ore and more, with the
thinness of his small black legs, and his habit of hopping up and
down, and dancing threateningly about, with mischief latent in every
motion, like a crow which in being tamed has acquired one of the worst
traits of civilization. He began babbling and gurgling in Spanish, and
took my hand for a stroll about the ship, and from that time we were,
with certain crises of disaffection, firm allies.

There were others whom he hailed and adopted his friends, whose legs
he clung about and impeded in their walks, or whom he required to toss
him into the air as they passed, but I flattered myself that he had a
peculiar, because a primary, esteem for myself. I have thought it
might be that, Bogota being said to be a very literary capital, as
those things go in South America, he was mystically aware of a common
ground between us, wider and deeper than that of his other
friendships. But it may have been somewhat owing to my inviting him to
my cabin to choose such portion as he would of a lady-cake sent us on
shipboard at the last hour. He prattled and chuckled over it in the
soft gutturals of his parrot-like Spanish, and rushed up on deck to
eat the frosting off in the presence of his small companions, and to
exult before them in the exploitation of a novel pleasure. Yet it
could not have been the lady-cake which lastingly endeared me to him,
for by the next day he had learned prudence and refused it without
withdrawing his amity.

This, indeed, was always tempered by what seemed a constitutional
irony, and he did not impart it to any one without some time making
his friend feel the edge of his practical humor. It was not long
before the children whom he gathered to his heart had each and all
suffered some fall or bump or bruise which, if not of his intention,
was of his infliction, and which was regretted with such winning
archness that the very mothers of them could not resist him, and his
victims dried their tears to follow him with glad cries of "Span-yard,
Span-yard!" Injury at his hands was a favor; neglect was the only real
grievance. He went about rolling his small black head, and darting
roguish lightnings from under his thick-fringed eyes, and making more
trouble with a more enticing gaiety than all the other people on the
ship put together.

The truth must be owned that the time came, long before the end of the
voyage, when it was felt that in the interest of the common welfare,
something must b