can't say I do. What's more, I venture to challenge your statement.
And though you are a hundred pounds the better of me in weight, and a
West Point graduate, I will wager my pipe (which is worth its weight in
diamonds) against that old woollen shirt of Montezuma's that you showed
me yesterday, that I can lick you to-day, and forget all about it before
bedtime!"

"Well, I guess you could," returned the general, with a little chuckle,
"even if I hadn't that Mexican bullet in my leg. But you couldn't,
forty-five years ago, though you tried, and though I was a year younger
than you, and weighed five pounds less. Come, now: you don't mean to say
you've forgotten Susan Brown!"

"Oh--ah--hah! Susan Brown! Well, I declare! And what brought her into
your head, I should like to know?"

"Why, after breaking your heart first, and then mine, I lost sight of
her, and I don't think I have seen her since. But it appears she was
married to a fellow named Parsloe."

"Don't fancy that name!" observed the professor, wagging his head and
frowning. "Has a mean sound to it. But what of it?"

"Well, she died,--rest her soul!--and Parsloe too. But they had a
daughter, and she survives them."

"And resembles her mother, eh?--No, Trednoke, the time for that sort of
thing has gone by with me. Susan might have had me, five-and-forty years
ago; but I can't undertake to revive my passion for the benefit of Mrs.
Parsloe's daughter. Besides, I'm too busy to think of marriage, and
not--not old enough!"

At this tour de force, the general laughed softly, and finished his
coffee. An old Indian, somewhat remarkable in appearance, with shaggy
white hair hanging down on his shoulders, stepped forward from the room
where he had been waiting, and removed the cup.

"No letters yet, Kamaiakan?" asked the general, in Spanish.

"In a few minutes, general," the other replied. "Pablo has just come in
sight over the hill. There were several errands."

"Muy buen!--I was going to say, Meschines, her father and mother left
the girl poor, and she, being, apparently, clever and energetic, took
to----"

"I know!" the professor interrupted. "They all do it, when they are
clever and energetic, and that's the end of them!--School-teaching!"

"Not at all," returned General Trednoke. "She entered a dry-goods
store."

"Entered a dry-goods store! Well, there's nothing so extraordinary in
that. I've seen quantities of women do it, of all ages, colors, and
degrees