istrate,
and before noon King Congo was a free man, in the same old uniform,
riding the same old mule, and stiffly bowing to the admiring populace
as he passed. The parade was a great success. So was the scheme
conceived that morning by el Rey Congo; for, every year thereafter,
three or four days before the festival of the adoration, he laid in
supplies of rum and cigars, with even a new hat or a second-hand
medal, and after getting the goods safely bestowed in his cabin,
defied his creditors to collect their pay. The shopkeepers winked at
this device, and regularly sent him to jail, for they knew that on the
6th of January their royal customer would pay, though by proxy. And
that is more than you can say of some kings. Isn't it?

The Chase of Taito Perico

In 1779 the Bishop of Havana took into his household as servants,
and into the cathedral as altar-boys, three harum-scarum Indians, then
said to have come from Florida, now believed to have been of Mexican
origin, though there were not wanting citizens who solemnly declared
that the trio had come from a warmer place than any on the surface of
this planet. The object in the bishop's mind was to Christianize the
scapegraces and turn them loose among their own people, that they, too,
might be made to see the light. The poor old clergyman little knew with
whom he had to deal. When the astonishment of the youngsters at the
glories of Havana had subsided, and even a regiment with a band could
parade without their company, the Indian in them asserted itself once
more, and they grieved the bishop by playing hookey, shirking mass,
running off to the mountains on hunting trips, and once, when he went
out in his night-cap to inquire the cause of a rumpus in his yard,
they tripped him up and circled around and around, whooping like
demons while he was trying to regain his feet and apply his cane.

At last they upset, not the clergy but the laws. Their offence was
not grave, being rather a result of high spirits than of malice, but
it brought the constabulary upon them and they were carried to the
arsenal to work out the term of their imprisonment at loading ships
and other heavy, uncongenial labor. Not many days had passed here
before a chance offered for their escape, and they seized upon it,
vanishing under the noses of the guard--at least, that was the way
the guard reported it--like shadows before the sun. In fact, from
that hour they were looked upon as a bit u