, and how well she plays. Did you hear her and the Baron this morning?" "No," I say calmly, "I was so unfortunate as to miss that. Baron de Bach has contracted a benevolent habit of reading French aloud to Mrs. Steele and me every morning, and one doesn't _always_ yearn to listen to French with a dreadful German accent, so I excused myself and passed the forenoon in my room." "You must be glad to hear the Baron has found some other congenial occupation." Mrs. Ball laughs, and exchanges a look with the Californian. "It may have its advantages," I reply, determined not to be ruffled. At that moment the Peruvian comes up to ask me if I will sit in a group to be photographed. "Oh, please don't ask me," I say pleasantly; "I hate sitting for my picture." "But I beg you. Madame Steele haf promise to help us. She ask me to zay she will spik vidth you." With a show of indolence I accompany him to where Mrs. Steele's chair is stretched out under the awning, for the day is very sultry. "I haf play vidth Mees Rogair," he whispers on the way, "and haf make her promise to get out her camarah--I vould haf your photographie." Mrs. Steele groups the party, and we succeed in getting several unusually grotesque and dreadful pictures. If anything could cure one person's sentimental regard for another, it would be the sight of just such amateur caricatures as were turned out that afternoon. Mrs. Steele looks a little like her handsome self in the proofs shown us next day. Miss Rogers develops an unflattering likeness to a dutch doll--I am as black as a Congo negro and wear the scowl of a brigand, while Baron de Bach, after carefully brushing his hair and twirling his moustache to the proper curve, comes out with a white blot instead of a face; a suggestion of one eye peers shyly forth from the moon-like mask, and the Peruvian is greatly disgusted. I shall ever regard an amateur's camera as a great moral engine for the extirpation of personal vanity. On the evening of the eighth day we steam into the far-famed Bay of Acapulco.